Psychiatric disorders
In the last several years, our understanding of the biological causes of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder has accelerated dramatically, driven by advances in human genomics. The Broad Institute — primarily through research conducted at the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research — is committed to leveraging advances in our understanding of the human genome to better characterize the molecular basis of psychiatric disease, and to help turn these emerging findings into new treatments that might benefit the hundreds of millions of people around the world suffering from mental illness.
Credit: Heather de Rivera/McCarroll Lab
Broad scientists discovered that mutations in the C4 gene are key drivers in schizophrenia by affecting synaptic pruning. This is the first time a biological mechanism behind the disease has been described. This image shows human neurons (in blue), with the C4 protein (in green) deposited on synapses. The C4 protein tags synapses for pruning by the microglia, the brain’s immune cells; Broad scientists have demonstrated an overactive version of C4 could result in excessive pruning.
