Childhood Schizophrenia is Now Called Autism and Risk Rises with Age of the Father

Genetic underpinnings of schizophrenia revealed
Thu Mar 27, 2008
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By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The devastating mental illness schizophrenia may be caused by many different mutations in many different genes that disrupt biological pathways vital to normal brain development, scientists said on Thursday.

Schizophrenia is a complex disorder marked by delusions, hallucinations and disordered thinking that appears in about 1 percent of all adults. Experts long have struggled to grasp its causes and the role of genetics and environmental factors.

Two teams of researchers published new genetic insights in the journal Science. Their findings suggest that instead of one crucial gene or a handful, a myriad of different glitches in many genes could be responsible for schizophrenia.

DNA deletions and duplications that disrupt genes are far more common in schizophrenics, the researchers found.

These disrupted genes often are related to pathways critical for brain development. They involve creating the infrastructure in which neurons communicate, as well as such functions as neuronal growth and migration and cell death.

"You're basically screwing up the way that the regulation of brain growth occurs," said Dr. Jon McClellan of the University of Washington in Seattle, one of the researchers.

Researchers at the University of Washington and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, looked at DNA from 150 schizophrenics and from 268 healthy people. These genetic deletions and duplications were present in 15 percent of schizophrenics and only 5 percent of healthy people.

A team of researchers from the U.S. National Institutes of Health came up with similar results looking at another group of schizophrenics who developed the disease as children. The tiny genetic glitches were seen in about 20 percent of them. Continued...