Neuropsychiatric disorders association studies

Review of association studies of psychiatric disorders are restricted to family-based studies. However, all of the existing studies in the neuropsychiatric pharmaco-genetic literature have used the case-control design. Although the studies may provide useful leads for followup work, this weakness of the pharmacogenetic research performed to date needs to be acknowledged. 

ASSOCIATION STUDIES OF DOPAMINE-RELATED ALLELES IN NEUROPSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS... 

Topiramate can be described as a broad-spectrum neurotherapeutic agent with multiple modes of action, and its weight-loss promoting activity came to attention in trials of therapy for epilepsy [104], and explored further in animal experiments [105, 106], It has also been successfully used in the treatment of obesity associated with eating disorders [107, 108], As specific weight-loss therapy in one short-term [109] and one long-term study [110] in non-diabetics without co-morbid neuropsychiatric conditions, topiramate has been shown to produce a modest dose-related benefit compared to placebo, and with a reasonable side-effect profile. 

Although there obviously is individual variability in the expression of brain nAChRs in the population, altered expression of some nAChRs relative to healthy controls is associated with several neuropsychiatric disorders. The best-studied example of low nAChR expression in brain and disease is schizophrenia. A second example discussed is autism. 

Hettema JM, An SS, van den Oord EJ, Neale MC, Kendler KS, Chen X. Association study between the serotonin lA receptor (HTRIA) gene and neuroticism, major depression, and anxiety disorders. Am. J. Med. Genet. B Neuropsychiatr. Genet. 2007. Lemonde S, Du L, Bakish D, Hrdina P, Albert PR. Association of the C(-1019)G 5-HTlA functional promoter polymorphism with antidepressant response. Int. J. Neuropsychopharma-col. 2004 7 501-506. 

A number of other factors, including genetic or biological factors, that are possibly associated with the development of psychiatric disorders, have been explored. In a retrospective study of 110 patients with chronic hepatitis C, those with the apolipoprotein E e4 allele, the inheritance of which may be associated with several neuropsychiatric outcomes, were more likely than those without this allele to have psychiatric referrals and neuropsychiatric symptoms, in particular irritability, anger, anxiety, or other mood symptoms, during interferon alfa treatment... 

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