Schizophrenia

Approximately 3.5 million people are living with schizophrenia in the U.S.

Watching a loved one go through their first psychotic episode can be a life-altering, terrifying experience. Schizophrenia robs young people of their chance at a life of independence, leading to decades of challenges for the patient, their family, and friends.

Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disorder triggered by genetic, epigenetic, developmental, and environmental factors that interfere with brain development and function. Characterized by diverse psychopathology, schizophrenia’s core features are delusions and hallucinations, impaired motivation, social withdrawal, and cognitive impairment (poor performance over a wide range of cognitive functions).

Discovering more about this disease, its genetic origins, and environmental triggers could help doctors diagnose and treat the condition. But preventing the devastating illness in the first place is the ultimate goal of schizophrenia research.

Around 80–90% of people with schizophrenia are unemployed

Less than 50% receive appropriate care

Schizophrenia’s cause remains a mystery, but the Lieber Institute is researching hundreds of slight genetic differences that increase the risk for developing this brain disease and the role that early development, including placental health, plays in the later development of schizophrenia.

Key Publications

Electrophysiological measures from human iPSC-derived neurons are associated with schizophrenia clinical status and predict individual cognitive performance

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022

Regional Heterogeneity in Gene Expression, Regulation, and Coherence in the Frontal Cortex and Hippocampus across Development and Schizophrenia  

Neuron, 2019

Profiling gene expression in the human dentate gyrus granule cell layer reveals insights into schizophrenia and its genetic risk.

Nature neuroscience, 2020

Genetic insights into the neurodevelopmental origins of schizophrenia.

Nature reviews neuroscience, 2017