Читать книгу Abnormal Psychology - William J. Ray - Страница 136

Traditional genetics studies have sought to determine which aspects of a person’s behavior can be attributed to genetic factors and which can be said to be related to environmental factors. Early research sought to find the single gene or genes involved in psychological disorders such as schizophrenia. However, with continued progress in understanding the approximately 20,000 genes of humans and the role of epigenetic factors in turning genes on and off, the picture has become much more complicated than previously thought.

incidence: the number of new cases of a disorder that develop during a certain period of time

risk: related to incidence, the likelihood that someone in a specific population will develop a particular disorder in a given time period

This has led scientists to search for endophenotypes (see Chapter 2), which lie between the genotype and the phenotype. For example, when we think about schizophrenia, we most often think in terms of the phenotypes including hearing voices and having delusions. However, endophenotypes involving cognitive and memory problems are an important part of schizophrenia (Barch & Ceaser, 2012), and are found in both individuals with schizophrenia and, often in nonclinical manifestations, in their first-degree relatives. Both cognitive and emotional-related endophenotypes are seen in other disorders.