Taken together these studies suggest that some genes are shared between schizophrenia and autism, according to Sebat and colleagues. "In some ways, we might consider the two disorders to be at opposite ends of the same neurobiological process" says Shane McCarthy, Ph.D., the lead author of the study, "and this process is influenced by the copy number of genes on chromosome 16." One hypothesis is that the loss of 16p11.2 leads to the deprivation of key genes involved in brain development, while an extra copy of this region might have the opposite effect.
A correlation between 16p11.2 mutations and head size
It is not known what biological processes are affected by the copy number of 16p11.2, Sebat notes. He believes, however, that the team may have stumbled on to an important clue. By studying the clinical records of patients, they discovered that patients with deletions of the region differ significantly in head size from those with duplications of the same region. Sebat reports, "Head circumference of patients with the deletion were larger than average by more than one standard deviation. Head circumference was slightly below average in patients with the duplication." These findings, he notes, are consistent with some previous studies that have observed a trend towards larger brain size in autism and an opposite trend toward smaller brain size in schizophrenia.
Source: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory