Molecular mentality

A Science study of gene expression signatures in psychiatric disease patients is the field’s largest transcriptomic readout to date, moving it closer toward molecular characterization of mental disorders. By helping map targets and pathways, the findings could pave the way for therapies and contribute to new ways of defining a range of CNS diseases.

A growing caucus of researchers has been calling for new ways to define psychiatric diseases like autism, schizophrenia and depression, departing from traditional DSM definitions, which don’t capture mechanistically distinct subtypes of disease, and are largely based on behavioral readouts...