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| Topic: Schizophrenia Could Be Caused By Faulty Signaling In Brain | |
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Edited by
Bushidobillyclub
on
Fri 03/06/09 05:21 AM
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090303082811.htm
Schizophrenia Could Be Caused By Faulty Signaling In Brain ScienceDaily (Mar. 5, 2009) — Schizophrenia could be caused by faulty signalling in the brain, according to new research published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. In the biggest study of its kind, scientists looking in detail at brain samples donated by people with the condition have identified 49 genes that work differently in the brains of schizophrenia patients compared to controls. Many of these genes are involved in controlling cell-to-cell signalling in the brain. The study, which was carried out by researchers at Imperial College London and GlaxoSmithKline, supports the theory that abnormalities in the way in which cells 'talk' to each other are involved in the disease. Schizophrenia is thought to affect around one in 100 people. Symptoms vary but can include hallucinations, lack of motivation and impaired social functioning. The disorder has little physical effect on the brain and its causes are largely unknown. Some scientists believe that schizophrenia could be caused by the brain producing too much dopamine, partly because drugs that block dopamine action provide an effective treatment for the condition. Another theory is that the coat surrounding nerve cells, which is made of myelin, is damaged in people with schizophrenia. However, the new study found that the genes for dopamine and for myelin were not acting any differently in schizophrenia patients compared with controls. Professor Jackie de Belleroche, the corresponding author of the paper from Imperial College London said: "The first step towards better treatments for schizophrenia is to really understand what is going on, to find out what genes are involved and what they are doing. Our new study has narrowed the search for potential targets for treatment." As well as pointing towards signalling as the cause of schizophrenia, the new findings could also lead to new ways of diagnosing the condition. At the moment, patients are diagnosed on the basis of their behaviour. "Most patients are diagnosed as teenagers or in their early 20s, but if they could be diagnosed earlier, they could be treated more effectively and they could have a better quality of life. To have the possibility of transforming someone's life early on instead of having to take drugs indefinitely would be wonderful," added Professor de Belleroche. The researchers reached their conclusions after analysing brain tissue from 23 controls and 28 schizophrenia patients, selected from brains donated by UK patients being treated for schizophrenia and comparing the data to an equivalent study in the USA. The changes described in this study were common to both studies. This is the biggest cohort of schizophrenia patients used for this type of study to date. This is part of a larger study looking at proteins and DNA as well as mRNA in the samples, which were taken from two brain regions associated with schizophrenia: the frontal cortical area and the temporal cortex. mRNA are copies of small sections of our DNA that cells use to build proteins. Unlike DNA, mRNA varies in different parts of the body, where different proteins are needed. The research was possible due to a successful collaboration between Imperial College and GlaxoSmithKline. Journal reference: 1. Maycox et al. Analysis of gene expression in two large schizophrenia cohorts identifies multiple changes associated with nerve terminal function. Molecular Psychiatry, March 3, 2009; DOI: 10.1038/mp.2009.18 |
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A beautiful mind is what comes to mind when reading this article.
Just imagine if he didn't suffer this sickness, would he have discovered more or less in his mathematic genius? |
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Mama said if god wanted everybody to be the same, he woulda put braces on everybody's legs...
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Interesting article, Bushidobillyclub.
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A beautiful mind is what comes to mind when reading this article. Just imagine if he didn't suffer this sickness, would he have discovered more or less in his mathematic genius? I've yet to meet a dumb mentally ill person. |
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I have read two books on Schizophrenia in the last year: 1. Dr. MacKenzie, who I like very much posts that it is due to infantile PTSD and 2. some goof who thinks its due to being transexu@l. There has been no medical evidence of any biological causal relationship to Schizophrenia.
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I have read two books on Schizophrenia in the last year: 1. Dr. MacKenzie, who I like very much posts that it is due to infantile PTSD and 2. some goof who thinks its due to being transexu@l. There has been no medical evidence of any biological causal relationship to Schizophrenia. I've had many clients with Schizophrenia. I disagree with the infantile PTSD theory. That reminds me of the old days - it's the parents fault. |
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I have read two books on Schizophrenia in the last year: 1. Dr. MacKenzie, who I like very much posts that it is due to infantile PTSD and 2. some goof who thinks its due to being transexu@l. There has been no medical evidence of any biological causal relationship to Schizophrenia. Also look how few people where in this study done above, its one of the most significant breakthroughs for understanding such a causal relationship and yet it was a study with under 30 test cases. We are in our infancy of brain research. As new modalities come online we will start to pull back the veil! Jeremy, |
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I heard that the problem can sometimes be viewed as a mental time problem. I guess people with schizophrenia have a different sense of timing, which could be why they often claim that they weren't the ones involved in some act. In their mind, the timing they experience doesn't line up with the events that the other people are telling them about themselves. I think that this plays a normal role in most people, like when they get pumped for a weekend or trip next year and then it gets canceled. They were already feeling the joy that would come at that time, and that the time will not arrive irrates the sense of continuality that they set up mentally.
On other notes, I often think that the phrase, "it's all in the timing," has more physical sense than is apparent. With this mental illness, perhaps the normal is characterised by people getting the timing right. When talking about genes, it was one of the great discoveries that birds with different shaped beaks did, indeed, have the same genes for that beak. The difference between the two types of birds was the time that the beak was programmed to grow. Or take the human fetus, it goes through a succession of periods where it resembles a fish or other animals, and seems to do 4.4 billion years in a nine-month jiffy. If a fetus was birthed early or somehow apparent at any of these intermediate stages in time, a monster would be born, as I think must be how people before genitics knowledge would have interpreted it. Going into more modern times, people are still sometimes born with tails and the like, and a study of cancer by a physicist brought this striking conclusion, namely that it is an uncurable disease that is simply when the genes of a human try to revert to how they functioned early in evolution. It's simply progress working backwards. So genes could be tied to a time function moreso than we currently know. I often wonder if the laws of nature act like this, that such and such a body is heavier or not becasue it represents so much time, or more or less of a tug. Maybe medicine is the way to go if they really get genes pinned down, but I'd hate to see more unseen consequences from drugs. Still, the diagnostics tools will be quite helpful for many people, and that is an advance. |
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