Scientists have discovered a gene which may help explain the causes of mental illness

The ABCA13 gene is partially inactive in patients with severe psychological conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression. It is hoped that identifying genes which make people more likely to develop psychiatric illness may lead to new treatments being developed. The international team of scientists was led by Edinburgh University. They studied the genes of 2,000 psychiatric patients and compared them with those of 2,000 healthy people. The study suggested that ABCA13 was faulty more frequently in patients with mental illness than in the control group.