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2 - Genes and behaviour: finding a genetic substrate for cognitive neuropsychiatry

from Part I - Genes and behaviour

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2010

By
David H Skuse  and
Kate D Baker
Edited by
Maria A. Ron  and
Trevor W. Robbins
David H Skuse
Affiliation:
Institute of Child Health, London, UK
Kate D Baker
Affiliation:
Institute of Child Health, London, UK
Maria A. Ron
Affiliation:
Institute of Neurology, London
Trevor W. Robbins
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

Introduction

Cognitive neuropsychiatry was recently defined (Halligan and David 2001) as a ‘systematic and theoretically driven approach to explain clinical psychopathologies in terms of deficits to normal cognitive mechanisms’. The aim of cognitive neuropsychiatry is to identify the neural substrates of cognitive mechanisms that, when impaired, may underlie the phenomenology of psychiatric disorder. Consequently, it is a quintessentially multidisciplinary endeavour, founded in both basic neuroscience and clinical psychiatry. The progress being made in identifying circumscribed brain circuits that are involved in specific cognitive tasks, with the aid of functional neuro-imaging techniques, is remarkable, yet relatively little discussion has been addressed to the issue of the genetic mechanisms that direct the development of these neurocognitive systems. There is increasing convergence between the identification of specific neural substrates and subjective experience, such as the recognition of certain emotions. The addition of genetics and developmental science to the research agenda will increase the power of the discipline to dissect aetiologies and pathological mechanisms.

Approaches to gene-finding in psychiatric research

Most psychiatric genetic research has focused on the hunt for genes that predispose to complex and heterogeneous clinical conditions, such as schizophrenia or manic depression (McGuffin et al. 2001). Additionally, human behavioural genetics has to date focused largely on the identification of genes that contribute to individual phenotypic variance in a trait (see Chapter 1 by Plomin).

Type
Chapter
Information
Disorders of Brain and Mind , pp. 30 - 56
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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