The limited role of expert guidelines in teaching psychopharmacology.

Objective: To consider the limited usefulness of expert guidelines for teaching psychopharmacology.

Method: Potential problems using expert guidelines for teaching psychopharmacology are reviewed.

Results: Expert guidelines are an important contribution to the growth of evidence-based psychiatry.

Determination of sequence variation and haplotype structure for the gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) and GnRH receptor genes: investigation of role in pubertal timing.

Because GnRH and its receptor (GnRHR) are pivotal regulators of the reproductive endocrine axis and mutations in GNRHR lead to hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, we investigated whether genetic variation in GNRHR or GNRH1 affects pubertal timing in the general population. To screen for missense mutations in these genes that might affect pubertal timing, we resequenced the coding regions of these genes in 48 probands with late but otherwise normal pubertal development. No missense variants were found in either gene, except for a previously identified single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in GNRH1 that was not associated with late pubertal development.