Project Overview

Schizophrenia is a common and serious mental illness characterized by psychotic symptoms, social withdrawal and functional disabilities that are generally lifelong. Response to treatment with antipsychotics is variable and the manifestation of common side effects, including serious motor symptoms, is unpredictable. There is growing interest in the clinical and predictive value of using pharmacogenetic testing to determine a patient’s response to antipsychotic drugs. For this project, Dr. Butcher  will investigate the antipsychotic treatment response and functional and structural brain phenotypes in adults with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11.2DS), the only confirmed molecular genetic subtype of schizophrenia.