Background: Alterations of the γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) system have been implicated in the pathophysiology of major psychoses. Objective: Restriction fragment length polymorphisms associated with the human γ-aminobutyric acid type A (GABAA) β2 and GABAA γ2 subunit genes on chromosome 5q32-q35 were tested to determine whether they confer susceptibility to major psychoses. Methods: Thirty-two schizophrenic fami...
Schizophrenia is a highly heritable condition, as demonstrated in family, twin and adoption studies. Candidate genes from the dopaminergic system have long been hypothesized to be involved in the etiology of this disorder. In the present study, we investigated the genetic association between polymorphisms in the D2 and D3 dopamine receptor (DRD2, DRD3) genes and schizophrenia. We examined 90 trios from Portugal...
Alterations in dopaminergic system have been implicated in the pathophysiology of this disease for many years, and this study was performed to assess the possible involvement of the dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) gene polymorphisms either in the 5prime upstream or in the coding regions, in the etiology of schizophrenia. The approach included an association study with 90 Portuguese trios by doing the analysis of th...
Genetic factors play a major role in the etiology of schizophrenia and disturbances of serotonergic pathways have been implicated in this disorder. The aim of the present study was to examine genetic association between schizophrenia and polymorphisms in the 5-HT1Dalpha (TaqI) and 5-HT1Dbeta (T261G and G861C) autoreceptor genes in ninety trios from Portugal. No association or linkage disequilibrium was obtained...