Discovery and Neurobiological Modeling of Rare Genetic Variant Risk for Mental Illness

The subject of this thesis is the role of rare genetic variation in the etiology of psychiatric disorders. The studies included in this work include a human genetics study on depression, a disease-modeling study for autism spectrum disorder using brain organoids, and the generation of an in vitro cellular drug-screening platform for schizophrenia. The research participants in these studies come from the genetically isolated Amish and Mennonite populations.