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Review
. 2019 Jun:27:77-81.
doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.09.002. Epub 2018 Sep 20.

Polygenic risk scoring and prediction of mental health outcomes

John S Anderson  1 , Jess Shade  1 , Emily DiBlasi  1 , Andrey A Shabalin  2 , Anna R Docherty  3
Affiliations
Review

Polygenic risk scoring and prediction of mental health outcomes

John S Anderson et al. Curr Opin Psychol. 2019 Jun.

Abstract

Psychiatric conditions are highly polygenic, meaning that genetic risk arises from many hundreds or thousands of genetic variants. Psychiatric genomics and psychological science are increasingly using polygenic risk scoring-the integration of all common genetic variant effects into a single risk metric-to model latent risk and to predict mental health outcomes. This review discusses the use of these scores in psychology and psychiatry to date, important methodological considerations, and potential of scoring methods for informing psychological science. Polygenic risk scores can easily be added to environmental and behavioral genetic models of latent risk, making them desirable metrics for use in psychological research.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Interest:

Dr. Anna Docherty reports grants from National Institute of Mental Health (grant number K01MH093731), grants from Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (NARSAD Young Investigator Award), and support from the University of Utah EDGE Scholar Program during the conduct of the review. The authors report no other conflicts of interest.

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