The genetics of cognitive impairment in schizophrenia: a phenomic perspective

Cognitive impairments are central to schizophrenia and could mark underlying biological dysfunction but efforts to detect genetic associations for schizophrenia or cognitive phenotypes have been disappointing. Phenomics strategies emphasizing simultaneous study of multiple phenotypes across biological scales might help, particularly if the high heritabilities of schizophrenia and cognitive impairments are due to large numbers of genetic variants with small effect. Convergent evidence is reviewed, and a new collaborative knowledgebase - CogGene - is introduced to share data about genetic associations with cognitive phenotypes, and enable users to meta-analyze results interactively. CogGene data demonstrate the need for larger studies with broader representation of cognitive phenotypes. Given that meta-analyses will probably be necessary to detect the small association signals linking the genome and cognitive phenotypes, CogGene or similar applications will be needed to enable collaborative knowledge aggregation and specify true effects.