Krueger, et al., 2002). Indeed, an endophenotype may be used as a tool to identify phenotypes that fall into the spectrum (Yoon, Iacono, Malone, & McGue, 2006). Alternatively, to the extent that different disorders share a dysfunctional process in common, an endophenotype that assesses this common process would be expected to show similar results across all disorders with the same dysfunction, and point to genes important to the brain processes accounting for the impairment. For example, dysfunctional synaptic plasticity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) may underlie mood disorders, drug addiction, and schizophrenia (Goto, Yang, & Otani, 2010), opening the possibility that a PFC-related endophenotype could index genetic risk for putatively disparate disorders.
