The Genetic Intersection of Mental and Physical Health: Unraveling Shared Heritable Risk Factors

Mental health disorders and physical diseases often co-occur, and growing evidence suggests that shared genetic factors contribute to their comorbidity. Psychiatric conditions such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and ADHD have demonstrated genetic overlap with metabolic syndromes, cardiovascular diseases, autoimmune disorders, and neurodegenerative conditions. Identifying these shared genetic risk factors is crucial for understanding disease mechanisms, improving early risk prediction, and developing targeted interventions.

This Research Topic focuses on the genetic underpinnings linking psychiatric and somatic conditions. We welcome studies leveraging genome-wide association studies (GWAS), polygenic risk scores (PRS), transcriptomics, and epigenetics to explore the genetic architecture underlying these complex relationships. Additionally, integrative approaches utilizing multi-omics and machine learning will be considered to enhance our understanding of shared genetic pathways. By focusing on the shared genetic foundations of mental and physical health, this Research Topic aims to bridge gaps between psychiatry and genetics, advance precision medicine approaches, and inform early detection and risk stratification strategies. Understanding these genetic interconnections will pave the way for innovative interventions that address both mental and physical health holistically.

We invite submissions of original research, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, perspectives, and case studies from genetics, psychiatry, neuroscience, and epidemiology that address the following themes:

• shared genetic architecture: GWAS, PRS, and rare variant studies identifying overlapping genetic loci and polygenic contributions to mental and physical disorders

• causal inference: studies investigating whether genetic liability to psychiatric disorders causally influences physical diseases or vice versa

• gene expression and epigenetic modifications: transcriptomic and epigenetic research elucidating how shared genetic risk translates into altered biological functions across disorders

• multi-omics and systems biology: AI/ML-integrated approaches for linking genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics to reveal genetic networks underlying comorbid conditions

• evolutionary and population genetics: investigations into the evolutionary pressures maintaining shared genetic risk factors across psychiatric and somatic diseases.

Please note, while robust bioinformatic studies are welcome, purely descriptive analyses or those lacking experimental validation and mechanistic insight will not be considered. More information regarding the requirements for computational analyses and bioinformatics articles can be found here.

Keywords: mental health, physical health, genetics, environmental mechanisms

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.