Editorial: Does the polygenic revolution herald a watershed in the study of GE interplay in developmental psychopathology? Some considerations for the Special Issue reader

Edward D. Barker*, Barbara Maughan, Andrea Allegrini, Jean Baptiste Pingault, Edmund Sonuga-Barke

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalEditorialpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The primary goal motivating the scientific field of Developmental Psychopathology is to discover why some individuals develop mental health and neuro-developmental difficulties while others do not. This is not simply a ‘blue skies’ preoccupation: the underlying hope, of course, is to translate such discoveries to the benefit of individuals, families and communities, reducing poor outcomes for those at risk and – in the best case scenario – ensuring that they thrive. A core tenet of the bio-psycho-social framework within which this field of enquiry operates is that children's difficulties are determined by the interplay of predisposing genetic risk and resilience factors and the environments and experiences to which individuals are exposed. From this perspective, understanding gene–environment (GE) interplay is a necessary condition for explaining and, as importantly predicting, why one individual is at risk while another is not. If we believe this, then the risk calculators designed to show who will and will not get a particular disorder – all the rage at the moment – are doomed to fail until they can go beyond modelling the main effects of genes and environments, and reliably estimate GE processes too. Despite significant progress, we remain a considerable way off cracking this problem.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1107-1110
Number of pages4
JournalJournal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines
Volume63
Issue number10
Early online date19 Sept 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2022

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Editorial: Does the polygenic revolution herald a watershed in the study of GE interplay in developmental psychopathology? Some considerations for the Special Issue reader'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this