Science News About Schizophrenia
- Gene Readouts Contribute To Distinctness of Mental Disorders
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• Press Release
A new study conducted by researchers at NIMH suggests that differences in the expression of gene transcripts – readouts copied from DNA that help maintain and build our cells – may hold the key to understanding how mental disorders with shared genetic risk factors result in different patterns of onset, symptoms, course of illness, and treatment responses.
- Schizophrenia Risk Gene Linked to Cognitive Deficits in Mice
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• Press Release
Mice with an impaired version of one the few genes definitively linked to schizophrenia showed abnormalities in working memory, mimicking those commonly seen in schizophrenia patients.
- Gene Regulators Work Together for Oversized Impact on Schizophrenia Risk
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• Press Release
Gene expression regulators work together to raise an individual’s risk of developing schizophrenia. Schizophrenia-like gene expression changes modeled in human neurons matched changes found in patients’ brains.
- NIH Announces Funding Awards for National Early Psychosis Learning Community
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• Press Release
NIMH awarded six research grants for studies to develop a learning health care system for the treatment of early psychosis.
- Mental Health Research Centers Forge Collaborations – with ALACRITY
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• Institute Update
Mental health research center directors emerged from a recent meeting with a renewed commitment to help each other achieve their common mission – to transform care of children, adolescents and adults with severe psychiatric disorders.
- Neuromelanin-Sensitive MRI Identified as a Potential Biomarker for Psychosis
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• Press Release
Researchers have shown that a type of magnetic resonance imaging — called neuromelanin-sensitive MRI (NM-MRI) — is a potential biomarker for psychosis. NM-MRI signal was found to be a marker of dopamine function in people with schizophrenia and an indicator of the severity of psychotic symptoms in people with this mental illness.
- New Findings Reveal Surprising Role of the Cerebellum in Reward and Social Behaviors
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• Press Release
A new study in rodents has demonstrated, for the first time, that the brain’s cerebellum plays a role in controlling reward and social preference behavior—findings that shed light on the brain circuits critical to the affective and social dysfunction seen across multiple psychiatric disorders.
- 2,000 Human Brains Yield Clues to How Genes Raise Risk for Mental Illnesses
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• Press Release
PsychENCODE researchers are discovering the biological mechanisms by which mental illness risk genes work in the human brain.
- Studies Support Use of Team-Based Care for Early Psychosis
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• Science Update
Two recent studies add to the evidence that team-based early intervention services are feasible in real-world health care settings and result in improved outcomes for patients.
- Hyperconnectivity in a Brain Circuit May Predict Psychosis
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• Science Update
NIMH-funded scientists have discovered a pattern in the way a brain circuit works that may help predict the onset of psychosis. High levels of chatter, or “hyperconnectivity,” in a circuit involving the cerebellum, thalamus, and cortex emerged as a potential “neural signature” in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study.
- Inflammation in Pregnant Moms Linked to Child’s Brain Development
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• Science Update
High levels of maternal inflammation during pregnancy have been linked to effects in children, including reduced brain circuit communications and altered long-distance brain wiring at birth, poorer cognitive function at one year – and to reduced impulse control and working memory at two years.
- Suspect Molecules Overlap in Autism, Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder
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• Science Update
Depression, schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder share some of the same patterns of suspect gene expression – molecular signatures.
- Molecular Secrets Revealed: Antipsychotic Docked in its Receptor
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• Press Release
Scientists have deciphered the molecular structure of a widely-prescribed antipsychotic docked in its key human brain receptor. The discovery may hold clues to designing better treatments for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses.
- Scientists Give Star Treatment to Lesser-Known Cells Crucial for Brain Development
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• Press Release
Star-shaped support brain cells, astrocytes, growing in 3-D “organoids” in a dish develop similarly as those in human brain tissue.
- Patient-Derived Support Cells Stunt Mouse Brain Development
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• Science Update
Support cells generated from patients with childhood onset schizophrenia stunted neural circuit development when grafted into developing mouse brains.
- Our Brains Harbor “Residual Echo” of Neanderthal Genes
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• Science Update
Researchers have produced the first direct evidence that parts of our brains implicated in mental disorders may be shaped by a “residual echo” from our ancient past. The more a person’s genome carries genetic vestiges of Neanderthals, the more certain parts of his or her brain and skull resemble those of humans’ evolutionary cousins that went extinct 40,000 years ago.
- Brain “Relay” Also Key to Holding Thoughts in Mind
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• Press Release
Long overlooked as a mere “relay,” an egg-like structure in the middle of the brain also turns out to play a pivotal role in tuning-up thinking circuity. A trio of studies in mice are revealing that the thalamus sustains the ability to distinguish categories and hold thoughts in mind. It might even become a target for interventions for psychiatric disorders marked by working memory problems, such as schizophrenia.
- Estrogen Alters Memory Circuit Function in Women with Gene Variant
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• Science Update
Brain scans reveal that fluctuations in estrogen can trigger atypical functioning in a key brain memory circuit in women with a common version of a gene. Since working memory function is often disturbed in mental disorders, such gene-hormone interactions are suspect mechanisms that may confer risk.
- Higher Death Rate Among Youth with First Episode Psychosis
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• Press Release
A new study shows that young people with first episode psychosis have a much higher death rate than previously thought. Researchers looked at people aged 16-30 and found that the group died at a rate at least 24 times greater than the same age group in the general population.