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Genotype-environment interactions and schizophrenia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

P. Tienari
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Extract

Nature and nurture are not separate. Instead it is important to investigate the interplay between genes and environment and how they influence on another. To an important degree, genetic effects on behavior come about because they either influence the extent to which the individual is likely to be exposed to individual differences in environmental risk or they affect how susceptible the individual is to environmental adversities.

The current inability to explain or predict which genetically predisposed individuals will finally become schizophrenic has forced us to confront our ignorance of the precise mechanism and mode of the transmission of this disorder. Zubin's proposal to view the schizophrenic as a vulnerable individual who develops a temporary episode only under certain provocations can help place the controversy in proper perspective. Vulnerability (predisposition, diathesis) to schizophrenia can be defined as the individual's characteristic treshold beyond which stressful events produce decompensation manifest in the clinically diagnosable symptom picture.

Keywords

Adoption studygene-environment interactionhigh-risk studyschizophrenia
Type
Research Article
Information
Acta Neuropsychiatrica , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 1999 , pp. 48 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Scandinavian College of Neuropsychopharmacology 1999

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