A new study reveals that schizophrenia is not a single disease but a group of eight disorders that differ in terms of their symptoms

Schizophrenia is a relatively common chronic mental disorder that belongs to the group of psychotic diseases. Some of its signs are hallucinations, false thoughts, thought disorders, emotional reduction and strange behaviors caused by these phenomena. Now a group of researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis determine, based on genetic testing, that schizophrenia is not a single disease but consists of eight separate diseases, each with its own unique symptoms. The study was recently published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Studies indicate that about 80% of the chances of having schizophrenia are due to genetics. On the other hand, scientists are trying, without apparent success, to identify specific genes that cause it. Now, an innovative approach, in which they performed genetic reviews of more than 4,000 people with schizophrenia and 3,800 people without schizophrenia (a control group), has identified different gene clusters that are linked to eight different types of schizophrenia.
"Genes do not work alone," says Robert Cloninger, a doctor and professor of psychiatry and genetics, one of the initiators of the study. "They function like musical instruments in an orchestra playing a concert, and in order to understand how they work, you need to know not only who is in the orchestra but also understand the way in which they communicate with each other."
Cloninger and his collaborators analyzed nearly 700,000 sites in the genome in 4,200 people with schizophrenia and 3,800 healthy people. They focused on the sites where one unit of DNA was different (called in the professional language single nucleotide polymorphism, SNP; a variation of the DNA sequence that occurs when a single nucleotide in the genome differs between individuals in biological species or between homologous chromosomes in humans - A.B.H.), This is in order to learn how these communicate with each other to create the disease.
With the help of this technique, the researchers established a connection between symptom groups of the patients and the genetic findings, for example certain specific genetic variants in patients with hallucinations or delusions resulted in a 95% probability of having schizophrenia. Other genetic variants in patients who presented symptoms of disorganized speech and behavior resulted in a 100% probability of developing schizophrenia.
According to Cloninger, the research succeeded, after about a decade of failures and frustration in the field of genetic psychiatry, to find a way to show how genes communicate with each other and thus lead to health or disease. While studies on specific genes showed a weak and inconsistent relationship (meaning it was not possible to reproduce the research result - A.B.H.) with the development of schizophrenia, interactions between clusters of genes created a very high and subsequent risk of between 70%-100% in the development of schizophrenia .
During the study, the researchers identified 42 clusters of genes that dramatically increased the risk of schizophrenia while strengthening the idea that genes do not act independently on their own but interact with other genes and thus create a disease. According to Dragan Svrakic, professor of psychiatry at the University of Washington and one of the research partners, only when the research team grouped the specific genetic findings together with the symptoms presented by the patient, was it possible to see how the genetic findings cause the specific type of schizophrenia, which is characterized by its characteristic symptoms.
In the next step, the patients were divided according to the type and severity of their symptoms, such as different types of hallucinations (sensory hallucinations such as visual hallucinations or auditory hallucinations) or delusions (false thoughts), difficulty organizing thoughts, lack of initiative, and the like. The results indicated eight different disorders that are differentiated between them based on the genetic classification.
This study, whose findings were tested and reproduced in two additional DNA databases in order to give it more validity, can be used to treat the patient's specific type of schizophrenia. Also, according to Cloninger, it will be possible to use the same approach to understand other common and complex diseases. Thus, instead of looking for a single gene for heart disease or diabetes, one can try to find out the etiology (study of the causes) of the diseases by testing interactions between genes.
Link to the study on the University of Washington website
4 תגובות
Greetings .
As stated in a study from the University of Washington, schizophrenia is a connection between clusters of genes and the interaction between them. This can be related to the body's ability to deal with the lack of sleep. The way in which the difficulty is interpreted. The ability to deal physically, mentally and morally with the lack of sleep and more.
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I suffered from insomnia for more than 10 years.
I had many, many days where I didn't sleep more than 48 hours. There were days when I was awake for more than 72 hours (the most 78 hours).
Psychotic effects would certainly appear but in very low doses.
What was most interesting were the philosophical and psychological insights that arose out of the desire to understand the psychotic phenomena caused by lack of sleep.
When your friends, for example, go to work, then sleep, then go to work again, go out to hang out, go to sleep, and once again go to work, hang out, sleep, and you don't sleep all this time.. the experiences you have are "out of this world". something in your words
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are you a doctor
Schizophrenia is not a disease. Schizophrenia is a mental condition. broken soul
Any person who stays awake for more than 3 consecutive days will develop psychotic symptoms. But it was not said that he was sick. No foreign external party entered it. It is the nature of the soul that as soon as it does not receive the deceased it needs, it begins to "disintegrate" and lose touch with reality. It's not a disease, it's a mental state.
The fact that a disease happens to it is again to escape from the main issue.