Scientists from Cardiff University in Wales have discovered new links between the breakdown in brain cell development and the risk of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders. Genetic risk factors are known to disrupt brain development in a number of these disorders, but little is known about which aspects of this process are affected. This research is the first time that genetic disruption of specific cell processes crucial to brain development has been linked to disease risk in a wide range of psychiatric disorders. The findings were published on January 14, 2022 in the journal Nature Communications. The open-access article is titled “Transcriptional Programs Regulating Neuronal Differentiation Are Disrupted in DLG2 Knockout Human Embryonic Stem Cells and Enriched for Schizophrenia and Related Disorders Risk Variants.”