Overview
- Published in Nature, the analysis compared genomes from over 1 million people with psychiatric diagnoses against about 5 million controls across 14 conditions.
- Researchers identified five cross-disorder genomic factors comprising 238 variants that account for roughly two thirds of the genetic differences between cases and controls.
- Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder showed striking overlap, with about 70% of their genetic signal shared.
- Shared risk highlighted broad developmental pathways with cell-type specificity, including excitatory neuron enrichment for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and oligodendrocyte involvement for internalizing disorders.
- Authors emphasize replication in more diverse ancestry groups and integration with clinical, environmental, and developmental data before considering changes to diagnosis or genetic testing.