New research has found that adults who develop schizophrenia may have had the condition wired into their brain structure from birth.

A study conducted by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York revealed that 108 genes may be implicated in the development of the condition, which sees sufferers experience delusions and hallucinations.

Schizophrenia has long been the subject of a nature-versus-nurture debate amongst scientists, but Mount Sinai’s research, which examined skin cells from 14 people with schizophrenia and reprogrammed them into stem and nerve cells, suggests that up to 108 genes could be responsible for the development of the condition.

Mount Sinai discovered that, on average, ‘schizophrenic’ nerve cells had lower levels of one specific signalling molecule in comparison with cells taken from non-sufferers.

The molecule, dubbed miR-9, has previously been found to change the activity of certain genes and play an important role in the way neurons are developed in the foetus.

In their study, Mount Sinai realised that miR-9 might also affect how neurons migrate from where they form, next to the foetal brain’s central cavities, out to their final home in the brain’s outer layers.

The team found that the ‘schizophrenic’ nerve cells could not migrate as far in a dish as ‘non-schizophrenic’ cells could – a discrepancy which disappeared altogether when levels of miR-9 were artificially restored.

Mount Sinai’s study concluded that the signalling molecule acts as a ‘master switch’ which appears to control the activity of many genes affecting migration.