Potential Areas for Personalized Schizophrenia Treatment

Treatment resistance—Several studies have suggested that serotonin-3 receptor genes are associated with risk of treatment resistance.

Treatment response—Research implicates variants at serotonin 3 A and B subunits in treatment response to clozapine.

Treatment side effects—Some candidate genes have been found for obesity- and metabolic-related traits in nonpsychiatric, nonantipsychotic-treated populations, and for obesity and metabolic syndrome in response to clozapine and olanzapine.

Cognitive deficits—Results from the recent Consortium on Genetics of Schizophrenia study suggest that common cognitive deficits of schizophrenia are associated with different gene variants that could guide treatment choices.

Disability—Studies are in process to examine heritability of everyday living skills focusing on the genetics of cognition.