ABSTRACT
Behavioral genetics is the field of study that seeks to understand both the genetic and environmental contributions to individual variation in human behavior. In order to accomplish such a challenging task, a number of research strategies are often employed, such as family, twin, and adoption studies designed to parse out the biological from environmental influences on a given behavior. More recently, genetic linkage and association studies have been used to identify location for genes associated with a given disorder and specific genes underlying the disorder, respectively. Genetics and molecular biology methods have developed rapidly and have provided important insight into the mechanisms by which genes may come to influence human behavior. e first step in studying behavioral genetics is to determine that the behavior, or in this case, psychiatric disorder of interest, is indeed substantially influenced by genetics. In order to determine the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to a given psychiatric disorder, behavioral geneticists traditionally rely on three basic strategies: family, twin, and adoption studies.
