Weissman M M, Merikangas K R, John K, Wickramaratne P, Prusoff B A, Kidd K K
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1986 Nov;43(11):1104-16. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.1986.01800110090012.
During the past decade new concepts and technologies have improved the conduct of family-genetic studies in psychiatry. We compiled and critically evaluated these advances, including study design, pedigree collection, diagnostic procedures in adults and children, and epidemiologic and genetic approaches to data analysis. These approaches have improved the collection of accurate information on the nature and patterns of psychiatric illness in families. The data generated from well-designed and well-conducted family studies are useful for the identification of homogeneous subgroups of psychiatric disorders, for understanding the spectrum of psychiatric disorders, for examining the associations between psychiatric disorders, and for studying the continuity between adult and childhood manifestations of psychiatric disorders. Findings from these studies also may enhance our capacity to identify the mode of transmission of the psychiatric disorders and to select potentially informative families for future genetic linkage studies using the new recombinant DNA techniques. The adaptation of these methods to routine clinical practice and new directions in the application of family-genetic studies employing more refined assessments and analytic methods are also discussed.
在过去十年中，新的概念和技术改进了精神病学领域的家族遗传学研究。我们汇编并批判性地评估了这些进展，包括研究设计、系谱收集、成人和儿童的诊断程序，以及数据分析的流行病学和遗传学方法。这些方法改进了关于家庭中精神疾病的性质和模式的准确信息的收集。精心设计和实施的家族研究产生的数据，对于识别精神障碍的同质亚组、理解精神障碍的范围、检查精神障碍之间的关联，以及研究精神障碍在成人和儿童期表现之间的连续性都很有用。这些研究的结果还可能增强我们识别精神障碍传播模式的能力，并为未来使用新的重组DNA技术进行基因连锁研究选择潜在信息丰富的家庭。本文还讨论了这些方法在常规临床实践中的应用，以及采用更精细评估和分析方法的家族遗传学研究应用的新方向。
