Skin cells from four people with schizophrenia have been successfully reprogrammed into an embryonic-like state and then transformed into brain cells. The research, published in Nature, offers scientists a novel way to study the causes of schizophrenia and the effects of medication on patients.
The team from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California found that transformed neurons from people with schizophrenia made fewer nerve connections than similar cells from healthy individuals. The cells' reduced 'neural connectivity' suggests one biological explanation for this neurological disorder.
'This is the first time that a complex mental disease has been modelled in live human cells', said Professor Fred Gage who headed the study. The experiments pave the way for other mental health conditions to be modelled 'in a dish' by similarly reprogramming patients' skin cells to embryonic-like cells and then growing these into different types of neuronal cell.
The work will help in the study of mental health conditions whose underlying biological mechanisms are often difficult to unravel. Environmental factors are known to contribute to these diseases. But Dr Kristen Brennand, who is first author of the study, suggests that 'by growing neurons in a dish we can take the environment out of the equation and start focusing on the underlying biological problems'.
The technique can also be used to study the effects of medication on patients' own cells. Salk researchers exposed the neurons to five different antipsychotic drugs, and found that the medication loxapine greatly improved the neural connectivity of all patients' neurons, while the other drugs improved the connectivity in at least one patient's cells.
Professor Gage hopes the approach will lead to individualised treatments for patients by helping them establish which drugs are most likely to help them. He said: 'Most psychiatric patients may try many drugs before they find one that works. This may circumvent that process by enabling individualised treatments with the best drug for them'.
In an interview with ABC News, Professor Vaughan Carr, head of the Schizophrenia Research Institute in Australia, said the research is still in its early days as cells have been grown from only four patients, but believes that it has the potential to 'become a very useful technology'.
Sources and References
Related Articles
Scientists find genetic link to sporadic schizophrenia
US researchers have linked mutations in 40 genes to sporadic schizophrenia. The evidence suggests that 50 percent of people with schizophrenia without a family history of the condition have 'de novo' DNA mutations that were not passed on from their parents...
Rare gene mutation linked to schizophrenia
Scientists have identified a rare gene mutation which they believe is linked to schizophrenia. The researchers from the University of California, San Diego and Trinity College Dublin performed a genome-wide association scan...
New genetic clues to schizophrenia uncovered
An international team of researchers has identified a new gene, CYMA5, which is thought to be associated with schizophrenia...
Study finds new genetic link to schizophrenia
US researchers have identified several genes related to brain function that may increase the risk of developing schizophrenia, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences....
Gene-ecology interactions and psychological disorders
The models emerging from behavioural biology are increasingly sophisticated. They do not undermine the quest for candidate genes, but rather augment our understanding of why those genes might persist in populations and be differentially expressed across circumstances....
Mental health needs more research
Useful research in mental health care has historically been in short supply. Whether the issue is accurate diagnosis of problems, understanding their causes or the delivery of reliable treatment, there remains plenty of room for progress. For example, it is common for clinicians to disagree about diagnoses or for them to be changed on a regular basis. Furthermore a diagnosis provides a relatively poor guide to effective treatment....
Gene variant provides clues to mental illness
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, have identified a gene that may be involved in mental illness and maintaining brain health. The scientists compared the genes of 2,000 psychiatric patients and 2,000 healthy people in Scotland. They discovered that the ABCA13 gene was faulty more frequently in patients with severe mental illness - such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression - than in the healthy control group....
Psychosis-related gene variant linked to creativity in healthy people?
A variant of the neuregulin 1 gene associated with an increased risk of psychosis, may positively affect the creative capacity of healthy people, scientists from Semmelweis University in Hungary suggest in a recent article in Psychological Science. However, the limitations of this small study mean that more research will be necessary to confirm this preliminary finding....
Genes Provide Clue For Schizophrenia Risk
Thousands of tiny genetic variations that could collectively be responsible for more than a third of the inherited risk of schizophrenia have been identified for the first time. Data was pooled from three separate studies and reanalysed to uncover the results. Further, a common genetic basis was found for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, which have previously been considered as separate conditions. The three linked papers describing the research were published together online in the journa...
Genes hint at schizophrenia complexity
Three independent studies have identified gene variants which contribute significantly to schizophrenia risk, taking steps towards understanding the cause of this highly complex condition which affects 1 in 100 people. Two of the three gene variants discovered were rare, but conferred 12 and 15 percent higher risks...
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.