Genetic variation throughout the folate metabolic pathway influences negative symptom severity in schizophrenia.

Summary: Schizophrenia is often associated with hallucinations, but "negative symptoms"—such as apathy, social withdrawal, and lack of emotion—can be just as debilitating and harder to treat. New research suggests a link between these symptoms, your genes, and Vitamin B9 (folate).

Scientists studied 219 patients and found that those with a specific combination of four genetic variants in the folate pathway had more severe negative symptoms. However, this genetic risk primarily caused problems only when the patients also had low levels of folate in their blood. This is good news because it suggests that for patients with this specific genetic makeup, simple folate supplements might help alleviate these difficult symptoms.