# What psychiatric genetics can and cannot tell Indian families 2026-08-13T06:53:11+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet When a young man had his first psychosis episode, his parents asked if their bloodline caused it. The Hindu reports that families rarely seek psychiatric genetics out of curiosity but for relief from blame. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have made progress, identifying 287 genomic regions linked to schizophrenia in a 2022 study and 64 for bipolar disorder in 2021, but risk is polygenic, combining thousands of variants with environment and chance. Polygenic risk scores, compressing small effects into one number, cannot predict if someone will become ill or how severe it will be. The International Society of Psychiatric Genetics warns they are not accurate enough for clinical prediction. Indian psychiatrists face added caution: most genomic databases are based on European ancestry, and the GenomeIndia project found vast diversity across 83 groups, making imported scores unreliable. ## Coverage - thehindu.com Tags: genome-wide association studies, GenomeIndia, mental health, polygenic risk scores, psychiatric genetics Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/what-psychiatric-genetics-can-and-cannot-tell-indian-families/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/what-psychiatric-genetics-can-and-cannot-tell-indian-families/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes.