Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder - Similar Genetics

Doctor Ellen Leibenluft discusses the similarities between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, which have some genetic risk factors in common.

There is some evidence that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, these two illnesses, share some genes of risk. So for example, some of the same genes that have been shown to be abnormal or appear to be abnormal in people with schizophrenia may also abnormal in people with bipolar disorder. We don't know exactly why that is. Of course, both of these illnesses are characterized by psychosis. People with schizophrenia have psychosis, they have hallucinations, they have delusions and people with bipolar disorder can also have psychosis either when they are depressed or when they're manic. One of the things that people are becoming increasingly aware of is the fact that we probably don't inherit risk for schizophrenia per se or bipolar disorder per se. You probably inherit the risk for psychosis, for example. That might explain why these two illnesses, which share some genetic risk, would have some genetic risk factors in common.