Cognitive Neurogenetics of Schizophrenia

In this NIMH funded study we are developing and using behavioral paradigms in imaging studies of schizophrenia patients, their unaffected relatives, as well as individuals with bipolar disorder and healthy control subjects. Our goal is to understand the relationship between specific genetic variations associated with being at risk for schizophrenia and alterations in the function of neural systems that support cognitive and emotional processes that are impaired in the illness.

The past decade of research into the genetic basis of schizophrenia has continued to produce strong evidence for a complex mode of inheritance of this illness. This research has suggested a non-Mendelian, and probably heterogeneous mode of inheritance. As a result, few genetic loci have been consistently associated with the illness. In the face of these difficulties, it has been suggested that endophenotypes, that is continuous traits associated with the genetic liability to the illness, may be a useful way to investigate the partially penetrant genes that in some cases can lead to schizophrenia.

In this application we propose to use a cognitive neuroscience approach to strengthen the effectiveness of cognitive endophenotypes for investigating the genetics of schizophrenia by addressing these psychometric confounds and linking them to the function of discrete neural systems. Measures of cognitive functioning will include behavioral testing, neuroimaging (fMRI), as well as ERP. Genotyping procedures will be done in collaboration with the laboratory of Professor Edward Jones at the Center for Neuroscience on the UC Davis Campus.