Contemporary Research Analysis Journal

This paper explores the intricate ethical considerations within the fields of behavioral genetics and molecular psychiatry, emphasizing the necessity for careful deliberation and active engagement in navigating the complex ethical landscape of genetic and molecular research on behavior and mental health. Through a comprehensive literature review, the analysis highlights the dual nature of this type of researches: their potential to provide groundbreaking insights into mental disorders and their ethical challenges, including issues of privacy, consent, and the responsible use of sensitive genetic information. The promise of personalized interventions based on genetic and molecular markers is acknowledged, with recognition of its potential to revolutionize therapeutic approaches. However, the paper underscores the ethical concerns stemming from such advancements, particularly in relation to stigmatization, discrimination, and the potential misuse of genetic data. The intersection of behavioral genetics and psychiatry also raises profound questions about the implications for individual responsibility and accountability. To address these ethical dimensions, the paper analyses the current state of ethical frameworks that promote transparency, inclusivity, and respect for individual autonomy. Collaboration among scientists, ethicists, policymakers, and the public is deemed essential to strike a balance between scientific progress and ethical considerations. By examining key issues such as informed consent, data privacy, and the inclusion of vulnerable populations, this paper aims to contribute to the ongoing discourse on responsible research practices in behavioral and psychiatric molecular genetics.

Behavioral Genetics, Molecular Psychiatry, Ethics.

1. Adhikari, B., Vincent, R., Wong, G., Duddy, C., Richardson, E., Lavery, J.V. and Molyneux, S., 2019. A realist review of community engagement with health research. Wellcome open research, 4, p.87.
2. Andreassen, O.A., Hindley, G.F., Frei, O. and Smeland, O.B., 2023. New insights from the last decade of research in psychiatric genetics: discoveries, challenges and clinical implications. World Psychiatry, 22(1), pp.4-24.
3. Beskow, L.M., 2016. Lessons from HeLa cells: the ethics and policy of biospecimens. Annual review of genomics and human genetics, 17(1), pp.395-417.
4. Beskow, L.M., Dombeck, C.B., Thompson, C.P., Watson-Ormond, J.K. and Weinfurt, K.P., 2015. Informed consent for biobanking: consensus-based guidelines for adequate comprehension. Genetics in Medicine, 17(3), pp.226-233.
5. Bedoya, A. and Portnoy, J., 2023. Biosocial criminology: History, theory, research evidence, and policy. Victims & Offenders, 18(8), pp.1599-1629.
6. Beier, K., Schweda, M. and Schicktanz, S., 2019. Taking patient involvement seriously: a critical ethical analysis of participatory approaches in data-intensive medical research. BMC medical informatics and decision making, 19, pp.1-10.
7. Bienvenu, O.J., Davydow, D.S. and Kendler, K.S., 2011. Psychiatric ‘diseases’ versus behavioral disorders and degree of genetic influence. Psychological medicine, 41(1), pp.33-40.
8. Botkin, J.R., Belmont, J.W., Berg, J.S., Berkman, B.E., Bombard, Y., Holm, I.A., Levy, H.P., Ormond, K.E., Saal, H.M., Spinner, N.B. and Wilfond, B.S., 2015. Points to consider: ethical, legal, and psychosocial implications of genetic testing in children and adolescents. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 97(1), pp.6-21.
9. Briley, D.A., Livengood, J., Derringer, J., Tucker-Drob, E.M., Fraley, R.C. and Roberts, B.W., 2019. Interpreting behavior genetic models: seven developmental processes to understand. Behavior genetics, 49, pp.196-210.
10. Brown, C., Spiro, J. and Quinton, S., 2020. The role of research ethics committees: Friend or foe in educational research? An exploratory study. British Educational Research Journal, 46(4), pp.747-769.
11. Calcedo-Barba, A., Fructuoso, A., Martinez-Raga, J., Paz, S., Sánchez de Carmona, M. and Vicens, E., 2020. A meta-review of literature reviews assessing the capacity of patients with severe mental disorders to make decisions about their healthcare. BMC psychiatry, 20, pp.1-14.
12. Chapman, C.R., Mehta, K.S., Parent, B. and Caplan, A.L., 2020. Genetic discrimination: emerging ethical challenges in the context of advancing technology. Journal of Law and the Biosciences, 7(1), p.lsz016.
13. Coyne, I., Amory, A., Kiernan, G. and Gibson, F., 2014. Children's participation in shared decision-making: children, adolescents, parents and healthcare professionals' perspectives and experiences. European Journal of Oncology Nursing, 18(3), pp.273-280.
14. Cunha-Oliveira, T., Ioannidis, J.P. and Oliveira, P.J., 2024. Best practices for data management and sharing in experimental biomedical research. Physiological Reviews, 104(3), pp.1387-1408.
15. Dal-Ré, R. and Ayuso, C., 2019. Reasons for and time to retraction of genetics articles published between 1970 and 2018. Journal of medical genetics, 56(11), pp.734-740.
16. DeCamp, M. and Sugarman, J., 2004. Ethics in behavioral genetics research. Accountability in Research: Policies and Quality Assurance, 11(1), pp.27-47.
17. Demkow, U. and Wolańczyk, T., 2017. Genetic tests in major psychiatric disorders—integrating molecular medicine with clinical psychiatry—why is it so difficult?. Translational psychiatry, 7(6), pp.e1151-e1151.
18. De Sutter, E., Zaçe, D., Boccia, S., Di Pietro, M.L., Geerts, D., Borry, P. and Huys, I., 2020. Implementation of electronic informed consent in biomedical research and stakeholders’ perspectives: systematic review. Journal of medical Internet research, 22(10), p.e19129.
19. De Vries, J., Bull, S.J., Doumbo, O., Ibrahim, M., Mercereau-Puijalon, O., Kwiatkowski, D. and Parker, M., 2011. Ethical issues in human genomics research in developing countries. BMC medical ethics, 12, pp.1-10.
20. Donovan, E., Shah, K. and Kittleson, M.M., 2022. The role of informed consent in clinical and research settings. Med Clin N Am, 106, pp.663-674.
21. Dora, J., Piccirillo, M., Foster, K.T. and King, K.M., 2023. Accelerating addiction research via Open Science and Team Science. In Psychology of Learning and Motivation (Vol. 79, pp. 109-146). Academic Press.
22. Ehrman, S.E., Norton, K.P., Karol, D.E., Weaver, M.S., Lockwood, B., Latimer, A., Scott, E., Jones, C.A. and Macauley, R., 2021. Top ten tips palliative care clinicians should know about medical decision-making capacity assessment. Journal of palliative medicine, 24(4), pp.599-604.
23. Erickson, J.A. and Cho, M.K., 2011. Ethical considerations and risks in psychiatric genetics: preliminary findings of a study on psychiatric genetic researchers. AJOB Primary Research, 2(4), pp.52-60.
24. Erlich, Y., Shor, T., Pe’er, I. and Carmi, S., 2018. Identity inference of genomic data using long-range familial searches. Science, 362(6415), pp.690-694.
25. Farahany, N.A., 2015. Neuroscience and behavioral genetics in US criminal law: an empirical analysis. Journal of Law and the Biosciences, 2(3), pp.485-509.
26. Forstmeier, W., Wagenmakers, E.J. and Parker, T.H., 2017. Detecting and avoiding likely false‐positive findings–a practical guide. Biological Reviews, 92(4), pp.1941-1968.
27. Gaubert, F. and Chainay, H., 2021. Decision-making competence in patients with Alzheimer’s disease: a review of the literature. Neuropsychology Review, 31(2), pp.267-287.
28. Gordovez, F.J.A. and McMahon, F.J., 2020. The genetics of bipolar disorder. Molecular psychiatry, 25(3), pp.544-559.
29. Hardwicke, T.E. and Wagenmakers, E.J., 2023. Reducing bias, increasing transparency and calibrating confidence with preregistration. Nature Human Behaviour, 7(1), pp.15-26.
30. Heinrichs, N., Bertram, H., Kuschel, A. and Hahlweg, K., 2005. Parent recruitment and retention in a universal prevention program for child behavior and emotional problems: Barriers to research and program participation. Prevention Science, 6, pp.275-286.
31. Henriksen, M.G., Nordgaard, J. and Jansson, L.B., 2017. Genetics of schizophrenia: overview of methods, findings and limitations. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 11, p.322.
32. Ioannidis, J.P., 2013. This I believe in genetics: discovery can be a nuisance, replication is science, implementation matters. Frontiers in genetics, 4, p.33.
33. Jones, L., Gordon-Smith, K. and Perry, A., 2021. Genome-wide association study of over 40,000 bipolar disorder cases provides novel biological insights. Nature genetics.
34. Joseph, J., 2022. Schizophrenia and genetics: The end of an illusion. Routledge.
35. Knoppers, B.M., 2014. Framework for responsible sharing of genomic and health-related data. The HUGO journal, 8(1), p.3.
36. Koay, P.P. and Sharp, R.R., 2013. The role of patient advocacy organizations in shaping genomic science. Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, 14(1), pp.579-595.
37. Koob, G.F., Kandel, D.B., Baler, R.D. and Volkow, N.D., 2023. Neurobiology of addiction. In Tasman’s Psychiatry (pp. 1-51). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
38. Kostick, K.M., Brannan, C., Pereira, S. and Lázaro‐Muñoz, G., 2019. Psychiatric genetics researchers' views on offering return of results to individual participants. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics, 180(8), pp.589-600.
39. Kraft, S.A., Constantine, M., Magnus, D., Porter, K.M., Lee, S.S.J., Green, M., Kass, N.E., Wilfond, B.S. and Cho, M.K., 2017. A randomized study of multimedia informational aids for research on medical practices: Implications for informed consent. Clinical Trials, 14(1), pp.94-102.
40. Kraft, S.A., Porter, K.M., Duenas, D.M., Guerra, C., Joseph, G., Lee, S.S.J., Shipman, K.J., Allen, J., Eubanks, D., Kauffman, T.L. and Lindberg, N.M., 2021. Participant reactions to a literacy-focused, web-based informed consent approach for a genomic implementation study. AJOB empirical bioethics, 12(1), pp.1-11.
41. Lewis, A.C.F., Green, R.C. and Prince, A.E.R., 2021. Long-awaited progress in addressing genetic discrimination in the United States. Genetics in Medicine, 23(3), pp.429-431.
42. Lillie, N., Prows, C.A., McGowan, M.L., Blumling, A.A. and Myers, M.F., 2022. Experiences of adolescents and their parents after receiving adolescents’ genomic screening results. Journal of Genetic Counseling, 31(3), pp.608-619.
43. Little, J., Higgins, J.P., Ioannidis, J.P., Moher, D., Gagnon, F., Von Elm, E., Khoury, M.J., Cohen, B., Davey‐Smith, G., Grimshaw, J. and Scheet, P., 2009. STrengthening the REporting of Genetic Association Studies (STREGA)—an extension of the STROBE statement. Genetic Epidemiology: The Official Publication of the International Genetic Epidemiology Society, 33(7), pp.581-598.
44. Louie, M.L., 2019. Respecting the Right to Research: Proxy Consent and Subject Assent in Alzheimer's Disease Clinical Trials. Wash. L. Rev., 94, p.887.
45. McGowan, M.L., Prows, C.A., DeJonckheere, M., Brinkman, W.B., Vaughn, L. and Myers, M.F., 2018. Adolescent and parental attitudes about return of genomic research results: focus group findings regarding decisional preferences. Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, 13(4), pp.371-382.
46. Menyhart, O., Weltz, B. and Győrffy, B., 2021. MultipleTesting. com: A tool for life science researchers for multiple hypothesis testing correction. PloS one, 16(6), p.e0245824.
47. Munafò, M.R., Nosek, B.A., Bishop, D.V., Button, K.S., Chambers, C.D., Percie du Sert, N., Simonsohn, U., Wagenmakers, E.J., Ware, J.J. and Ioannidis, J.P., 2017. A manifesto for reproducible science. Nature human behaviour, 1(1), p.0021.
48. Napier, S., 2023. Direct Benefit, Equipoise, and Research on the Non-consenting. In Medical Research Ethics: Challenges in the 21st Century (pp. 195-213). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
49. Newsome, J. and Cullen, F.T., 2017. The risk-need-responsivity model revisited: Using biosocial criminology to enhance offender rehabilitation. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 44(8), pp.1030-1049.
50. Ney, P., Bhattacharya, A., Ceze, L., Koscher, K., Kohno, T. and Nivala, J., 2023. Cybersecurity Across the DNA-Digital Boundary: DNA Samples to Genomic Data. In Cyberbiosecurity: A New Field to Deal with Emerging Threats (pp. 95-114). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
51. Nutt, D.J., 2025. Drug development in psychiatry: 50 years of failure and how to resuscitate it. The Lancet Psychiatry.
52. Otlowski, M., Taylor, S. and Bombard, Y., 2012. Genetic discrimination: international perspectives. Annual review of genomics and human genetics, 13, pp.433-454.
53. Page, A., Haendel, M. and Freimuth, R.R., 2023. A community approach to standards development: the global alliance for genomics and health (GA4GH). In Genomic Data Sharing (pp. 71-90). Academic Press.
54. Plomin, R., DeFries, J.C., Knopik, V.S. and Neiderhiser, J.M., 2016. Top 10 replicated findings from behavioral genetics. Perspectives on psychological science, 11(1), pp.3-23.
55. Richardson, S.S., 2011. Race and IQ in the postgenomic age: the microcephaly case. BioSocieties, 6(4), pp.420-446.
56. Ritchie, J., Lewis, J., Elam, G., Tennant, R. and Rahim, N., 2003. Designing and selecting samples. Qualitative research practice: A guide for social science students and researchers, 2, pp.111-145.
57. Shabani, M. and Borry, P., 2018. Rules for processing genetic data for research purposes in view of the new EU General Data Protection Regulation. European Journal of Human Genetics, 26(2), pp.149-156.
58. Tackett, J.L., Brandes, C.M., King, K.M. and Markon, K.E., 2019. Psychology's replication crisis and clinical psychological science. Annual review of clinical psychology, 15(1), pp.579-604.
59. Tiego, J., Martin, E.A., DeYoung, C.G., Hagan, K., Cooper, S.E., Pasion, R., Satchell, L., Shackman, A.J., Bellgrove, M.A., Fornito, A. and HiTOP Neurobiological Foundations Work Group Abend Rany 9 Goulter Natalie 10 Eaton Nicholas R. 11 Kaczkurkin Antonia N. 12 Nusslock Robin 13, 2023. Precision behavioral phenotyping as a strategy for uncovering the biological correlates of psychopathology. Nature Mental Health, 1(5), pp.304-315.
60. Tiffin, N., George, A. and LeFevre, A.E., 2019. How to use relevant data for maximal benefit with minimal risk: digital health data governance to protect vulnerable populations in low-income and middle-income countries. BMJ Global Health, 4(2), p.e001395.
61. Thomson, L.L. and Peabody Jr, A.E., 2022. Privacy and security challenges in bioinformatics. In Bioinformatics, Medical Informatics and the Law (pp. 205-247). Edward Elgar Publishing.
62. Vears, D.F., Niemiec, E., Howard, H.C. and Borry, P., 2018. How do consent forms for diagnostic high‐throughput sequencing address unsolicited and secondary findings? A content analysis. Clinical Genetics, 94(3-4), pp.321-329.
63. Ward, E.T., Kostick, K.M. and Lázaro-Muñoz, G., 2019. Integrating genomics into psychiatric practice: ethical and legal challenges for clinicians. Harvard review of psychiatry, 27(1), pp.53-64.
64. Wang, S., Jiang, X., Singh, S., Marmor, R., Bonomi, L., Fox, D., Dow, M. and Ohno‐Machado, L., 2017. Genome privacy: challenges, technical approaches to mitigate risk, and ethical considerations in the United States. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1387(1), pp.73-83.
65. White, M.G., 2020. Why human subjects research protection is important. Ochsner journal, 20(1), pp.16-33.
66. Wolfram, D., Wang, P., Hembree, A. and Park, H., 2020. Open peer review: promoting transparency in open science. Scientometrics, 125(2), pp.1033-1051.
67. Woodrow, A., Sparks, S., Bobrovskaia, V., Paterson, C., Murphy, P. and Hutton, P., 2019. Decision-making ability in psychosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis of the magnitude, specificity and correlates of impaired performance on the Iowa and Cambridge Gambling Tasks. Psychological medicine, 49(1), pp.32-48.
68. Wray, N.R., Pergadia, M.L., Blackwood, D.H.R., Penninx, B.W.J.H., Gordon, S.D., Nyholt, D.R., Ripke, S., MacIntyre, D.J., McGhee, K.A., Maclean, A.W. and Smit, J.H., 2012. Genome-wide association study of major depressive disorder: new results, meta-analysis, and lessons learned. Molecular psychiatry, 17(1), pp.36-48.
69. Xu, A., Baysari, M.T., Stocker, S.L., Leow, L.J., Day, R.O. and Carland, J.E., 2020. Researchers’ views on, and experiences with, the requirement to obtain informed consent in research involving human participants: A qualitative study. BMC medical ethics, 21, pp.1-11.
70. Zanelli, J., Mollon, J., Sandin, S., Morgan, C., Dazzan, P., Pilecka, I., Reis Marques, T., David, A.S., Morgan, K., Fearon, P. and Doody, G.A., 2019. Cognitive change in schizophrenia and other psychoses in the decade following the first episode. American Journal of Psychiatry, 176(10), pp.811-819.