Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC)

Some recent work led by @peterjonghona.bsky.social and myself at @yaleschoolofmed.bsky.social looks at environmental, psychiatric, and genetic predictors of alcohol use disorder.

Online today at The American Journal of Psychiatry (@apapsychiatric.bsky.social):

psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/...

Genetic and Phenotypic Features of Schizophrenia in the UK Biobank This cross-sectional study compares genetic liability to psychiatric disorders in individuals with schizophrenia in the UK Biobank with individuals in the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium and compares ...

People with schizophrenia are underrepresented in volunteer-based biobanks. A new UK Biobank study shows that those who do participate tend to have milder symptoms, lower polygenic risk scores, lower rates of copy-number variants, and higher levels of education and employment.

Biological Insights from Schizophrenia-associated Loci in Ancestral Populations - PubMed Large-scale genome-wide association studies of schizophrenia have uncovered hundreds of associated loci but with extremely limited representation of African diaspora populations. We surveyed electroni...

A new preprint reports the largest genetic study of schizophrenia in people of African ancestry, identifying 3 genetic signals unique to this group using data from the Million Veteran Program (MVP) and the All of Us Research Program: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39252912/

Schizophrenia is often misunderstood and highly complex. Learn about its prevalence and health impact in the WHO Fact Sheet 💡:
www.who.int/news-room/fa...

4/ Want to help advance schizophrenia research? 🔬You can contribute by sharing data to the newest meta-analysis via our Data Receiving Committee!
pgc.unc.edu/about-us/joi...

3/ The study identified 287 regions in the genome associated with schizophrenia, and follow-up analyses highlighted 120 likely involved genes.

Mapping genomic loci implicates genes and synaptic biology in schizophrenia - Nature A genome-wide association study including over 76,000 individuals with schizophrenia and over 243,000 control individuals identifies common variant associations at 287 genomic loci, and further fine-m...

2/ In 2022, we published our largest study yet, a global effort that analyzed DNA from 76,755 individuals affected by schizophrenia. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

1/ 🧵 For 10+ years, the Schizophrenia Working Group of the PGC has been dedicated to understanding the genetic risk factors for schizophrenia.

Hi from the PGC Schizophrenia working group! During the next 2 weeks, we will be posting about schizophrenia genetics and related topics. Stay tuned!

Today is #WorldSuicidePreventionDay.

Worried someone might be struggling with suicidal thoughts?

Your presence can be powerful. A simple check-in could be the lifeline they need. 💙

Learn more about #SuicidePrevention 👉 bit.ly/4phPYKi

Latin America has experienced an increase in suicide rate, contrasting with a global decline. We review possible reasons for this here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Led by Dr. Brenda Cabrera-Mendoza and @renatopolimanti.bsky.social, 1st publication from the LAGC Suicide Working Group.

On 10 September, the world comes together for #WorldSuicidePreventionDay under the theme, Changing the Narrative on Suicide. This year, we’re making resources more accessible than ever - translated into more languages, to reach more communities worldwide. bit.ly/469incZ

Brenda Cabrera-Mendoza, postdoctoral associate at Yale Psychiatry, has been awarded a MQ US Fellow grant from MQ Mental Health Research. Her project will integrate genetic and clinical data to improve suicide risk stratification.

Over the next couple of tweets, we will highlight some of the funded research projects in the PGC SUI Workgroup, which are working toward understanding the genetics of suicide. #PGCSUI #suicidegenetics

This fall members of the PGC Suicide Workgroup will be presenting at the upcoming IASR/AFSP International Summit on Suicide Research and the World Congress of Psychiatric Genetics. We look forward to sharing our latest findings with the scientific community.
#WCPG2025 #IASR2025

📢 For the next two weeks, the Suicide Working Group is taking over this space.
September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month — a time to break stigma, share resources, and highlight research and action that can save lives.
#SuicidePrevention #SuicideAwarenessMonth

Excited to share that our manuscript describing a multi-ancestry GWAS of nicotine dependence has now been published: doi.org/10.1017/S003...

"A contextual genomic perspective on physical activity and its relationship to health, well being and illness" led by Marco Galimberti at @yaleschoolofmed.bsky.social and US Dept. of Veterans Affairs is now online at Nature Genetics (@natureportfolio.nature.com)

Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

‪Attending the 2025 @behaviorgenetic.bsky.social Meeting in Atlanta? Be sure to check out some exciting work from members of the PGC-SUD working group:

‪Attending the @rsaofficial.bsky.social meeting in New Orleans? Be sure to check out some exciting work from members of the PGC-SUD working group:

New preprint alert 📢: First genome-wide significant loci identified for panic attacks and panic disorder

That’s a wrap for the #MDD & #Anxiety takeover, thanks for joining us! Special thank you to Outreach Committee Liaisons @karmelchoi.bsky.social (MDD) & @abiterkuile.bsky.social (Anxiety) and all post contributors.

(2/2) Genetic correlations between anxiety and depression were reduced (from .90 to .53) when non-shared genetics of depression and anxiety were separately analyzed.

Prevalent comorbidities may contribute to the genetic overlaps observed across conditions.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

(1/2) GWAS studies of anxiety and depression often include cases who have both, making it hard to tease apart genetic influences.

Tesfaye et al. recently showed how unaccounted comorbidity contributes to high genetic overlap in genome-wide studies.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

AMBER is a collaborative effort to identify the determinants of antidepressant response, by integrating genomic/cellular data, EHRs, and patient perspectives.

Check out this project and reach out to PI @cathrynlewis.bsky.social to learn more or collaborate!

www.kcl.ac.uk/research/amb...