Tag Archives: neurology

An Origin of Schizophrenia Revealed

Posted on March 4, 2013 by | 5 comments

 

Comparing the prevalence of Schizophrenia with other diseases. From Schizophrenia.com.

Schizophrenia is a mental illness that is characterized by delusions and hallucinations. Because the symptoms affect the cognitive and social functions of an individual, and the prevalence of schizophrenia is high, psychiatrists and psychologists are doing researches to find origins of this illness in order to develop a better treatment for this illness. A recent stem cell research at University at Buffalo revealed that schizophrenia is induced by defects in an important genomic pathway in a stem cell. These defects in the pathway can be responsible for onset of the disorder later in life.  

This important genomic pathway is called the Integrative Nuclear Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor 1 Signalling (INFS). It is a platform for the integration of signals that come from many other pathways, involving around 160 genes that are linked to schizophrenia. To study the consequences of the defects of INFS, laboratory mice are used as the model organisms.
 
Using the mouse model, the researchers found some interesting results. It was observed in embroynic stem cells that some genes that are linked to schizophrenia binded with Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor 1 (FGFR1) protein, which is an essential protein for cell division, cell growth and cell differentiation, and also has a cascading effect on the INFS pathway. To test the relationship between FGFR1 protein and schizophrenia, a mutation of FGRR1 protein was made in the mice. This mutation created structural changes in mice’s brain, alterations in mice’s behaviour, and overwhelmed sensory processes in mice. Those symptoms in mice resembled the human disease, schizophrenia. Therefore, it can be concluded that an alteration in the transition from stem cells to neurons will result in schizophrenia. In addition, this study supported that nicotinic agonists (medications that activates the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in neurons) could help the schizophrenics to have better cognitive functions.  
 

The picture shows that fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (FGFR1) interacts with multiple genes that are linked to schizophrenia. Arrows point to the nuclei of human embroynic stem cells. Picture from: University at Buffalo, News Centre.

Researchers found an genomic explanation to the causes of schizophrenia using a mouse model. The head researcher, Michal Stachowiak, mentioned that this can lead to a generalized approach to treat schizophrenia if it is sure that a malfunction of a common genomic pathway is the cause for the disorder. He also proposed that possible methods that would stop the illness from developing could be created in the future. I have a high hope for the development of better treatments and even a cure for schizophrenia based on the current understanding of schizophrenia and technologies.

– (Shirley) Yu Chen

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