The Impact of Genetic Polymorphisms on Neuroreceptor Imaging

摘要: Major psychiatric disorders are highly heritable. Nevertheless, more than two decades of candidate gene studies and genome-wide association have yielded few, if any, unambiguous stably replicable results that would be strong enough as to direct research towards new pharmacological targets. This is in part due the complex non-Mendelian inheritance patterns hard-to-define phenotypes disorders. In addition, relationship between genetic risk phenotypic expression blurred by contribution environmental factors epigenetic modification. A strategy has successfully been pursued over last years with magnetic resonance-based methods imaging endophenotypes. However, these techniques drawback their not easily transferable a molecular level potentially accessible therapeutic drugs. Imaging such positron emission tomography (PET) single photon computer (SPECT) make it possible explore impact variation on certain aspects molecules play central role our understanding treatment chapter tries cover current state knowledge about behaviour PET SPECT radioligands living human brain.