Category: Schizophrenia

As medical advances boost lifespans across the world, one group of people has been left out. According to a new review of existing research, people with schizophrenia are falling further behind others when it comes to longevity.”Put simply, on average, patients with schizophrenia are two to three times more likely to die compared to the general population,” said review co-author John McGrath, M.D., a professor at the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research in Australia.

Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: VNDA) announced that it has submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for iloperidone, an investigational atypical antipsychotic for the treatment of schizophrenia. The application includes data from 35 clinical trials and more than 3,000 patients treated with iloperidone.

A new study reports important evidence for a potential new treatment approach for those diagnosed with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is considered one of the most devastating of the major psychiatric disorders, which has three distinct facets, often referred to as “positive” (hallucinations, delusions), “negative” (blunted emotions, reduced capacity for pleasure), and “cognitive” (impairments in attention, memory, and problem-solving) symptoms.

MIT researchers report that tiny, spontaneous releases of the brain’s primary chemical messengers could be regulated, potentially giving scientists unprecedented control over how the brain is wired. The work, to be published in the Sept. 16 early online edition of Nature Neuroscience, could lead to a better understanding of neurological diseases like schizophrenia.

A gene with reported links to schizophrenia and other mood disorders plays a broader role in the brain than scientists had previously suspected, according to a report published online by Cell, a publication of Cell Press, on September 6, 2007. The study reveals that the gene, known as Disrupted-In-Schizophrenia 1 (DISC1), directs the incorporation of new neurons into the adult brain and keeps the process under control.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins have developed a mouse model for schizophrenia in which a mutated gene linked to schizophrenia can be turned on or off at will.The researchers developed the transgenic mouse by inserting the gene for mutant Disrupted-In-Schizophrenia-1 (DISC-1) into a normal mouse, along with a promoter that enables the gene to be switched on or off.

How the gene that has been pegged as a major risk factor for schizophrenia and other mood disorders that affect millions of Americans contributes to these diseases remains unclear. However, the results of a new study by Hopkins researchers and their colleagues, appearing in Cell this week, provide a big clue by showing what this gene does in normal adult brains.

Several genes with strong associations to schizophrenia have evolved rapidly due to selection during human evolution, according to new research in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B (Wednesday 5 September 2007). Researchers found a higher prevalence of the influence of so-called positive selection on genes or gene regions known to be associated with the disorder than a comparable control set of non-associated genes, functioning in similar neuronal processes.

Several genes with strong associations to schizophrenia have evolved rapidly due to selection during human evolution, according to new research in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B (Wednesday 5 September 2007).Researchers found a higher prevalence of the influence of so-called positive selection on genes or gene regions known to be associated with the disorder than a comparable control set of non-associated genes, functioning in similar neuronal processes.

A new experimental drug for the treatment of schizophrenia which targets glutamate receptors in the brain rather than dopamine has shown promise in human trials. The volunteers experienced significant improvements in their symptoms while suffering few side effects. The drug is currently called “LY2140023″.You can read about this trial in an article published in Nature Medicine.