Immune system gene leads to schizophrenia clue

Excessive synapse pruning linked to protein variant

nerve cells

CUTTING CONNECTIONS  C4 protein (green) is found on human nerve cells growing in a dish (cell bodies shown in blue). The protein may cause people with schizophrenia to lose nerve cell connections, researchers propose. 

Image courtesy of Heather de Rivera (McCarroll lab)

From the tangled web of schizophrenia biology, scientists have pulled out one tantalizing thread.