Diagnosis of schizophrenia is psychiatric and based on patients’ self-reported experience or behavior. There are positive symptoms, negative symptoms, and cognitive deficits. Evidently, schizophrenia is a complex disease. No wonder current antipsychotics are effective for some, but not for all symptoms (in particular, negative symptoms and cognitive deficits). It would be no surprise if schizophrenia is classified or subclassified into different disorders in future when tools are available.

The beauty of the current study is to take advantage of detailed clinical information of schizophrenia patients and classify them to generate nine factors. Remarkably, a strong association was identified by using the delusion factor as quantitative trait phenotype. The finding itself identifies NRG3 as a candidate gene of "schizophrenia." In addition, it could represent a first step toward subclassification of schizophrenia for better diagnosis and treatment.

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