AJMG: a new study to explore the cognitive function of people with mental disorders

January 24, 2020 / Biovalley / recently, a study by researchers from Miller School of medicine at the University of Miami showed that there was almost no difference in the expression profile of cognitive related genes between schizophrenia, manic depression and the general population This finding may provide new clues for the treatment of cognitive improvement The study was published in the American Journal of medical genetics "For many years, people have been talking about the differences in cognitive ability between schizophrenics and bipolar disorder patients and the general population," said Dr Philip D Harvey, Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences We found no difference in the signals related to gene expression (image source: www Pixabay Com) the study assessed more than 9000 veterans with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder In addition to analyzing genomic data, the team went deeper than before, confirming the diagnosis of participants and conducting cognitive tests This is the largest mental health study that combines genome-wide association methods with cognitive assessment Dr Harvey said: "in contrast, our research is very small, some of which have 1.2 million people But the difference was that we saw each of the study participants in person Others are essentially database based research " In addition, by using the actual cognitive test, the researchers add new content to these large database projects, and provide new data for the follow-up work, so that the results of the research conducted by different methods can be better compared "For schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, there may not be a need for a specific cognitive assessment or other treatment," Dr Harvey said We should seek other new treatment options for schizophrenia and bipolar patients " Source of information: study explorers cooperative function in people with mental illness original source: Philip D Harvey et al, genome wide association study of cooperative performance in U.S vectors with schizophrenia or bipolar discorder, American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: neuropsychiatric genetics (2019) Doi: 10.1002/ajmg.b.32775