About this Research Topic
This Research Topic aims to gain biological insights of noncoding regions in mental disorders. The discovery of putative functional noncoding regions and regulatory elements might provide opportunities to infer the mechanism of genetic regulation. Furthermore, a better characterization of the noncoding regions in mental disorders is important for elucidating disease-specific pathogenesis, as well as the identification of accurate biomarkers, and the development of novel drug targets. In the past few years, there has been tremendous effort to dissect the molecular mechanisms of noncoding regions using multi-omics methods (genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, etc.). Integrating multi-omics data is expected to strengthen the signal for pinpointing putative mechanisms underlying mental disorders.
This Research Topic welcomes contributions from genetic perspectives investigating the role of noncoding regions in psychiatric diseases, including, but not limited to, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. Similarly, it also welcomes similar contributions in other mental disorders, including Autism, ADHD and substance use disorder. Although not an exhaustive list, the following are potential topics suitable for this Research Topic:
• Identification of novel noncoding loci involved in mental disorders
• Integrating multi-omics data to investigate the functional roles of noncoding regions
• Leveraging genetic data on noncoding loci to prioritise potential drug targets
• Functional experiments involved in gaining biological insights into the function of noncoding risk loci of mental disorders, including iPSC technology, animal models, animal behavior experiment, and so on.
• Implementation of genetic tools in clinical practice of mental disorders, such as diagnosis and treatment
Keywords: Mental Disorders, Genome-wide Association Study, Noncoding Variants, Genomics, Functional Annotation
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.