Recently, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have revealed many associations between genetic variants in the human genome and predisposition to psychiatric diseases, such as schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder. Additionally, this approach has also revealed associations in further mental disorders, including substance use disorder (addiction) and developmental disorders such as ADHD and autism. These GWAS data have strong potential to improve our knowledge of the molecular mechanisms of these diseases and to provide new therapy targets. However, most of the identified risk variants reside in noncoding regions of the genome. A great amount of additional research is needed to transform this GWAS data into valuable fundamental and practical output.

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

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Frontiers in Psychiatry

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