Externalizing disorders and behaviors are a widely prevalent cause of human suffering, but understanding of the molecular genetic underpinnings of externalizing has lagged behind progress made in other areas of medical and psychiatric genetics. For example, dozens of genetic loci have been discovered for schizophrenia (>100 loci)50, bipolar disorder (30 loci)51, and major depressive disorders (44 loci)52, whereas for antisocial behavior53, alcohol use disorders54, and opioid use disorders8, only a very small number of loci have been discovered. We used multivariate genomic analyses to accelerate genetic discovery, identifying 579 genome-wide significant loci associated with a liability toward externalizing outcomes, 121 of which are entirely novel discoveries for any of the seven phenotypes analyzed. Follow-up bioinformatic analyses suggest the implicated genes have early neurodevelopmental effects, which are then associated with behavioral patterns that have repercussions across the lifespan.
