Although the GWAS approach is relatively new, there have already been a large number of excellent reviews of various components of the GWAS method. Indeed, the GWAS review literature is of such singular quality that another review would be redundant. Instead of another review, our goal is to provide a primer, an annotated overview of the entire approach with particular reference to psychiatric genetics. Our goal is dissemination of information about this methodology in order for a motivate reader to become more expert in this method. We dissect the GWAS methodology into its components and, for each, provide a brief description of the component and provide citations and links to reviews that cover the topic in detail (Table 1).
