What causes schizophrenia has long baffled scientists. But in what is deemed the largest ever molecular genetic study of schizophrenia, a team of international researchers has pinpointed 108 genes linked to the condition – 83 of which are newly discovered – that may help identify its causes and pave the way for new treatments.

Schizophrenia is a mental health condition that affects approximately 24 million people worldwide. Although symptoms of the condition can vary, the most common are delusions, hallucinations, abnormal thoughts and agitated body movements.

Share on Pinterest Researchers have identified 108 genes – 83 of which were previously undiscovered – associated with schizophrenia.

Despite years of research, the exact causes of schizophrenia remain unclear. Study leader of this latest research Prof. Michael O’Donovan, of the Cardiff University School of Medicine in the UK, told Medical News Today that identifying the causes of schizophrenia is notoriously difficult.

“There are no ‘tests’ that allow to select patients that are likely to be very similar in their causes, which means we examine groups of people with probably multiple forms of the disorder, and this dilutes the relationships between risk factors and outcome,” he explained, adding:

“We can’t easily access the brain in a direct way to obtain tissue from living people, so studying the disorder through many traditional approaches in medicine is more difficult. And because the assessment is by interview and careful observation, recruiting large numbers of people into studies is more costly than for simpler, easier-to-diagnose conditions.”

However, recent studies have found that people with schizophrenia tend to have certain genetic mutations, which may play a part in its development.

For example, Medical News Today recently reported on a study by researchers from University College London in the UK, which detailed the discovery of a rare gene variant present in around 1 in every 200 people that may increase the risk of developing schizophrenia, as well as bipolar disorder and alcohol dependence.

Another study, by researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD, detailed how one variation in a schizophrenia-related gene called 15q11.2 influences brain development.

In this latest study, Prof. O’Donovan and fellow researchers from the Schizophrenia Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium – an international collaboration of more than 300 scientists set up in 2007 to conduct large-scale research into psychiatric disorders – uncovered an array of genetic risk factors for schizophrenia, shedding light on the condition’s biological cause.