Common sets of genes disrupted in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression
"There are subtle differences in individual genes, and these differences are enriched in sets of genes involved in specific cell processes in the brain tissue of people with a variety of severe mental disorders," says Sarven Sabunciyan, Ph.D., assistant professor of pediatrics and researcher in the Stanley Division of Developmental Neurovirology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "It was striking to us that we could identify the broad functional overlaps, knowing there is a lot of variability among individuals with mental disorders." "It is important to show what these seemingly disparate diseases have in common, not only to learn more about them, but because common deficits could suggest similar treatment strategies," says Miranda Darby, Ph.D., a research fellow in Sabunciyan's laboratory and the first author on the study. A report on the work was published online Sept. 13 in Translational Psychiatry . For the study, the rese...