14 DAY TRIAL // A new discovery made by researchers in the United States could lead to the development of therapies that would address the earliest manifestations of schizophrenia. The treatments could be applied even when the individuals most at risk are in their early adulthood.
In the new study, investigators demonstrate that certain neurons in the brains of schizophrenic subjects display DNA strands that are wound up too tightly, a lot more so than usual. The team believes that this may be one of the factors triggering the onset of the mental disorder later on.
The research group, based at the Scripps Research Institute (SRI) in La Jolla, California, says that certain drugs already under development could be used to treat schizophrenia and related mental disorders, especially in the elderly, based on the results of its work.
Details of the investigation were published in the latest online issue of Translational Psychiatry, a new scientific journal edited by Nature. The paper argues that future therapies may even be able to reverse most schizophrenia symptoms in younger patients.
The condition can lead to patients experiencing hallucinations, emotional difficulties, delusions, and a host of other, similar manifestations that severely impair their quality of life in more advanced cases. A clear cause for the disorder has yet to be identified, despite vast volumes of research into the issue.
This inability to find a root cause for schizophrenia led many to believe that there is no such master factor. What this means is that the disorder may be the result of a host of naturally-occurring processes and phenomena in the brain, which go haywire in just the right combination in some individuals.
“We’re excited by the findings and there’s a tie to other drug development work, which could mean a faster track to clinical trials to exploit what we’ve found,” neuroscientist and SRI associate professor Elizabeth Thomas reveals. She was the expert in charge of the research.
The study was conducted on brain samples collected post-posthumously. The team was made up of Thomas, SRI postdoctoral fellow and lead study author Bin Tang, and University of Melbourne investigators Brain Dean.
Funds for the research were provided by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center, and the Victorian Brain Bank Network, in Australia, provided some of the samples the research group required.