This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Wray, N. R., & Visscher, P. M. (2015). Quantitative genetics of disease traits. Wray, N. R., Lee, S. H., Mehta, D., Vinkhuyzen, A. A., Dudbridge, F., & Middeldorp, C. M. (2014). Research review: polygenic methods and their application to psychiatric traits. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 55(10), 1068–1087. DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12295 . This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving. Polygenic methods and their application to psychiatric traits Naomi R Wray1*, S Hong Lee1, Divya Mehta1, Anna AE Vinkhuyzen1, Frank Dudbridge2, Christel M Middeldorp3,4 1. The University of Queensland, Queensland Brain Institute, Queensland, Australia 4068 2. Department of Non-Communicable Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK 3. Department of Biological Psychology, Neuroscience Campus Amsterdam, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands 4. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, GGZ inGeest/VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands * Corresponding author.
[email protected] Abstract Background Despite evidence from twin and family studies for an important contribution of genetic factors to both childhood and adult onset psychiatric disorders, identifying robustly associated specific DNA variants has proved challenging. In the pre-genomics era the genetic architecture (number, frequency and effect size of risk variants) of complex genetic disorders was unknown. Empirical evidence for the genetic architecture of psychiatric disorders is emerging from the genetic studies of the last five years. Methods and scope We review the methods investigating the polygenic nature of complex disorders.