A CONTINUUM OF PSYCHOSIS, ONE HUMAN GENE, AND NOT MUCH ELSE - THE CASE FOR HOMOGENEITY

The contention of this paper is that psychoses are not a collection of separate and unrelated diseases, but a set of diverse expressions of a single underlying entity. It will be argued that there is a basic homogeneity of pathogenesis, that there are not multiple predisposing genes but a single gene that is associated with significant diversity. Therefore the problem is a unitary one. The challenge is to identify the nature and function of the gene. It will be argued that the gene is that by which homo sapiens has separated from other primate species, and that the diversity arises from selective pressures which continue to act on this specifically human gene.