An estimated 25 percent of patients hospitalized for depression or suicide may carry the Wolfram Syndrome (WS) gene, New York Medical College researchers report.

Identification of the gene will enable mental health practitioners to make more precise psychiatric diagnoses and prescribe better treatments, the study authors predict.

Individuals with WS, a neurodegenerative syndrome, characteristically suffer from diabetes mellitus and optic nerve degeneration. They also often report paranoid delusions, progressive dementia, hallucinations, and violent and assaultive behavior, according to the study published in the January issue of- Molecular Psychiatry (Vol. 3, No.1, p. 86?91 ).

The researchers identified individuals with the WS gene after they visited their physicians for diabetes treatment or ophthalmological problems. In the study, the researchers sought to determine if their family members carried the mutant gene and if those family members had experienced psychiatric problems. DNA analysis showed that 10 of the 11 subjects probably carried the WS gene, which was a significantly higher rate than expected, the authors say. The 10 carriers had behavioral difficulties severe enough to require hospitalization, which is strong evidence that this gene predisposes the carrier to psychiatric illness, the authors say.

All subjects suffered from depression, three reported suicide attempts, six suffered from chronic anxiety or panic attacks, seven had periods of racing thoughts and four had been diagnosed with manic depressive illness, the authors say.

?This was a difficult group to work with,? says Michael Swift, MD, who co-authored the study with others. ?They were surly, irritable, hard to find and hard to follow up with.?

Despite their resistance to the study, all subjects wanted to know if they carried the WS gene and were relieved to discover its presence as a possible explanation for their mental problems, he says.

Though they know the approximate location of the gene, the authors hope to locate the exact gene and discover how it works, Swift says. The next research step is to discover similar genes and determine why the mutation manifests itself in psychiatric problems, he says.