Geneticists Uncover Major Clue To Understanding Schizophrenia

Scientists say they have broken new ground in the study of schizophrenia, uncovering a potentially powerful genetic contributor to the mental disorder and helping to explain why its symptoms of confused and delusional thinking most often reach a crisis state as a person nears the cusp of adulthood.

Genes associated with the function of the immune system have long been suspected in schizophrenia, but scientists have been at a loss to understand the nature of the link. In a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard show that immune-related genetic variations linked to schizophrenia play a key role in prompting the "pruning" of brain connections in late adolescence.

That pruning of synapses — the connections among brain cells that proliferate with wild abandon throughout infancy and childhood — appears to play a key role in humans' cognitive transition to adulthood. If that process were altered by a slight change in a gene, the scientists surmised, that transition may be disrupted, with disastrous results.

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