Post-mortem gene expression studies of SCZ cases suggest subtle abnormalities in multiple brain regions including the prefrontal and temporal cortices, hippocampus, and several specific cell types8. More than 50 gene expression studies of SCZ cases and controls have been reported, often of overlapping samples and mostly of modest scale (prior RNA sequencing studies evaluated only 5–31 cases, Supplementary data file 1). Results are often inconsistent and there are few replicated findings. These studies are probably underpowered to detect subtle effects that might be expected to arise as a result of this complex disease and within tightly regulated brain tissue9, among other limitations of existing microarray-based gene expression studies10.
