Schizophrenia risk gets more complex

Three studies find that thousands of genetic variants probably contribute

Large collections of common genetic variants, rather than the harmful actions of just a few key mutations, probably predispose people to schizophrenia, three large genetic studies suggest.

The studies, all published online July 1 in Nature, sifted through mountains of genetic data from patients with schizophrenia and people without the disease looking for spelling differences in the sequence of letters that make up the genome.