Journal
NATURE REVIEWS NEUROLOGY
Volume 16, Issue 7, Pages 366-379Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/s41582-020-0364-0
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Funding
- National Institutes of Health (NIH) [NS057198, EB00790]
- NIH National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)/National Cancer Institute (NCI) [U24DA041123]
- Research Council of Norway [229129, 213837, 248778, 223273, 249711]
- South-East Norway Regional Health Authority [2017-112]
- K.G. Jebsen Stiftelsen (SKGJ)
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Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder with considerable morbidity and mortality. Although the past two decades have seen limited improvement in the treatment of schizophrenia, research into the genetic causes of this condition has made important advances that offer new insights into the aetiology of schizophrenia. This Review summarizes the evidence for a polygenic architecture of schizophrenia that involves a large number of risk alleles across the whole range of population frequencies. These genetic risk loci implicate biological processes related to neurodevelopment, neuronal excitability, synaptic function and the immune system in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. Mathematical models also suggest a substantial overlap between schizophrenia and psychiatric, behavioural and cognitive traits, a situation that has implications for understanding its clinical epidemiology, psychiatric nosology and pathobiology. Looking ahead, further genetic discoveries are expected to lead to clinically relevant predictive approaches for identifying high-risk individuals, improved diagnostic accuracy, increased yield from drug development programmes and improved stratification strategies to address the heterogeneous disease course and treatment responses observed among affected patients. Smeland and colleagues examine the evidence for a polygenic architecture of schizophrenia. This new knowledge of schizophrenia pathobiology has important implications for understanding its genetic overlap with other traits and disorders, which could influence future disease classifications and mechanistic research.
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