Researchers identify sex differences in genetic vulnerability to psychotic disorders

A team of researchers from the University of Barcelona and the Centre for Biomedical Research in the Mental Health Network (CIBERSAM) has published a pioneering study that reveals significant findings in the field of genetic psychiatry from the perspective of separate gender analysis. Firstly, the paper confirms the existence of a shared genetic vulnerability between schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders such as bipolar disorder and major depression. In addition, and in an innovative way, the study highlights that this is more important in men than in women with schizophrenia.

This study, published in the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology, was co-led by professors Bárbara Arias and Araceli Rosa, from the Faculty of Biology and the Institute of Biomedicine of the University of Barcelona (IBUB), and CIBERSAM. The first authors of the study are Marina Mitjans (UB-IBUB-CIBERSAM) and Sergi Papiol, also a member of CIBERSAM and researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich (Germany).

In this study, the authors analyzed a sample from CIBERSAM that included 1826 patients with psychosis and 1372 control patients. The aim was to analyze how polygenic scores (PGS) for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder contribute to the risk of developing psychotic disorders, and how these associations differ between men and women.

“Our results reinforce the hypothesis that there are common genetic factors that contribute to the risk of developing these disorders, suggesting the existence of a shared biological basis between them”, says Marina Mitjans, first author of the study and also a member of the UB’s Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics and the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu de Barcelona (HSJD).

In addition, the results of this study indicate that there are differences between men and women in genetic vulnerability to psychotic disorders, which could have important implications for understanding the sex differences observed in prevalence, clinical presentation and response to treatment. “Our study underlines the importance of considering sex differences in genetic studies to develop more personalized strategies in prevention, diagnosis and treatment in clinical practice”, says Bárbara Arias, member of the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences of the UB and co-principal investigator of the G08 group of CIBERSAM.
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The principal researchers of the study agree that “this study is an example of the power of interdisciplinary collaboration between CIBERSAM groups to advance the understanding of complex mental disorders”.