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Genetic predisposition to schizophrenia associated with increased use of cannabis

Molecular Psychiatry volume 19, pages 1201–1204 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Cannabis is the most commonly used illicit drug worldwide. With debate surrounding the legalization and control of use, investigating its health risks has become a pressing area of research. One established association is that between cannabis use and schizophrenia, a debilitating psychiatric disorder affecting ~1% of the population over their lifetime. Although considerable evidence implicates cannabis use as a component cause of schizophrenia, it remains unclear whether this is entirely due to cannabis directly raising risk of psychosis, or whether the same genes that increases psychosis risk may also increase risk of cannabis use. In a sample of 2082 healthy individuals, we show an association between an individual’s burden of schizophrenia risk alleles and use of cannabis. This was significant both for comparing those who have ever versus never used cannabis (P=2.6 × 10−4), and for quantity of use within users (P=3.0 × 10−3). Although directly predicting only a small amount of the variance in cannabis use, these findings suggest that part of the association between schizophrenia and cannabis is due to a shared genetic aetiology. This form of gene–environment correlation is an important consideration when calculating the impact of environmental risk factors, including cannabis use.

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Acknowledgements

Robert Power was funded by the Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health. This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grants AA07535, AA0758O, AA07728, AA10249, AA13320, AA13321, AA14041, AA11998, AA17688, DA012854, DA018267, DA018660, DA23668 and DA019951; by Grants from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (241944, 339462, 389927, 389875, 389891, 389892, 389938, 442915, 442981, 496739, 552485, 552498, 6136022, 628911 and 1047956); by Grants from the Australian Research Council (A7960034, A79906588, A79801419, DP0770096, DP0212016 and DP0343921); and by the 5th Framework Programme (FP-5) GenomEUtwin Project (QLG2-CT-2002-01254). This research was further supported by the Centre for Research Excellence on Suicide Prevention (CRESP—Australia). KJHV is supported by the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development, ZonMW 31160212. We thank Richard Parker, Soad Hancock, Judith Moir, Sally Rodda, Pieta-Maree Shertock, Heather Park, Jill Wood, Pam Barton, Fran Husband, Adele Somerville, Ann Eldridge, Marlene Grace, Kerrie McAloney, Lisa Bowdler, Alexandre Todorov, Steven Crooks, David Smyth, Harry Beeby and Daniel Park. Finally, we thank the twins and their families for their participation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MRC Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, UK,

    R A Power & M Zuhair

  2. Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia,

    R A Power & N R Wray

  3. Department of Developmental Psychology and EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    K J H Verweij

  4. QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, QLD, Australia,

    G W Montgomery, A K Henders, S E Medland & N G Martin

  5. Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA,

    A C Heath & P A F Madden

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Power, R., Verweij, K., Zuhair, M. et al. Genetic predisposition to schizophrenia associated with increased use of cannabis. Mol Psychiatry 19, 1201–1204 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2014.51

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