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Editorial
December 2, 2020

Genetic Architecture of Bipolar Disorder in Individuals of Han Chinese and European Ancestries

Author Affiliations
  • 1Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York
  • 2Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York
  • 3Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • 4Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
  • 5Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
JAMA Psychiatry. 2021;78(3):248-249. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.3639

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a severe psychiatric disorder characterized by recurrent episodes of (hypo)mania and depression. With onset typically in early adulthood, an often chronic course, and increased risk of suicide, BD is a major source of disability and early mortality.1 Genetic epidemiology studies have estimated the heritability of BD to be approximately 60% to 85%, and genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have provided invaluable insights into disease biology. The largest published study to date, conducted by the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC), identified 30 BD-associated genomic loci in a sample of approximately 30 000 cases.2 However, most BD GWASs have been conducted in individuals of European ancestry.3

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