Shedding Light
Oct 14th, 2008 at 8:05 am by Susie
This is really interesting stuff:
For decades, scientists seeking genes involved in mental illness reaped mainly frustration. But in recent months, painstaking analysis of the DNA of thousands of patients has yielded important, and surprising, insights into the roots of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and autism.
Though the findings do not translate into better ways to diagnose or treat patients, researchers say that for the first time they are making real progress.
Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, compares psychiatric genetics to a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, in which researchers have just started to fit together a few edge pieces.
But “this is unprecedented progress,” he said. “This is a time of real excitement in a field that up until now hasn’t given us much to cheer about.”
