¹Department of Clinical Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Correspondence: Professor Dr DE Dietrich, Department of Clinical Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Str. 1, Lower Saxony, D-30625, Hannover, Germany. E-mail: dietrich.detlef@mh-hannover.de

Received 8 December 2006; Revised 29 June 2007; Accepted 16 August 2007; Published online 9 October 2007.

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a serious and disabling mental disorder with symptoms such as auditory hallucinations, disordered thinking and delusions, avolition, anhedonia, blunted affect and apathy. In this review article we seek to present the current scientific findings from linkage studies and susceptible genes and the pathophysiology of white matter in schizophrenia. The article has been reviewed in two parts. The first part deals with the linkage studies and susceptible genes in schizophrenia in order to have a clear-cut picture of the involvement of chromosomes and their genes in schizophrenia. The genetic linkage results seem to be replicated in some cases but in others are not. From these results, we cannot draw a fine map to a single locus or gene, leading to the conclusion that schizophrenia is not caused by a single factor/gene. In the second part of the article we present the oligodendrocyte-related genes that are associated with schizophrenia, as we hypothesize a potential role of oligodendrocyte-related genes in the pathology of the disorder.