Gene-Environment Interaction and Risk of Schizophrenia

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a chronic mental disease that affects less than 1% of the population in the United States. In the introduction, the article provides a general overview of schizophrenia disorder, incorporating potential causal factors of schizophrenia in biological and environmental areas. It also demonstrated the individual and social impacts with present symptoms. Later in the mainbody sections, the article presents the general effects of gene-environment interaction on the risk of schizophrenia and the moderating role of environmental factors in schizophrenia by looking at the influences of childhood adversity in siblings with and without schizhophrenia, the role of family history and epigenetics, the effect of socioeconomic status (SES), and the relationship between stress and neurotransmitter activity in schizophrenia. On of the limitations of previous studies is that they were mainly conducted in adults who were diagnosed with schizophrenia already. Future studies should identify at-risk children and families to conduct longitudianl studies on this topic. This review can provide some guidance to the desgin of prevention and intervention programs at schools and communities for at-risk families.