Family Risk of Bipolar 1 and 2 Disorders and Schizophrenia

Peter ForsterDiagnosis, Psychobiology Leave a Comment

Interesting study out of Taiwan that uses their fairly comprehensive population based data set to look at the relative risk of having different disorders in a family where one parent either has bipolar one or bipolar two disorder. I found this study interesting in that it suggests that bipolar one has a higher genetic loading for any kind of bipolar …

Shared Gene Expression

Shared Gene Expression in Mental Disorders

Peter ForsterDiagnosis, Psychobiology Leave a Comment

Four distinct psychiatric disorders – autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression – have shared gene expression, according to research published online Feb. 8 in the journal Science. Researchers arrived at the study’s findings by analyzing RNA in 700 tissue samples from the brains of dead people who had autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression or alcohol abuse disorder, then comparing those samples …

Transmission of Distress Across Generations

Peter ForsterBasic Science, Other Psychiatric Disorders, Psychobiology Leave a Comment

Transmission of Distress Across Generations Based on Epigenetic Changes Researchers looking at victims of severe trauma, such as concentration camp survivors, have long known that the effects of these events are transmitted in some fashion to the children and even the children’s children. The mechanism of this transmission has usually been assumed to be based on changes in parenting behavior …