The role of psychiatric genetics in pediatric psychopharmacology

Abstract EN

Psychiatric genetics is relevant to psychopharmacology, in many respects.

First, it is undebatable current state of knowledge that, genes make youths susceptible to psychiatric disorders.

This has been shown for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Depression, Autism, Tourette’s Syndrome, Mood Disorders in general, Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder, Learning Disabilities and Conduct Disorder.

In fact, it is fairly certain that the D4 Dopamine receptor gene is a susceptibility gene for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (1).

For Learning Disabilities, there is a consistent finding on Chromosome 6, that a gene that is as of yet unknown is involved in Learning Disabilities (2).

Breakthroughs are being made in Autism, Bipolar Disorders.

This is amazing when we consider that 20 to 30 years ago psychiatric disorders were considered to be reactions to environmental events.

We have really moved very far beyond that in psychiatric genetics.

While genes control many brains systems, these mediate therapeutic response, drug metabolism and side effects.

So, the question for the future is “To what degree can psychiatric genetic studies help clarify these points?” Finally, there is a possibility that genetic studies may also set the foundation for primary prevention.

The genetic variance would predict drug response, molecular genetic diagnosis, can gene improve psychiatric diagnoses, and then primary prevention.