Neurosceptic on "Endophenotypes"

"Involving the brain" will be rewritten. In the meantime, I give you this:

Very interesting post by @Neuro_Skeptic--in psychiatry the "gene for" idea just gets further and further away: http://t.co/AbxcRZna4m
— Huw (@Huwtube) December 4, 2014

Psychiatry: End of the Road for “Endophenotypes”?

By Neuroskeptic 

Quote:

The motivation behind interest in endophenotypes comes mainly from the failure of recent studies to pin down the genetic cause of most psychiatric syndromes:

Essentially an endophenotype is some trait, which could be almost anything, which is supposed to be related to (or part of) a psychiatric disorder or symptom, but which is “closer to genetics” or “more biological” than the disorder itself. Rather than thousands of genes all mixed together to determine the risk of a psychiatric disorder, each endophenotype might be controlled by only a handful of genes – which would thus be easier to find.