Still it is not known, what causes schizophrenia, which, according to WHO, affects about 24 million people worldwide. Staff at Cardiff University in the UK has discovered new genetic mutations that help to understand the causes of the disorder, says Medical News Today.

Previous research has shown that the cause of schizophrenia may be genes. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about 1% of the population suffers from schizophrenia.The disease is more frequent in parents, sisters, brothers (second degree of kinship) of patients with schizophrenia, that in relatives of the third degree of kinship.

In the new study (the largest of its kind), researchers analyzed DNA regions from blood samples of 623 patients with schizophrenia and their parents.As a result, they discovered mutations de novo (newly acquired mutations). These are genetic changes, that are present in schizophrenics but not their parents. They found that these mutations play a role in the "start" of schizophrenia. Furthermore, mutations may destroy the set of proteins in the brain, which are associated with power connections between nerve cells, brain development, learning, memory and cognitive abilities.