Molecular prediction of response to second-generation anti-psychotic drugs in patients with schizophrenia

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a complex chronic mental disorder characterized by a group of symptoms including delusion, hallucinations, disorganized speech or behavior and impaired cognitive ability. The early onset of the disease, along with its chronic course makes it a disabling disorder for many patients and their families. Schizophrenia has a substantial genetic component with high heritability (up to 80%), indicating that most of variation in the trait of schizophrenia may be attributed to genetic factors. Recent research suggest that genetic risk for schizophrenia is composed of many common genetic alterations, with a small effect along with a few uncommon genetic alterations with larger impact. Schizophrenia is diagnosed according to (DSM- IV). Antipsychotic medications are the main treatment of schizophrenia. They are also used for several other clinical conditions (other psychoses and bipolar) and are therefore one of the most widely used and costly types of drugs. Around 30% of patients with schizophrenia are found to have resistance to antipsychotic agents (APAs) and this is attributed to genetic and environmental factors such as presence of many genes and to duration of illness, age of onset, family history ..etc.