The Future of Behavioural Genetics

Quantitative Genetics More fine-grained cognitive abilities, personality traits, disorders, childhood origins Integrating genetics with neural imaging Development of new areas of health psychology and aging

Driving Forces Traditional questions: whether and how much genetic factors affect behaviour, disorders Now starting to get to the question of how

Molecular Genetics No longer looking for the gene for a trait Multiple genes (Quantitative trait loci), interactions, epistasis, epigenesis Pathways between genes and behaviour Bottom-up functional genomics meeting top-down behavioural genomics Genetic brain mapping

Nature, Nurture Now generally recognized to be nature and nurture New technologies and public awareness, e.g., home test kits, gene chips Societal effects –Government, law, ethnic and cultural organizations