ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a summary of some of the molecular genetics work interrogating the biology of antisocial spectrum disorders, beginning with sequencing studies and concluding with epigenetic and gene expression studies attempting to understand gene regulation and function. A spectrum approach to understanding mental disorder groups together those disorders with similar core features, and uses a dimensional rather than discrete categorical approach in the service of the discovery of underlying mechanisms. Genome-wide linkage studies have been conducted using a variety of phenotypes related to the antisocial spectrum of disorders. Candidate gene studies have been undertaken to attempt to test the associations of variability in specific pre-selected genes with complex behavioral outcomes. Since the frequencies of antisocial spectrum behaviors and psychopathy are greater in men than in women, receptors associated with sex determination are attractive sites of investigation. Epigenetic modification of gene expression via methylation and histone modification is likely important in behavioral illness.
