Published today (17:00BST, 03/06/2015) in the journal Neuron, their work presents strong evidence that disruption of a delicate chemical balance in the brain is heavily implicated in the disorder.
In the largest ever study of its kind, the team found that disease-linked mutations disrupt specific sets of genes contributing to excitatory and inhibitory signalling, the balance of which plays a crucial role in healthy brain development and function.
Many factors are known to be important in disease causation and these can include an individual's age, gender, genetic make-up and environmental factors that they have been exposed to, such as infectious agents or chemicals.