New Delhi: A landmark study published last year found that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may share 70 per cent of their genetic roots.
Instead of finding separate genetic signatures for major mental health conditions, researchers studied five genetic clusters that accounted for most inherited risk across the disorders.
The study analysed genetic data from more than 1 million people with at least one of the 14 psychiatric disorders. It also looked at almost 5 million people without those diagnoses.
Titled ‘Mapping the genetic landscape across 14 psychiatric disorders’, the paper was published in Nature on 10 December 2025. It was led by Andrew D Grotzinger from the University of Colorado Boulder, United States.
‘70% genetic overlap’
The researchers found that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder showed surprisingly few genetic regions that are unique to either disorder, and formed a shared ‘schizophrenia-bipolar’ genetic factor.
“About 70% of the genetic signal associated with schizophrenia was also associated with bipolar disorder,” stated Science Sphere in a report based on the paper.
The study also found that this shared genetic signal was enriched in genes active in excitatory neurons. These are the brain cells that help in communication across neural circuits.
In terms of other conditions clustered together, the study found that while autism and ADHD belonged to one broader neurodevelopmental cluster, depression, anxiety, and PTSD shared the same genetic pattern.
The fact remains that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are not the same condition. While the symptoms of schizophrenia include delusions, hallucinations, and disorganised speech, those of bipolar disorder include extreme shifts in mood and energy. Genetics is only a part of the illnesses.
The study suggests that even if the psychiatric disorders may look different clinically, they may arise from overlapping biological pathways.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
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