Molecular mechanisms regulating behavior: Focus on genetic and environmental influences

This chapter outlines how the preclinical fields of molecular biology and neuroscience are converging to allow for meaningful answers relevant to the molecular foundations of psychiatry. Advances over the next decades will undoubtedly provide novel and powerful tools that advance the treatment, if not cure, of devastating psychiatric disorders that not that long ago were thought to be untreatable. This introduction will examine how molecules act at different organizational levels within the brain to influence behavior. Specifically, this chapter examines how both genetic and environmental influences can alter the molecular milieu of individual neurons, discrete neural circuits, and neuromodulation throughout the brain.