Heredity & Genetics

If you have bipolar disorder and are considering having children, one of the questions you are probably asking yourself is whether you would pass your bipolar disorder on to a child. Studies do show that your child would be more likely to inherit bipolar disorder because you have it. This article examines the question of how likely it is that a...

Research has shown that vulnerability to mental illness comes from the joint effects of many genes acting together with non-genetic factors.

In this article by Tanja M. Meece, she writes “It has long been believed by lay and medical people that bipolar disorder is hereditary. Geneticists laboring under the same belief are endeavoring to determine which genes and chromosomes, in tandem or singularly, are the carriers of bipolar disorder.”

John McManamy examines depression and bipolar disorder in the light of evolutionary biology and Darwinian medicine, to see why these illnesses survived natural selection.

This article by Demitri F. Papalos discusses the heredity issue and the "generational impact of mood disorders.”

An article by By Tom Siegfried and Sue Goetinck addressing the argument of nature vs. nuture. “As with many diseases, mental illness can run in families, suggesting that genetics plays a role. But genes don't tell the whole story.”

Bipolar affective disorder is a complex genetic disorder -- this means there are likely to be a number of different genes involved in each person affected, as well as causes related to personal experiences such as significant life events. However in some families, bipolar affective disorder might be caused by a single gene.

Evidence is mounting that manic depressive illness stems from multiple genes.

People who suffer from depression have fewer cells in a certain part of the brain, a new study finds. This loss occurs only when the disorder runs in the family, suggesting that inherited depression may differ from depression that comes out of the blue.