Mental health disorders are only becoming more common, yet science lags behind its spread, leaving millions of people to search for treatments, cycle through ill-fitting ones, or without any relief at all.

The ineffectiveness of treatments is due in large part to our poor understanding of the causes and physiology of depression - like many mental health issues.

But the new research is a 'huge, huge step forward' in the right direction, says one of its co-authors, Dr Patrick Sullivan, a professor of genetics and psychiatry at the University of North Carolina.

Dr Srijan Sen, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan says: 'This paper is a significant advance over previous ones and the number variants they have identified means we are really starting to get a more textured picture of what systems might be involved in depression.'

Read the full article at the Daily Mail.