Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition characterized by extreme mood swings, with alternating periods of depression and manic episodes. Past research suggests that bipolar disorder has a strong genetic component and is among the most heritable psychiatric disorders.
To better understand the genetic factors that increase the risk of developing this mental health disorder, neuroscientists and geneticists have carried out various genome-wide association studies (GWAS). These are essentially studies aimed at identifying specific regions of the human genome that are linked with an increased risk of having bipolar disorder, also referred to as bipolar risk loci.
While earlier works have identified many of these regions, causal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for the disorder are largely unknown. These are essentially genetic variants that primarily contribute to bipolar disorder risk, as opposed to just being mere markers of it.