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The gene for neuregulin 1 (NRG-1), a protein that plays a central role in neurodevelopment, has been studied extensively as a possible susceptibility gene for schizophrenia. These British researchers investigated whether a specific NRG-1 haplotype (one single-nucleotide polymorphism plus two microsatellites) that had previously been found to be associated with schizophrenia is shared by bipolar patients with mood-incongruent psychotic symptoms.
In 529 patients with bipolar I disorder, 62% had a lifetime occurrence of at least one psychotic symptom, and 36% had psychotic symptoms that were mood-incongruent 50% or more of the time. The NRG-1 haplotype was significantly more common in the entire bipolar group than in the group of 1011 controls …