Pharmacogenetics. Promise and potential in child and adolescent psychiatry.

The range of recent promising clinical applications of pharmacogenetics, the nature of genetic research on pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic issues, the possible contribution of pharmacogenetics to understanding pathogenesis, and the appropriate genetic methods to be employed are reviewed in this article. Following an overview of the research on the role of dopamine- and serotonin-related alleles in influencing risk to neuropsychiatric disorders, separate sections then review the specific pharmacogenetic studies examining the effects of dopamine- and serotonin-related genes on drug response. The potential use of pharmacogenetics in child and adolescent psychopharmacology and the possible directions for future research also are discussed.