NCAN and schizophrenia: Recent genetic studies, including GWAS, have reported associations of genetic polymorphisms for genes encoding specific CSPGs, such as neurocan, neuroglycan-C, and PTPRZ1, and molecules involved in the regulation of CSPGs including matrix metalloproteases (Buxbaum et al., 2008; Dow et al., 2011; Ripke and Consortium, 2011; Bespalova et al., 2012; Muhleisen et al., 2012; McGrath et al., 2013; Consortium, 2014; Ripke and Schizophrenia Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics, 2014), suggesting that CSPG abnormalities represent core aspects of the neuropathophysiology of schizophrenia.