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Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have reported many single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with psychiatric disorders, but knowledge is lacking regarding molecular mechanisms. Here we show that risk alleles spanning multiple genes across the 10q24.32 schizophrenia-related locus are associated in the human brain selectively with an increase in the expression of both BLOC-1 related complex subunit 7 (BORCS7) and a previously uncharacterized, human-specific arsenite methyltransferase (AS3MT) isoform (AS3MT^d2d3), which lacks arsenite methyltransferase activity and is more abundant in individuals with schizophrenia than in controls. Conditional-expression analysis suggests that BORCS7 and AS3MT^d2d3 signals are largely independent. GWAS risk SNPs across this region are linked with a variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) polymorphism in the first exon of AS3MT that is …