Scientists have discovered more than 100 genetic risk factors associated with schizophrenia in research that could provide new insight into the way the condition is caused and is the catalyst for new treatments.
Writing within the journal Nature, an international team of researchers led by Dr. Michael O’Donovan from the Cardiff University Med school conducted what’s being called the largest genomic study yet published on any type of psychiatric disorder.
Their efforts have revealed biological mechanisms and pathways which may be associated with schizophrenia, and could lead to the first significant new method of treating the disorder in additional than six decades. The study would be a multinational, collaborative effort involving over 300 scientists from 35 countries and many many years of work.
According to Karen Weintraub of USA Today, the study confirmed the genes which regulate the mind chemical dopamine were involved with schizophrenia, as experts had predicted. However, it also revealed that genes linked to the body’s defense mechanisms, as well as some linked with cigarette smoking, were also involved.
“Some are extremely familiar genes expressed in nerve cells, and some are results where you scratch your head and you know you have more try to do” to be able to comprehend the role they play in the condition, researcher and Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research director Steven Hyman told Weintraub.
He explained the finding doesn’t prove a causal relationship between schizophrenia and only smoking or inflammation, as genes could utilize one role within the immune system and a different one out of the brain. In all, the genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified 108 specific locations in the human genome that was connected with an increased chance of schizophrenia
