Critical overview of current approaches to genetic mechanisms in schizophrenia research.
A genetic etiology to schizophrenia was recognized a century ago by E. Kraepelin [Ein Lehrbuch fur studirende und aerzte, Vol II. Leipzig, Verlagvon, Barth (1899)], yet no clear inherited pattern or mechanism has been established. In the last decade, a new wave of molecular genetic studies of families with schizophrenia has yielded unconvincing evidence for the involvement of multiple putative loci. The task of the next century will be to use genomics to define the true nature of deviant brain growth and development throughout the lifetime of an individual that could result in the perceptual disturbances characterized as schizophrenia.
DeLisi
L E
LE
Department of Psychiatry, Health Sciences Centre, T-10, SUNY-Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY, USA. ldelisi@ccmail.sunysb.edu
D006801:Humans; D008967:Molecular Biology; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000235:genetics*