The placenta: a key to schizophrenia?

Progress in understanding neuro-developmental disorders is accelerating by many measures. Even in the short time period covered by previous issues of neuroDEVELOPMENTS, the power of DNA and RNA sequencing methods has become increasingly apparent. The many bioinformatic tools employed to assemble sequence information allow us to decompose, reconstruct and project these data structures onto one another. In development—in our case, neural development—these approaches have generated a massive increase in the number of high-quality time series analyses of the genetic and cellular organization of the human brain. The elephant in the room that science has not yet addressed powerfully: We need a deeper understanding of how the genome and environment interact in human behavior. The two papers we focus on here and the comments from our board, all of which discuss the exciting finding that the placenta has something important to teach us about schizophrenia, give us a contemporary perspective on the task ahead.

-Ron McKay, PhD, Chief Editor
Lieber Institute for Brain Development

-Venkata S. Mattay, MD
Managing Editor

-Michele Solis, PhD
Science Writer

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