Though there are multiple approaches to study biological and molecular mechanisms of symptoms, two common genetic approaches seen in the literature are: (1) association studies that examine single nucleotide polymorphism's (SNP) effect on symptoms and (2) polygenic risk score (PRS) associations which utilize an aggregate measure of genetic susceptibility to symptoms by taking into account the additive effects of all significant variants across multiple genes and regulatory areas in the entire genome. When SNP associations point to potential functional pathways, PRS is a taken as evidence for cumulative genetic risk. Since it is an indicator of potentially true genetic risk, examining PRS correlations for symptoms can help inform which symptoms are a result of stronger genetic liability.
