How can genetic factors be best leveraged to explain individual differences in risk to onset, course of illness and response to treatment in depression and other mood disorders?

Abstract

The clinical field of depression and other mood disorders is characterised by the vast heterogeneity between those who present for care, and the highly variable degree of response to the range of psychological, pharmacological and physical treatments currently provided. These individual differences likely have a genetic component, and leveraging genetic risk is appealing because genetic risk factors point to causality. The possibility that individual genotyping at entry to health care may be a key way forward is worthy of discussion (Torkamani et al., 2018).