A pair of studies in the journal Nature Neuroscience have investigated a link between rare genetic mutations and schizophrenia, as well as the link between similar types of mutations and how long people stayed in school. The findings show people with certain genetic mutations developed the mental illness at a higher rate or typically had several months less schooling than the rest of the general student population, meaning the mutations can be one of the factors playing a role in those outcomes.
For the first study linking the mutations to schizophrenia, scientists analyzed the genes of more than 12,300 people…[and] found that protein-damaging variations expressed in the brain “were more abundant among individuals with schizophrenia than among controls,”…[suggesting] inheritance of those genes.
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In the second study, scientists compared a similar kind of group of rare genetic mutations to the amount of time subjects stayed in school…The tallies varied, with one mutation being linked to three fewer months of schooling than the average student and another to six months fewer.
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