Genotypic analysis of gene expression in the dissection of the aetiology of complex neurological and psychiatric diseases

Abstract

Over the last year, many reliable genetic associations with complex diseases have been reported including some associations with complex neurological and psychiatric diseases. Many of these disease associations do not map to coding changes in protein open reading frames, but rather are believed to lead to genetic variability in gene expression and splicing. Such effects can be dissected by studies, which use genetic variability in mRNA expression as quantitative traits and regress these traits against genotype.