Caution is needed in this field not to mislabel normal variation in PEs in the general population as psychiatric illness

[42]. Evidence for or against psychotic illness being on a continuum with PEs does not change the practical need for categorical definitions of psychiatric illness [43]. Vice versa, because there is clinical need for categorical definitions, this PLX3397 ic50 should not prevent researchers exploring the causes of PEs dimensionally, given that they exist dimensionally in the population (see Figure 1). Another improvement has been research on specific individual PEs, which brings greater clarity to what causes individual experiences such as paranoia, hallucinations, and negative symptoms individually, rather than assuming that PEs form part of a single construct, which is in opposition to empirical psychometric evidence 3, 12, 44 and 45]. Going forward, it is unrealistic

to expect a one-to-one mapping between PEs and schizophrenia, or to find large effect sizes between PEs and schizophrenia, in light see more of the heterogeneity inherent in the latter. There is much anticipation to understand the origins of PEs as normal aspects of life, particularly in young people, and as predictors of clinically relevant psychopathology. Nothing declared. Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review, have been highlighted as: •• of outstanding interest AR was funded by the Medical Research Council (G1100559). The Phloretin author would like to thank Professor Daniel Freeman for comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. “
“Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences 2015, 2:89–95 This review comes from a themed issue on Behavioral genetics Edited by William Davies and Laramie Duncan

http://dx.doi.10.1016/j.cobeha.2014.10.002 2352-1546/© 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All right reserved. Behavior genetics is the study of the inheritance of behavioral phenotypes. Many different species have been studied, especially rodents (mice and rats), fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster), worms (Caenorhabditis elegans), and humans, with zebrafish (Danio rerio) currently catching up swiftly. Especially in the last few decades, progress has been rapid and many new genetic techniques are helping elucidate the role of genetics in the causation of behavior. Many of these advances will be addressed in the other reviews in this issue. In this review I will focus on a few key issues facing contemporary behavior genetics. Behavior genetics is, in principle, not very different from other subfields of genetics: It is strongly multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, with contributions from ethology, psychology, neuroscience, ecology, psychiatry, etc., and focuses on a specific class of phenotypes: behavior. Therein, however, also lays its greatest distinction with most other genetics disciplines.