Being Born Blind Appears to Somehow Protect People From Getting Schizophrenia

[Judi Lynn]

DAVID NIELD 29 JAN 2019

Since the middle of the last century, researchers have been looking at a curious link - it seems that being born blind protects people from developing schizophrenia. Now, a large scale study has just added more evidence to confirm this is indeed the case.

In particular, cortical blindness – caused by abnormalities in the brain, rather than damage in the eyes – seems to be incompatible with having schizophrenia.

According to the authors of this latest research, no incidents of schizophrenia in cortically blind people have ever been recorded to date.

The researchers analysed data from 467,945 children born in Western Australia between 1980 and 2001. In this sample, 1,870 children (0.4 percent) developed schizophrenia, but none of the 66 children in the sample who were born with cortical blindness ended up getting a schizophrenia diagnosis.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/being-born-blind-appears-to-somehow-protect-people-from-getting-schizophrenia

[RainCaster]

1. The numbers are wrong

If that same 0.4% holds true with the blind group, there would need to be at least 250 in that group. The group was 1/4th of what it needed to be in order to produce a single schizophrenic.