This collaborative study unites an international group of expert clinicians specializing in Tourette Disorder (TD) with statistical and molecular geneticists. It is motivated by three central hypotheses:
1) that a key rate- limiting factor for TD gene discovery has been the paucity of publically available, large-scale biomaterial resources of the kind that are now commonplace for many neuropsychiatric disorders;
2) based on recent data from a host of other genetically complex disorders, a comprehensive genomics study of TD will require large samples sizes and should focus on the potential contribution of rare as well as common alleles and both sequence and structural variants; and
3) an increased understanding of the genetic etiology of TD will translate into novel and more effective approaches to treating this often-debilitating disorder, and consequently will have marked public health benefits.
