More than 600 people gathered in Hamburg, Germany, 14-18 October, to attend the 20th World Congress of Psychiatric Genetics. New sequencing results in schizophrenia highlighted many genetic glitches potentially related to the disorder, but definitively linking them to it will be tricky.
Read this meeting report at Schizophrenia Research Forum.
Another round of sequencing in schizophrenia offers up a new batch of genetic mutations in sporadic cases of the disorder. Published online October 3 in Nature Genetics, the study undertakes the largest hunt yet for spontaneously arising “de novo” mutations in the protein-coding regions of the genome.
Read this story at Schizophrenia Research Forum.
As a man ages, the chance that his children will carry new, spontaneously occurring mutations grows, according to a study in Nature.
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In Molecular Psychiatry last week, researchers presented two new drugs that show antipsychotic-like effects in mice, without the side effects associated with proven antipsychotics. The new drugs target receptors that might fine tune neurotransmitter signals thought to be off-kilter in schizophrenia.
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For 25%-30% of people with schizophrenia, auditory hallucinations continue mostly unabated despite treatment with antipsychotic drugs. A form of non-invasive brain stimulation called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) may quell these diehard symptoms, reports a recent study in American Journal of Psychiatry.
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Three novel schizophrenia genes, and several prior ones, emerge from the latest survey of common variants in schizophrenia. The findings also argue that strict definitions of schizophrenia are not needed for reliable genetic results.
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Abnormal mixups of chromosome pieces in people with autism point to a whopping 33 genes of interest, according to a study in Cell. Though 22 of the genes had never been linked to autism before, seven are known schizophrenia candidates.
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