Link Between Genetic Family Traits and Schizophrenia
McLean researchers explore genetic links between schizophrenia and family traits
By Carey Goldberg, Globe Staff January 22, 2007
They are not things anyone would typically notice: Do your eyes fall behind as you try to follow a cursor zipping across a computer screen? Is the roof of your mouth a touch high? Do you sometimes use words in a way that, on closer examination, does not quite make sense?
They don't matter at all in daily life, those funny little traits. But researchers at Harvard's McLean Hospital believe they may contain important clues about the elusive genes of schizophrenia, the devastating psychiatric disorder that affects 1 percent of the population.
To further explore this provocative theory, the hospital's Psychology Research Laboratory recently won a $3 million federal grant.
Consider, said Deborah Levy , the lab's director: "The incidence of schizophrenia is stable at about 1 percent, and schizophrenics have very low reproductive rates. So what is keeping those genes going? One hypothesis is that most of the people carrying the schizophrenia genes are not the patients. Rather, they are some of the well parents and well siblings, most of whom never show signs of the illness."
The idea, she and other researchers say, is that schizophrenia results from a critical combination of genes, perhaps a variable handful of them. Well relatives may carry one or more of those genes, but not the critical complement that bring on the disease.
The effects of such genes may show up in a variety of subtle ways, they say -- including faulty eye-tracking and asymmetry in facial features so hard to detect that it is best measured by highly specialized 3-D cameras.
Figuring out the genetics of a complex disease like schizophrenia is like fitting together an incredibly hard jigsaw puzzle, said Dr. Linda Brzustowicz , a psychiatrist and professor of genetics at Rutgers University who is collaborating with Levy.
Recent genomic research suggests that perhaps 15 genes may be involved in schizophrenia, she said, but "there's still a lot of murkiness," and many findings initially offer hope but then cannot be replicated.
The traits that Levy's lab is exploring are unlikely to tell the whole genetic story of schizophrenia, Brzustowicz said, and many other geneticists are pinning their hopes instead on high-powered examination of the entire genome.
But the traits are easily tested and do seem to be linked. In a jigsaw puzzle, Brzustowicz said, "the more pieces you can get in initially, the easier it is to fit in the remaining pieces. And there's no shame in starting with the corners and the edges."
Levy's approach also raises a question about whether past research overlooked genes involved in schizophrenia. Researchers have typically assumed that genes carried by healthy relatives could not contribute to risk for schizophrenia. But if the relatives actually carried the genes for traits linked to schizophrenia, it would be wrong to rule them out. More......
Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company
By Carey Goldberg, Globe Staff January 22, 2007
They are not things anyone would typically notice: Do your eyes fall behind as you try to follow a cursor zipping across a computer screen? Is the roof of your mouth a touch high? Do you sometimes use words in a way that, on closer examination, does not quite make sense?
They don't matter at all in daily life, those funny little traits. But researchers at Harvard's McLean Hospital believe they may contain important clues about the elusive genes of schizophrenia, the devastating psychiatric disorder that affects 1 percent of the population.
To further explore this provocative theory, the hospital's Psychology Research Laboratory recently won a $3 million federal grant.
Consider, said Deborah Levy , the lab's director: "The incidence of schizophrenia is stable at about 1 percent, and schizophrenics have very low reproductive rates. So what is keeping those genes going? One hypothesis is that most of the people carrying the schizophrenia genes are not the patients. Rather, they are some of the well parents and well siblings, most of whom never show signs of the illness."
The idea, she and other researchers say, is that schizophrenia results from a critical combination of genes, perhaps a variable handful of them. Well relatives may carry one or more of those genes, but not the critical complement that bring on the disease.
The effects of such genes may show up in a variety of subtle ways, they say -- including faulty eye-tracking and asymmetry in facial features so hard to detect that it is best measured by highly specialized 3-D cameras.
Figuring out the genetics of a complex disease like schizophrenia is like fitting together an incredibly hard jigsaw puzzle, said Dr. Linda Brzustowicz , a psychiatrist and professor of genetics at Rutgers University who is collaborating with Levy.
Recent genomic research suggests that perhaps 15 genes may be involved in schizophrenia, she said, but "there's still a lot of murkiness," and many findings initially offer hope but then cannot be replicated.
The traits that Levy's lab is exploring are unlikely to tell the whole genetic story of schizophrenia, Brzustowicz said, and many other geneticists are pinning their hopes instead on high-powered examination of the entire genome.
But the traits are easily tested and do seem to be linked. In a jigsaw puzzle, Brzustowicz said, "the more pieces you can get in initially, the easier it is to fit in the remaining pieces. And there's no shame in starting with the corners and the edges."
Levy's approach also raises a question about whether past research overlooked genes involved in schizophrenia. Researchers have typically assumed that genes carried by healthy relatives could not contribute to risk for schizophrenia. But if the relatives actually carried the genes for traits linked to schizophrenia, it would be wrong to rule them out. More......
Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company
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