Five psychiatric disorders 'linked'

Findings from a major study reported in the Lancet medical journal have found that autism, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia all share several genetic risk factors.

Versions of four genes increased the odds of all five disorders. Researchers hope to move the psychiatry away from describing symptoms towards fundamentally understanding what is going wrong in the brain. One of the researchers Nick Craddock, a professor of psychiatry at Cardiff University, said: "It signals the opening of a potential new era for psychiatry and mental illness."

Read more of the story via BBC News here.