Gene evolution and schizophrenia – these are perhaps two things that apparently seems to run in parallel to each other. But, to your surprise, even the thought of which disease sends a chill down the spine with all its debilitating disorder processes, actually may provide developmental advantages i.e ‘evolution’ -a genetic paradox!
Roughly 1 percent of the U.S. population suffers from Schizophrenia — the psychotic disorder marked by hallucinations, multiple personalities and cognitive disorganization.
And, many of the afflicted ones are less likely to pass a genetic profile linked to Schizophrenia onto their offspring. It is only recently, a study concluded that several gene variants linked to the debilitating disease surprisingly were actually positively selected.
To add to, they remained largely unchanged over a long period of time – revealing their some advantage in the evolutionary process.
Explaining the genetic paradox, Steve Dorus, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Bath in England said,
Because it’s a such a complex genetic trait … you actually expect there to be some variability from population to population, in terms of what genes are playing a role in the disorder.
Thus, schizophrenia may have several negative debilitating impacts considered individually, but together it thus might have positive effect!
This finding opens up horizons into new treatments for the mysterious and the debilitating disorder.
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