New study unearths link between schizophrenia and neurodevelopmental disorders

The MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics (MRC CNGG)’s schizophrenia group has found a link between schizophrenia and neurodevelopmental disorders, which includes autism spectrum disorders and developmental disorders, showing that people with these conditions carry similar types of rare mutation within shared-risk genes.

The paper, published by Nature Communications, also identified a set of specific mutations that are likely to increase risk for both schizophrenia and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Some of these mutations are known to cause specific syndromic disorders, suggesting that schizophrenia be included as a possible feature of those syndromes.

Dr Elliott Rees, a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Future Leaders Fellow at the Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences, said:

Dr. Rees continued, "This suggests that some of the biological processes that underlie schizophrenia also underlie neurodevelopmental disorders, which has important implications for how these conditions are currently classified.”

Symptoms that are characteristic of schizophrenia can sometimes be missed in people with neurodevelopmental disorders.

The group’s findings highlight the clinical need for a greater awareness that these conditions can sometimes co-occur in people.

Schizophrenia is a severe mental health condition that can have serious impacts on the health, general function, and lifespan of affected individuals and the wellbeing of their families.

Many genes have now been linked to both schizophrenia and neurodevelopmental disorders. The findings from this study suggest that changes to gene function that increase risk to schizophrenia can sometimes also do so for neurodevelopmental disorders.

Read the full paper: Schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders and developmental disorders share specific disruptive coding mutations