This interesting study by Donohoe and colleagues examined the relationship between genetic variation in the DTNBP1 gene and cognition in a sample of 52 individuals with schizophrenia. The authors report a significant association between spatial working memory and a risk haplotype that had previously been identified in their sample.

As noted by the authors, this study adds to a growing literature focused on the genetics of cognition, each contributing to the advancement of our knowledge of the genetic underpinnings of neurocognitive function as it relates to both normal and psychiatric subjects. Like schizophrenia, neurocognition is a highly complex phenotype, within which lie a number of more specific phenotypes, with a shared variance across domains. Our previous work with DTNBP1, which demonstrated an association with the component of neurocognition that represents this shared variance, implies a generalized effect of DTNBP1 on all, or most, measures of neurocognition in healthy subjects and patients with schizophrenia (  Read more

View all comments by Katherine E. Burdick