Failure to find a chromosome 18 pericentric linkage in families with schizophrenia

A recent report of a possible linkage of bipolar affective disorder to a pericentric region of chromosome 18 initiated the present investigation to search for a similar linkage in 32 families with schizophrenia, The results of a study using 5 markers mapped to this region show negative lod scores and only weak evidence for any Linkage by nonparametric analyses, If the previously reported finding is a true positive linkage for bipolar disorder, then either it is unlikely to be related to the genetics of schizophrenia, or the proportion of families linked to this region is small. (C) 1995 Wiley-Liss, Inc.