Psychiatric Genetics: From Hereditary Madness to Big Biology / Edition 1

by Michael Arribas-Ayllon, Andrew Bartlett, Jamie Lewis

Overview

Psychiatric genetics has become ‘Big Biology’. This may come as a surprising development to those familiar with its controversial history. From eugenic origins and contentious twin studies to a global network of laboratories employing high-throughput genetic and genomic technologies, biological research on psychiatric disorders has become an international, multidisciplinary assemblage of massive data resources. How did psychiatric genetics achieve this scale? How is it socially and epistemically organized? And how do scientists experience this politics of scale?

Psychiatric Genetics: From Hereditary Madness to Big Biology develops a sociological approach of exploring the origins of psychiatric genetics by tracing several distinct styles of scientific reasoning that coalesced at the beginning of the twentieth century. These styles of reasoning reveal, among other things, a range of practices that maintain an extraordinary stability in the face of radical criticism, internal tensions and scientific disappointments.

The book draws on a variety of methods and materials to explore these claims. Combining genealogical analysis of historical literature, rhetorical analysis of scientific review articles, interviews with scientists, ethnographic observations of laboratory practices and international conferences, this book offers a comprehensive and detailed exploration of both local and global changes in the field of psychiatric genetics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138999985
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/21/2019
Series:	Genetics and Society
Pages:	244
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Michael Arribas-Ayllon is a senior lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. His research interests are in the sociology of genetic knowledge, histories of biomedicine, applications of genetic testing, medical communication and professional decision-making.

Andrew Bartlett is a sociologist working at the University of York and the University of Sheffield. He has a long-standing interest in the sociology of ‘Big Biology’ and has written papers on a range of topics in the sociology of science, including the interdisciplinarity of bioinformatics, the organization and publics of psychiatric genetics, and social issues with regard to genome editing.

Jamie Lewis is a lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. His research interests coalesce around the sociology of science and technology studies (STS), public understanding of science (PUS) and medical sociology. He has published papers on bioinformatics, psychiatric genetics, stem cell research and public engagement.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. From ‘Hereditary Madness’ to Psychiatric Genetics 2. The Birth of Psychiatric Genetics 3. The Rhetoric of Complexity 4. Inside ‘Big Biology’ 5. Drowning in Data 6. On the Road: Collecting Bloods and Stories 7. Scientific Imaginaries and Their Publics 8. Big Biology Then and Now Conclusion: Big Biology and Scientific Revolutions

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Daniel Tuinstra, MD (Holland Hospital)
Description: The book covers the origins of psychiatric genetics, its evolution, criticism, and its current state. In addition to a summary of notable historical steps, it also includes some vivid firsthand accounts of the day-to-day operations of field data collection of "stories and blood," balancing this with big-picture views of the shrinking modern lab in exchange for statistical reasoning dominance.
Purpose: The authors seek to offer a contextualization of the current state of psychiatric genetics. By summarizing the overarching rationales in early consideration of generational or inherited mental illness and the later emphases on Mendelian genetics and later still on the polygenic multifactorial threshold models of understanding schizophrenia, the authors provide a rich background for our current understanding of modern psychiatric genetics including GWAS and microarrays.
Audience: The ideal audience is psychiatrists interested in the history and sociopolitical factors influencing the various evolutionary stages and approaches to understanding psychiatric genetics rather than in a manual on utilization of genetic information to impact treatment today.
Features: The chapters are vividly written and logically organized with firsthand accounts of a modern center for psychiatric genetics and quotes from experts in the field and those doing the frontline work in psychiatric genetics. The historical roots of psychiatric genetics are kept fascinating by describing the philosophical and contemporary social forces at work that informed the approach to understanding psychiatric genetics in its development on into its current form. The authors report in a sociological or journalistic style the criticisms, shortcomings, and disappointments along the way. The book challenges readers on classic studies in the field that may not have been as intellectually rigorous as they appear at first glance. At one point the authors tackle head-on the disturbing history of Nazi research into psychiatric genetics and pose interesting about the implications.
Assessment: This is an ambitious endeavor to cover the historical context and description of psychiatric genetics. This book is refreshing with its varied style of historical writing and investigative reporting, using perspectives of frontline staff and directors of large research centers to give readers an unprecedented view of the tensions, criticisms, surprises, and disappointments of psychiatric genetics, as well as a description of the unlikely stability of this field and its promise for future scientific breakthroughs.

Doody's Review Service

"In this detailed and wide-ranging ethnographic study, Arribas-Ayllon et al provide an insightful exploration of the reorganization of infrastructures and expertise in psychiatric genetics. Their analysis of the distribution of value and emotional, boundary and engagement work across scientific hierarchies is particularly rich. Demonstrating how the relative immobility of more marginalised actors functions as a necessary condition for scaled up biology, this important book invites the scientific and academic community to look again at how reward should be distributed in the era of Big Biology."

- Anne Kerr, Professor of Sociology, University of Leeds

"Arribas-Ayllon, Bartlett, and Lewis’s book invites us to follow them through the revolving doors and glassy atriums of a new science centre to consider the changing ways in which psychiatric genetics is taking place. Their work is a rich introduction to the spaces this discipline now occupies within the epistemologies of medical psychiatry, the interdisciplinary university campus, and the genetic infrastructures of global science. It both situates psychiatric genetics as particular form of inquiry, assembled from genealogies of clinical, statistical, and laboratory reasoning, as well as demonstrating how this is articulated through a wider network of affective relations and imaginaries circulating within research publications, patient involvement activities, and public engagement events. The effect is to render the complex processes that constitute the contemporary geographies of big biology visible, with all of its promises and compromises. The book demonstrates the value of thinking about science through question of space, scale, and speed. It is also timely too, as the unresolved tensions at the heart of psychiatric genetics continue to generate new scientific inquiry and social controversy in the search for the biological causes of psychiatric disorders."

From the Publisher