A common genetic variant may make you smarter ? or schizophrenic.
Most people inherit a version of a gene that streamlines their brain?s circuitry yet also appears to increase risk for schizophrenia, scientists at the National Institute of Mental Health discovered.
The seeming paradox emerged from the first study to explore the effects of variation in the human gene for a brain master switch, DARPP-32.
Three-fourths of subjects in the study had at least one copy of the version that results in more efficient filtering of information processed by the brain?s executive hub, the prefrontal cortex. However, the same version was also more prevalent among people who developed schizophrenia, a severe mental illness marked by delusions, hallucinations and impaired emotion that affects one in 100 people.
The gene also affects key brain functions implicated in schizophrenia, such as motivation, working memory and reward-related learning, Dr. Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg said in a statement.
Meyer-Lindenberg and colleagues in the NIMH Genes, Cognition and Psychosis program reported their results in the February 9 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
? Karl B. Hille
