{"id":1474,"date":"2018-02-08T22:27:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-08T22:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bcchrtpgg.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=1433"},"modified":"2025-09-16T21:24:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T21:24:21","slug":"how-genes-may-cause-mental-health-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/tgrc\/2018\/02\/08\/how-genes-may-cause-mental-health-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"First glimpse of how genes may cause mental health problems"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and autism seem to have some similar effects on the brain. Analysing gene activity is taking us a step closer to understanding what causes such mental health conditions.<\/p>

Unlike cancer or Alzheimer\u2019s, say, for which underlying biological causes have been identified, psychiatric disorders and some developmental disorders are defined by behavioural symptoms. We know that people born with certain gene variants can be more likely to develop\u00a0schizophrenia, bipolar disorder<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0autism-like behaviour<\/a>, but we don\u2019t know what these genes might be doing, and how they might put people at risk.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

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In autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, genes influencing how brain cells called astrocytes function seem more active.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

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\u201cThe brain is an incredibly complex organ \u2013 if something is out of whack, something else can step in to compensate, so it\u2019s very difficult to identify the fundamental problem,\u201d says Jehannine Austin at the University of British Columbia in Canada.<\/p>

Now it seems that the way some brain cells work is changed in similar ways in these conditions.\u00a0Daniel Geschwind<\/a>\u00a0at the University of California, Los Angeles, and his team have been studying brain tissue donated by people who had such brain-related conditions when they died, and working out how active different genes were in their brain cells.<\/p>

Read more on NewScientist<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and autism seem to have some similar effects on the brain. Analysing gene activity is taking us a step closer to understanding what causes such mental health conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","fndry_alternate_title":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[19,29,32,21,33],"class_list":["post-1474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-autism","tag-bipolar-disorder","tag-genes","tag-mental-health","tag-schizophrenia"],"modified_by":"Andrea Sakamoto","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/tgrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/tgrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/tgrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/tgrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/tgrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/tgrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2663,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/tgrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1474\/revisions\/2663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/tgrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/tgrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/tgrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcchr.ca\/tgrc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}