Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T07:28:15.376Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Biology trumps statistics in the postgenomic era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2012

Charles E. Glatt*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY 10065. ceg2004@med.cornell.edu

Abstract

Charney discusses the growing realization in the postgenomic era that genomic biology deviates from Mendelian assumptions at the heart of genetic heritability and association studies. Given the complexity of genomic biology, how are we to identify meaningful genetic factors that contribute to behavioral? One response is to make genetic variants the focus of biological rather than statistical analyses of behavior.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Autry, A. E. & Monteggia, L. M. (2012) Brain-derived neurotrophic factor and neuropsychiatric disorders. Pharmacological Reviews 64(2):238–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burmeister, M., McInnis, M. G. & Zollner, S. (2008) Psychiatric genetics: Progress amid controversy. Nature Reviews Genetics 9(7):527–40.Google Scholar
Chen, Z. Y., Jing, D., Bath, K. G., Ieraci, A., Khan, T., Siao, C. J., Herrera, D. G., Toth, M., Yang, C., McEwen, B. S., Hempstead, B. L. & Lee, F. S. (2006) Genetic variant BDNF (Val66Met) polymorphism alters anxiety-related behavior. Science 314(5796):140–43.Google Scholar
Chen, Z. Y., Patel, P. D., Sant, G., Meng, C. X., Teng, K. K., Hempstead, B. L. & Lee, F. S. (2004) Variant brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) (Met66) alters the intracellular trafficking and activity-dependent secretion of wild-type BDNF in neurosecretory cells and cortical neurons. Journal of Neuroscience 24(18):4401–11.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Egan, M. F., Kojima, M., Callicott, J. H., Goldberg, T. E., Kolachana, B. S., Bertolino, A., Zaitsev, E., Gold, B., Goldman, D., Dean, M., Lu, B. & Weinberger, D. R. (2003) The BDNF val66met polymorphism affects activity-dependent secretion of BDNF and human memory and hippocampal function. Cell 112(2):257–69.Google Scholar
Plomin, R. & Davis, O. S. P. (2009) The future of genetics in psychology and psychiatry: Microarrays, genome-wide association & non-coding RNA. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry 50 (1/2): 6371.Google Scholar
Soliman, F., Glatt, C. E., Bath, K. G., Levita, L., Jones, R. M., Pattwell, S. S., Jing, D., Tottenham, N., Amso, D., Somerville, L. H., Voss, H. U., Glover, G., Ballon, D. J., Liston, C., Teslovich, T., Van Kempen, T., Lee, F. S. & Casey, B. J. (2010) A genetic variant BDNF polymorphism alters extinction learning in both mouse and human. Science 327(5967):863–66.Google Scholar