Psychiatric Genetics: Applications in Clinical Practice

Psychiatric Genetics is the first book to focus on clinical applications of genetics in psychiatry. It covers issues involved in genetic counseling, the interpretation of familial and genetic information for clinical use, information regarding risks associated with specific psychiatric disorders, and the uses of genetic testing. Written explicitly for practitioners, it offers a clinically relevant resource to help readers interpret the often bewildering flood of information about genetics and to facilitate responding to patients requests to predict the risk of recurrence of psychiatric illness or provide information about reproductive and pregnancy-related issues.

The book first presents a framework for understanding and critically evaluating psychiatric genetic research literature, then provides guidelines for genetic counseling. Subsequent chapters summarize genetic aspects of major psychiatric conditions from childhood-onset disorders through psychotic, mood, and anxiety disorders to dementia as well as neuropsychiatric manifestations of other genetic disorders. Risk/benefit considerations related to medication use during pregnancy are then presented. Coverage of ethical, legal, and social implications illustrates the dilemmas that arise with advances in genetic research. Whether used as a clinical guide, reference, or ancillary text, Psychiatric Genetics provides the most up-to-date source on the impact of this growing field on everyday psychiatric practice.

Jordan W. Smoller, M.D., Sc.D., is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School; Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health; Assistant Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital; Director of the Psychiatric Genetics Program in Mood and Anxiety Disorders in the Department of Psychiatry; co-Director of the Genetics and Genomics Unit of the Massachusetts General Hospital Clinical Research Program; and a faculty member in the Center for Human Genetic Research at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

Beth Rosen Sheidley, M.S., CGC, is Associate Professor of the Practice and Co-Director of Research and Professional Development in the Genetic Counseling Program in the Department of Biology at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts; and Genetic Counselor in the Division of Genetics and Metabolism at Tufts-New England Medical Center, Floating Hospital for Children, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Ming T. Tsuang, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., is Behavioral Genomics Endowed Chair and University Professor at the University of California; Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Center for Behavioral Genomics in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego in La Jolla, California; Adjunct Professor and Director of the Harvard Institute of Psychiatric Epidemiology and Genetics in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts; and Senior Lecturer at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center Academic Division of Public Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts