Fabiana Lopes

1 Introduction The Mennonites represent the most complex group among Anabaptist populations, which also include the Amish and Hutterites. Anabaptism originated in Switzerland during the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. Characterized by conscious baptism in adulthood, believers faced intense persecution from the Church and the State [1-3]. Seeking refuge, many Anabaptists migrated to the Netherlands in the 1530s [2].

Abstract Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of mood disorders in large case-control cohorts have identified numerous risk loci, yet pathophysiological mechanisms remain elusive, primarily due to the very small effects of common variants. We sought to discover risk variants with larger effects by conducting a genome-wide association study of mood disorders in a founder population, the Old Order Amish (OOA, n = 1,672).

Abstract Genome-wide (GWAS) and copy number variant (CNV) association studies have reproducibly identified numerous risk alleles associated with bipolar disorder (BD), major depressive disorder (MDD), and schizophrenia (SCZ), but biological characterization of these alleles lags gene discovery, owing to the inaccessibility of live human brain cells and inadequate animal models for human psychiatric conditions.