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Genetic Studies of Major Depressive Disorder: Why Are There No Genome-wide Association Study Findings and What Can We Do About It?

Douglas F. Levinsonemail, Sara Mostafavi, Yuri Milaneschi, Margarita Rivera, Stephan Ripke, Naomi R. Wray & Patrick F. Sullivan
Biological Psychiatry
Volume 76, Issue 7 pp 510-512.
October 1, 2014

Over the past 5 years, the genome-wide association study (GWAS) method has produced significant findings that are providing insights into the biological pathways involved in disease susceptibility for both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Yet, we have no such findings for major depressive disorder (MDD) (1)—the most common of these disorders, causing the greatest disability in the world population. We were asked by the editor of this journal to comment on why progress has been so difficult for MDD and how we can do better.

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