Genetics and Epigenetics of Schizophrenia

Abstract

Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a complex mental disorder, with a longstanding history of neurobiological investigation. It is more common in those persons who are genetically predisposed to the disorder. Since Kraepelin, psychiatrists were aware that the SCZ tended to run in families. Its heritability is up to 85%. Although the etiology of SCZ is unknown, it is now thought to be multifactorial, with multiple susceptibility genes interacting with environmental and developmental factors. There is a huge amount of genetic studies, including polymorphisms, expression, methylation, microRNAs, and epigenomics. However, identifying genes for SCZ using traditional genetic approaches has thus far proven quite diicult. Reasons for this include the complexity, heterogeneity, and comorbidity of this disorder, and also the poor deinition of the clinical phenotype. Important approaches to ind the relation between genotype and phenotype and may be causal genetic factors are endophenotypes and pathway analysis. However, genetic researchers need to consider carefully the models of causality they choose. There is a pathophysiological pathway that extends from genes, through proteins, neurons, neural circuits, neural regions, mental functions, external behaviors, and symptoms of SCZ. In this chapter, the genetics and epigenetics of SCZ are briely discussed.