Genes 2 Brains 2 Mind 2 Me

Image by dbking via Flickr Amidst the excitement of new personalized genome services, the Economist reports on fraudsters found peddling ‘personalized supplements’ based on bogus genetic testing results. This is an extreme, tragicomic example to be sure, but highlights some of the issues that can arise when confronting one’s genetic blueprint. A recent paper by Stephanis et al., “Impact of Schizophrenia Candidate Genes on Schizotypy and Cognitive Endophenotypes at the Population Level” (DOI) shows that in a population of healthy individuals, those that carry common variants (such as rs760761, rs1018381, rs2619522) located in the dysbindin (DTNBP1) gene, a risk factor for schizophrenia, show minor cognitive impairments such as decreased attentional capacity, worse performance on memory tasks, and alterations in schizotypal beliefs and experiences. Thus, it would seem that, common genetic variation associated with a complex psychiatric disorder can confer minor cognitive impairment in healthy individuals. As personalized genome services proliferate, healthy individuals will begin to recognize that they carry genetic risk for all kinds of ailments – mental illness included. I admit to having cringed somewhat when typing out the blunt title of this post – fraudsters notwithstanding.