Gene - the causative agent of schizophrenia

For a long time, medical researchers have argued quite a lot about the cause of schizophrenia, the scientific name is Schizophrene .

According to statistics, 100 people have 1 person suffering from this disease, with unstable symptoms, characterized by severe disorders of behavior and thinking, such as hallucinations, paranoia, and inference. , closed .

The disease usually manifests itself in the late adolescence or early adulthood.

In the past, it was thought that the disease originated from the relationship disorders between parents and children, although the German psychologist Sigmind Freud was careful not to pay attention to it.

Recently, scientists have conducted 3 international studies based on a very large number of patients. These studies have confirmed the importance of genetic factors in the process of disease formation.

A complex diagram

The first two studies were published in Nature , which performed in 1,433 and 3,391 patients respectively and compared results with similar numbers of healthy controls.

There are many genes that are thought to play an important role in schizophrenia.(Photo: Internet)

In these two publications, the researchers found that there was a genetic disorder in people with schizophrenia compared to those in the control group. This disorder is expressed by genes being knocked out or damaged on chromosomes.

The third study, published in Nature Geneetics , conducted by an international team of researchers, compared " letters " of the genome of 479 patients to " letters " of 2,997 people. control.

They found that gene defects or DNA replication are very noticeable in schizophrenic patients .

We can imagine, human DNA is like a series of many characters (about 3 billion), sometimes these characters are rearranged into words - that's the genes. The newly discovered gene variant eliminates about 500 thousand to about two million DNA characters above.

Professor and geneticist Daniel Cohen, one of the first to map the genome, explained: "Genetic effects in schizophrenia have been apparent for many years. The genetic diagram of this disease seems very complicated, perhaps this diagram includes more than 100 genes and different combinations of genes, so far only about 15 genes are thought to be related. "We need to do more other analytical work to find out more . "

The benefits of these projects are not only for research purposes.

According to Professor Daniel Cohen: " The more cancer-causing genes are identified, the more likely it is for researchers to expand the directions to look for protein disorders in patients. can adjust and find new treatments for this disease. "

According to scientists, environmental factors related to schizophrenia still need to learn more.

For example, when a twins have schizophrenia, its brother or brother has about 50% risk. It is clear that genes, although having an important effect, are not the only cause of the disease.

The role of viruses, influenza in pregnant women, psychological factors . is also raised but there is no specific evidence.