Puzzling over schizophrenia: Schizophrenia as a pathway disease (original) (raw)
- Between Bedside and Bench
- Published: 06 February 2012
Nature Medicine volume 18, pages 210–211 (2012)Cite this article
- 3210 Accesses
- 62 Citations
- 6 Altmetric
- Metrics details
Subjects
Effective treatment for schizophrenia is still an unmet clinical need. Alleviating problems associated with cognitive impairment and finding the root of the disease remain priorities for clinicians and scientists. The incomplete understanding of the basis of this pathology has urged for research that will unravel the genetic origin of schizophrenia. But studies involving environmental exposure and social impact have also hinted at extrinsic factors as players in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia, which may be exploited to prevent the development of the disease. In 'Bench to Bedside', Patrick Sullivan proposes a model putting forward how genetic variants may confer risk by functioning together within the same pathway. This disease pathway hypothesis would imply a polygenetic variation affecting the same pathway and the alteration of a transcriptional network as a root for increasing schizophrenia risk. In 'Bedside to Bench', Andreas Meyer-Linderberg and Heike Tost discuss human-based population studies that suggest that environmental factors linked to development of schizophrenia can affect brain regions involved in the human social-emotional processing network. Genetic risk variants for schizophrenia can also influence similar regions in the brain, suggesting that environmental and intrinsic factors may converge in the same neural circuit.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Relevant articles
Open Access articles citing this article.
Functional patient-derived cellular models for neuropsychiatric drug discovery
- Santiago G. Lago
- , Jakub Tomasik
- & Sabine Bahn
Translational Psychiatry Open Access 17 February 2021
Unravelling socio-motor biomarkers in schizophrenia
- Piotr Słowiński
- , Francesco Alderisio
- … Krasimira Tsaneva-Atanasova
npj Schizophrenia Open Access 01 February 2017
Functional genomics indicate that schizophrenia may be an adult vascular-ischemic disorder
- H W Moises
- , D Wollschläger
- & H Binder
Translational Psychiatry Open Access 11 August 2015
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Additional access options:
Figure 1: Schematic of schizophrenia as a pathway disease.
References
- van Os, J. & Kapur, S. Lancet 374, 635–645 (2009).
Article CAS Google Scholar - Collins, P.Y. et al. Nature 475, 27–30 (2011).
Article CAS Google Scholar - World Health Organization. The global burden of disease: 2004 update. http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/GBD_report_2004update_full.pdf (2008).
- Friedhoff, A.J. & Van Winkle, E. Nature 194, 897–898 (1962).
Article CAS Google Scholar - Sherrington, R. et al. Nature 336, 164–167 (1988).
Article CAS Google Scholar - Ripke, S. et al. Nat. Genet. 43, 969–976 (2011).
Article CAS Google Scholar - Levinson, D.F. et al. Am. J. Psychiatry 168, 302–316 (2011).
Article Google Scholar - International Schizophrenia Consortium et al. Nature 460, 748–752 (2009).
- Barabási, A.L., Gulbahce, N. & Loscalzo, J. Nat. Rev. Genet. 12, 56–68 (2011).
Article Google Scholar - Lichtenstein, P. et al. Lancet 373, 234–239 (2009).
Article CAS Google Scholar - Stefansson, H. et al. Nature 460, 744–747 (2009).
CAS PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar - Kwon, E., Wang, W. & Tsai, L.H. Mol. Psychiatry advance online publication, 10.1038/mp.2011.170 (20 December 2011).
- Szulwach, K.E. et al. J. Cell Biol. 189, 127–141 (2010).
Article CAS Google Scholar - Smrt, R.D. et al. Stem Cells 28, 1060–1070 (2010).
Article CAS Google Scholar - Visscher, P.M. et al. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 90, 7–24 (2012).
Article CAS Google Scholar - Lee, S. et al. Nat. Genet. (in the press).
- Voineagu, I. et al. Nature 474, 380–384 (2011).
Article CAS Google Scholar - Sullivan, P. Mol. Psychiatry 17, 2–3 (2011).
Article Google Scholar - Yang, J., Wray, N.R. & Visscher, P.M. Genet. Epidemiol. 34, 254–257 (2010).
Article Google Scholar - Lango Allen, H. et al. Nature 467, 832–838 (2010).
Article CAS Google Scholar
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
- Patrick F. Sullivan is in the Department of Genetics, and in the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.,
Patrick F Sullivan
Authors
- Patrick F Sullivan
You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
Corresponding author
Correspondence toPatrick F Sullivan.
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The author declares no competing financial interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sullivan, P. Puzzling over schizophrenia: Schizophrenia as a pathway disease.Nat Med 18, 210–211 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.2670
- Published: 06 February 2012
- Issue Date: February 2012
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.2670