This is a very general technique called quantitative trait association mapping (such a locus is called a QTL).  It&#x27;s a technique that has been used for decades, back when we used genetic markers and linkage maps (no genomes).<p>What&#x27;s interesting about this work is simply the degree of difficulty finding QTLs for mental illness; it&#x27;s not the only genetic factor, and not particularly strong, so the signal to noise is quite poor.  It required assembling a high-quality data set to identify a locus.<p>It&#x27;s good work, but nothing revolutionary.  Once you can start to pin down the genetic factors, it can make future work easier, so it does bode well.