The schizophrenias (plural)

A micropost if you will, to draw your attention to the paper by Javier Arnedo and colleagues [1] mentioning the concept of 'the schizophrenias' (plural). Some media coverage of this paper can be found here and here. The crux of the paper is that although currently unified by a diagnostic label, schizophrenia seems to be comprised of various conditions: "caused by a moderate number of separate genotypic networks associated with several distinct clinical syndromes".

"... dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!"

I'm going to say little else about this findings aside from stressing how (a) this re-conceptualisation of schizophrenia into a more plural condition is not a million miles away from moves in other areas of psychiatry (see here) and (b) the reliance on genetic mutation (SNPs) in the paper whilst interesting, perhaps overlooks other non-structural genomic factors potentially implicated in cases of the schizophrenias (see here). That also there may be some 'common ground' between the schizophrenias and other conditions (see here) might also be important for this growing tide of psychiatric plurality.

Music to close. Mr Blue Sky (live).

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[1] Arnedo J. et al. Uncovering the Hidden Risk Architecture of the Schizophrenias: Confirmation in Three Independent Genome-Wide Association Studies. Am J Psychiatry. 2014. September 15.

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Javier Arnedo, Dragan M. Svrakic, Coral del Val, Rocío Romero-Zaliz, Helena Hernández-Cuervo, Molecular Genetics of Schizophrenia Consortium, Ayman H. Fanous, Michele T. Pato, Carlos N. Pato, Gabriel A. de Erausquin, C. Robert Cloninger, & Igor Zwir (2014). Uncovering the Hidden Risk Architecture of the Schizophrenias: Confirmation in Three Independent Genome-Wide Association Studies The American Journal of Psychiatry : doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2014.14040435