Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T11:53:35.805Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Genetic Theorizing and Schizophrenia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Irving I. Gottesman  and
James Shields
Irving I. Gottesman
Affiliation:
Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry and Genetics Graduate Faculty, Elliott Hall, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn. 55455, U.S.A.
James Shields
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London, SE5 8 AF
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Schizophrenia research embodies a microcosm of the vexing problems that confront the behavioural sciences, but particularly those disciplines concerned with psychopathology. We are ignorant of the means to prevent schizophrenia because we continue to be ignorant about its aetiology. Despite recognizable descriptions of the syndrome in ancient Hindu treatises (c. 1400 b.c.) and 76 years after its designation as dementia praecox by Kraepelin (1896), we are still grappling with such basic issues as when and how to diagnose Eugen Bleuler's (1911) ‘group of schizophrenias' (cf. Katz, Cole, and Barton, 1968). Despite brilliant advances in molecular biology, neurochemistry, and brain-behaviour phenomena generally, we cannot pinpoint any necessary biological defect in all or most schizophrenics. Despite selfless expenditures of time and energy by gifted psychotherapists and sophisticated social science efforts, we cannot specify any necessary life experience, either at the level of the family or of a culture, common to all or most schizophrenics. While there is obvious merit in casting the problem in an interactionist framework, aetiology still defies an easy solution because we must then isolate what element(s) in the genotype interact with what element(s) in the internal and/or external environment (as well as when and how) to produce the phenotype we recognize as a schizophrenic one.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 122 , Issue 566 , January 1973 , pp. 15 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1973 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, G., Harvald, B., and Shields, J. (1967). ‘Measures of twin concordance.’ Acta Genetica et Statistica Medica (Basel), 17, 475–81.Google ScholarPubMed
Allen, M. G., Cohen, S., and Pollin, W. (1972). ‘Schizophrenia in veteran twins: a diagnostic review.’ American Journal of Psychiatry, 128, 939–45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anderson, V. E. (1972). ‘Genetic hypotheses in schizophrenia’, in Genetic Factors in ‘Schizophrenia’ (ed. Kaplan). Springfield, Ill. Google Scholar
Bleuler, E. (1911). Dementia Praecox or the Group of Schizophrenias. Translated by Zinkin, Joseph. New York, 1950.Google Scholar
Bleuler, M. (1968). ‘A 23-year longitudinal study of 208 schizophrenics and impressions in regard to the nature of schizophrenia’, in The Transmission of Schizophrenia (eds. Rosenthal and Kety). Oxford.Google Scholar
Carter, C. O. (1965). ‘The inheritance of common congenital malformations’, in Progress in Medical Genetics, vol. 4 (eds. Steinberg and Bearn). New York.Google Scholar
Carter, C. O. (1969). ‘Genetics of common disorders.’ British Medical Bulletin, 25, 52–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carter, M., and Watts, C. A. H. (1971). ‘Possible biological advantages among schizophrenics' relatives.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 118, 453–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davison, K., and Bagley, C. R. (1969). ‘Schizophrenia-like psychoses associated with organic disorders of the central nervous system: a review of the literature’, in Current Problems in Neuropsychiatry (ed. Herrington). Ashford, Kent. (British Journal of Psychiatry Special Publication no. 4.) Google Scholar
Dewey, W. J., Barrai, I. Morton, N. E., and Mi, M. P. (1965). ‘Recessive genes in severe mental defect.’ American Journal of Human Genetics, 17, 237–56.Google ScholarPubMed
Dobzhansky, T. (1968). ‘On some fundamental concepts of Darwinian biology’, in Evolutionary Biology, vol. 2 (eds. Hecht Dobzhansky, and Steere). New York.Google Scholar
Edwards, J. H. (1969). ‘Familial predisposition in man.’ British Medical Bulletin, 25, 58–64.Google Scholar
Elston, R. C., and Campbell, M. A. (1970). ‘Schizophrenia: evidence for the major gene hypothesis.’ Behavior Genetics, 1, 3–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Erlenmeyer-Kimling, L., and Paradowski, W. (1966). ‘Selection and schizophrenia.’ American Naturalist, 100, 651–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Falconer, D. S. (1965). ‘The inheritance of liability to certain diseases, estimated from the incidence among relatives.’ Annals of Human Genetics, 29, 51–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Falconer, D. S. (1967). ‘The inheritance of liability to diseases with variable age of onset, with particular reference to diabetes mellitus.’ Annals of Human Genetics, 31, 1–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fischer, M., Harvald, B., and Hauge, M. (1969). ‘A Danish twin study of schizophrenia.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 115, 981–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fuller, J. L., and Collins, R. L. (1970). ‘Genetics of audiogenic seizures in mice: a parable for psychiatrists.’ Seminars in Psychiatry, 2, 75–88.Google ScholarPubMed
Goldberg, E. M., and Morrison, S. L. (1963). ‘Schizophrenia and social class.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 109, 785–802.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gottesman, I. I., and Heston, L. L. (1972, in press). ‘Human behavioral adaptations—speculations on their genesis’, in Genetic Endowment and Environment in the Determination of Behavior (eds. Ehrman and Omenn). New York.Google Scholar
Goldberg, E. M., and Morrison, S. L. and Shields, J. (1966). ‘Schizophrenia in twins: 16 years' consecutive admissions to a psychiatric clinic’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 112, 809–18.Google Scholar
Shields, J. (1967). ‘A polygenic theory of schizophrenia.’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 58, 199–205.Google Scholar
Shields, J. (1972). Schizophrenia and Genetics—a Twin Study Vantage Point. New York.Google Scholar
Harris, H. (1970). The Principles of Human Biochemical Genetics. Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Heston, L. L. (1966). ‘Psychiatric disorders in foster home reared children of schizophrenic mothers.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 112, 819–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heston, L. L. (1970). ‘The genetics of schizophrenic and schizoid disease.’ Science, 167, 249–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huxley, J., Mayr, E., Osmond, H., and Hoffer, A. (1964). ‘Schizophrenia as a genetic morphism.’ Nature (London), 204, 220–1.Google Scholar
John, B., and Lewis, K. R. (1966). ‘Chromosome variability and geographic distribution in insects.’ Science, 152, 711–21.Google ScholarPubMed
Katz, M. M., Cole, J. O., and Barton, W. E., (eds.) (1968). The Role and Methodology of Classification in Psychiatry and Psychopathology. Public Health Service Publication No. 1584. Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Kay, D. W., and Roth, M. (1961). ‘Environmental and hereditary factors in the schizophrenias of old age (‘late paraphrenia’) and their bearing on the general problem of causation in schizophrenia. Journal of Mental Science, 107, 649–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kety, S. S., Rosenthal, D., Wender, P. H., and Schulsinger, F. (1968). ‘The types and prevalence of mental illness in the biological and adoptive families of adopted schizophrenics’, in The Transmission of Schizophrenia (eds. Rosenthal and Kety). Oxford.Google Scholar
Kraepelin, E. (1896). Psychiatrie, 5th ed. Leipzig.Google Scholar
Krinolen, E. (1967). Heredity and Environment in the Functional Psychoses. London.Google Scholar
Lerner, I. M. (1958). The Genetic Basis of Selection. New York.Google Scholar
Levine, S., and Scotch, N. A., (eds.) (1970). Social Stress. Chicago.Google Scholar
Lewonttn, R. C. (1967). ‘An estimate of average heterozygosity in man.’ American Journal of Human Genetics, 19, 681–5.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. (1964). ‘From molecules to organic diversity.’ Federation Proceedings, Federation Pof American Societies for Experimental Biology, 23, 1231–5.Google ScholarPubMed
Mednick, S. A., Mura, E., Schulsinger, F., and Mednick, B. (1971). ‘Perinatal conditions and infant development in children with schizophrenic parents’, in Differential Reproduction in Individuals with Mental and Physical Disorders (eds. Gottesman and Erlenmeyer-Kimling). Social Biology , 18 (Suppl.).Google Scholar
Meehl, P. E. (1962). ‘Schizotaxia, schizotypy, schizophrenia.’ American Psychologist, 17, 827–38.Google Scholar
Meehl, P. E. (1973). ‘MAXCOV-HITMAX: a taxonomic search method for loose genetic syndromes’, in Meehl, P. E., Psychodiagnosis: Selected Papers. Minneapolis. In press.Google Scholar
Morton, N. E., Yee, S., Elston, R. C., and Lew, R. (1970). ‘Discontinuity and quasi-continuity: alternative hypotheses of multifactorial inheritance.’ Clinical Genetics, 1, 81–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ødegaard, Ø. (1972). ‘The multifactorial theory of inheritance in predisposition to schizophrenia’, in Genetic Factors in ‘Schizophrenia’ (ed. Kaplan). Springfield, Ill. Google Scholar
Penrose, L. S. (1938). ‘Genetic linkage in graded human characters.’ Annals of Human Genetics, 8, 233–7.Google Scholar
Robertson, A. (1967). ‘Animal breeding’, in Annual Review of Genetics (eds. Sandler Rand Stent Roman). Palo Alto, California.Google Scholar
Rosenthal, D., and colleagues, (1963). The Gerwin Quadruplets. New York.Google Scholar
Scharfetter, C. (1970). ‘On the hereditary aspects of symbiotic psychoses—a contribution towards the understanding of the schizophrenia-like psychoses.’ Psychiatria Clinica (Basel), 3, 145–52.Google Scholar
Selye, H. (1956). The Stress of Life. New York.Google Scholar
Simpson, G. G. (1964). This View of Life. New York.Google Scholar
Slater, E. (1958). ‘The monogenic theory of schizophrenia.’ Acta Genetica et Statistica Medica (Basel), 8, 50–6.Google Scholar
Slater, E. (1968). ‘A review of earlier evidence on genetic factors in schizophrenia’, in The Transmission of Schizophrenia (eds. Rosenthal and Kety). Oxford.Google Scholar
Slater, E., Beard, A. W., and Glithero, E. (1963). ‘The schizophrenia-like psychoses of epilepsy.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 109, 95–150.Google Scholar
Beard, A. W., and Glithero, E. and Cowie, V. A. (1971). The Genetics of Mental Disorders. London.Google Scholar
Cowie, V. A., Hare, E. H., and Price, J. S. (1971). ‘Marriage and fertility of psychiatric patients compared with national data’, in Differential Reproduction in Individuals with Mental and Physical Disorders (eds. Gottesman and Erlenmeyer-Kimling). Social Biology , 18 (Suppl.).Google Scholar
Smith, G. (1970). ‘Heritability of liability and concordance in monozygous twins.’ Annals of Human Genetics, 34, 85–91.Google Scholar
Smith, G. (1971). ‘Recurrence risks for multifactorial inherittance.’ American Journal of Human Genetics, 23, 578–88.Google Scholar
Thoday, J. M. (1961). ‘Location of polygenes.’ Nature (London), 191, 368–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thoday, J. M. (1967). ‘New insights into continuous variation’, in Proceedings of the Third International Congress of Human Genetics (eds. Crow and Neel). Baltimore.Google Scholar
Tienari, P. (1971). ‘Schizophrenia and monozygotic twins.’ Psychiatria Fennica 1971, 97–104.Google Scholar
Turner, R. J., and Waoenfeld, M. O. (1967). ‘Occupational mobility and schizophrenia: an assessment of the social causation and social selection hypotheses.’ American Sociological Review, 32, 104–13.Google Scholar
Woolf, C. M. (1971). ‘Congenital cleft lip: a genetic study of 496 propositi.’ Journal of Medical Genetics, 8, 65–83.Google Scholar
Wright, S. (1934a). ‘An analysis of variability in number of digits in an inbred strain of guinea pigs.’ Genetics, 19, 506–36Google Scholar
Wright, S. (1934b). ‘The results of crosses between inbred strains of guinea pigs, differing in number of digits.’ Genetics, 19, 537–51.Google Scholar
Wright, S. (1963). ‘Genetic interaction’, in Methodology in Mammalian Genetics (ed. Burdette). San Francisco.Google Scholar
Wynne-Davtes, R. (1970). ‘A family study of neonatal and late-diagnosis congenital dislocation of the hip.’ Journal of Medical Genetics, 7, 315–33.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.