Genetics of drugs for mental disorders

Doctors prescribe drugs for a lot of reasons. Some we take for a short time. Like those that help us fight an infection. We may need to take other drugs longer. Like those that help us deal with depression, or high blood pressure. Drugs can have side effects. Some happen no matter what. They are part of the action of the drug. Others may happen because we do not process the drug well. This can also cause side effects. It can also cause the drug not to work well for us. Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center will use BioVU to study two mental disorders. One is schizophrenia. This is a disease which affects how you think, feel and acts. It makes it hard to figure out what is real and what is imaginary. People with schizophrenia need lifelong treatment. Doctors may try different drugs in different doses or combinations to find what works best. Clozapine is a drug that treats schizophrenia. Doctors give this drug when other drugs do not work well. Depression can also affect how you think, feel, and act. You may have a hard time wanting to do the things you do every day. You may also feel like life is not worth living. It is not something you can “snap out of.” Depression may need long term treatment. But most people feel better with the right drug and/or therapy. If nothing seems to be working, some people try electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT. ECT is much safer today than it used to be. Researchers will use BioVU to try to learn why other drugs did not work to treat these two disorders. They will look for gene changes linked to drugs that did not work well. Their goal is to figure out if we can help give people the right drug the first time. This can improve symptoms faster with less side effects. Their results might also help us find new treatments.