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Genetics of Suicidal Behaviour

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Handbook of Suicidal Behaviour

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Abstract

Suicide is a complex and multifactorial disorder. Two important risk factors, genetic and environment, contribute significantly to the psychopathology and aetiology of suicidal behaviour. In the last two decades, family, twins and adoption studies have been conducted for the heritability of suicidal behaviour. Recently, molecular genetic approaches, including Genome Wide Association (GWAS) and Whole Exome Sequencing (WES) have been applied into the genetics of suicidal behaviour. Using these techniques, several new common and rare variants have been identified. In this chapter, we summarize and critically evaluate the recent developments in the field of genetics of suicide. The obtained data suggests that suicide behaviour is a highly complex and polygenic disorder. Despite a significant progress in this area, future studies are needed in a larger population. We have also discussed the clinical translation of suicide genetics and future directions.

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Acknowledgements

This study was partially supported by funding from National Institutes of Mental Health (R01MH082802; 1R01MH101890; R01MH100616; 1R01MH107183-01), American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (SRG-1-042-14) to Dr. Yogesh Dwivedi.

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  1. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurobiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA

    Qingzhong Wang & Yogesh Dwivedi

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  1. Qingzhong Wang
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  2. Yogesh Dwivedi
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Correspondence to Yogesh Dwivedi .

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  1. Defence Institute of Psychological Research, Defence Research and Development Organization, Delhi, India

    Updesh Kumar

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Wang, Q., Dwivedi, Y. (2017). Genetics of Suicidal Behaviour. In: Kumar, U. (eds) Handbook of Suicidal Behaviour. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4816-6_4

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