A Progress Report

In keeping with the year-end synopsis focus of this special issue of Psychiatric Clinics of North America, this brief review focusses on key research discoveries and recent reports. Some discoveries advance our understanding of schizophrenia’s causation and others advance treatment approaches. Collectively, this synthesis should also convey to the discerning reader an overall sense of the state of play of translational research and clinical practice for schizophrenia. Although the neurobiology of mental illnesses in general—and in this instance schizophrenia—remains elusive, several recent studies point to some convergence in the genetics of schizophrenia. The collection and use of large collaborative databases have facilitated more detailed genetic inspections in schizophrenia. Two studies are illustrative. The Psychiatric Genomics Consortium conducted a large genomewide association study that found substantial overlap in risk loci between schizophrenia,