Cognitive-specific genetic correlates in schizophrenia (review)

Schizophrenia is a heterogeneous mental disorder with a high degree of heritability. Cognitive deficiency is one of the main disturbances in schizophrenia as well as positive, negative and affective symptoms. Finding of mental disorders’ intermediate phenotypes is an actively developed field. Endophenotype is a genetic epidemiology term which is used to separate behavioral symptoms into more stable phenotypes with a clear genetic association. So, cognitive deficiency refers to endophenotypes. According to the fact, that cognitive functions are highly heritable, today many genes are considered as related to cognitive deficit in schizophrenics. Further studies in this field will shed light on mental disorders etiology and pathogenesis of cognitive deficiency in schizophrenia; moreover, they will help with developing of new drugs to improve cognitive functions.