Schizophrenia Genes: Searching for Common Features, Functions, and Mechanisms

As chapters in this book make clear, substantial progress has been made in the past five years towards identifying susceptibility genes that underlie the 80% heritability of schizophrenia (Sullivan et al. 2003; Harrison and Weinberger 2005; Owen et al. 2005). At first sight, the various genes appear to have little in common. However, the theme of this chapter is convergence; the notion that the genes may share important features, in terms of the nature of genetic association, the mediating molecular mechanisms, and their pathogenic roles. If any of these convergences prove even partially correct, the hope is that it may facilitate the ongoing search for additional genes and, in particular, how they operate to confer schizophrenia susceptibility.