Article: The Role of Human Evolution in the Development of Schizophrenia

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Schizophrenia

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Recently, theories have been circulating about genes related to schizophrenia potentially being selected for during human evolution. While this may explain the prevalence of schizophrenia, with 0.3-0.7% of people developing the illness at some point in their lives, it is probably too simple of a story. The article we discuss below, by Xu et al. (2015), aims to look much more closely at this phenomenon and determine whether or not it is true.

Article: Pathway Analyses Implicate Glial Cells in Schizophrenia

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Schizophrenia

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Very briefly, this research tested 10 genetic pathway sets for their association to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The pathways dealt with glial cells, mitochondria, and glutamate, each of which has been implicated in the development of schizophrenia. They found a highly significant association between glial cell SNP’s and schizophrenia.

Article: Increased L1 Retrotransposition in the Neuronal Genome in Schizophrenia

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Schizophrenia

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As far as the testing and conclusions go; this is clean research. The scientist involved began with a broad hypothesis: “Are L1 retrotransposon numbers greater in people suffering from mental illness?”. Their testing led them to discovering a high number of L1 retrotransposons in the postmortem prefrontal cortexes of people who, in their lives, had suffered from schizophrenia. There was no significant increase in the number of L1 units in the brains of patients who had experienced depression, or bipolar disorder. By allowing the data reveal this trend they began with a strong theoretical base for further experiments. In their follow-up experiments they were able to narrow their scope, focusing on the relationships between the L1 retrotransposon and known genes for schizophrenia, such as 22q11, and then on similarly focused animal models.

If you’re not too intimidated by long academic reports it is well worth a read, but if you’d prefer a quick rundown keep reading.