Many Genes for Bipolar Disorder

Doctor Ellen Leibenluft explains that there is no one gene for bipolar disorder. Instead, what we have what are called genes of small effect.

The one thing that we know most clearly about the genetics of bipolar disorder is that it’s complex. There is no one gene for bipolar disorder. Instead, what we have what are called genes of small effect. We know that there are a number of different genes which are likely to work together in some way to cause bipolar disorder. There's a great deal of research going on with this right now and for the first time we're starting to have studies that are very, very large. When you’ve got these genes of small effect it's important that you have samples that are very large, and it's only now that people are starting to amass those kinds of samples. So hopefully in the near future we'll be learning a lot more about the genetic architecture of bipolar disorder, but we do know that it will be very complicated.