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Categories: Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia

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A new study brings together two schools of thought on the function of the neurotransmitter dopamine: one saying that dopamine provides a learning signal, the other saying that dopamine drives motivation.

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Links have been reported between schizophrenia and proteins produced by the immune system that can act against one's own body, known as autoantibodies. Researchers have now identified autoantibodies that target a 'synaptic adhesion protein' in a subset of patients with schizophrenia. When injected into mice, the autoantibodies caused many schizophrenia-related changes.

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Neuroscientists have shown how vitamin D deficiency affects developing neurons in the brain's dopamine circuit, which may lead to the dopamine dysfunction seen in adults with schizophrenia.

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Scientists have found a lipid transporter crucial to regulating the cells that make myelin, the nerve-protecting sheath.

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Researchers used the drug fasudil to restore neurons and improve methamphetamine-induced cognitive dysfunction in a mouse model of schizophrenia.

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Researchers present the first evidence of 12-hour cycles of gene activity in the human brain. The study also reveals that some of those 12-hour rhythms are missing or altered in the postmortem brains of patients with schizophrenia.

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Diagnosing psychiatric disorders is challenging due to the lack of objective tests. Fortunately, genomic studies can reveal genes associated with increased risk of certain disorders. In a recent study, researchers from Japan investigated whether the genetic correlations between major psychiatric disorders differed among European and East Asian populations. They showed differences in how bipolar disorders are diagnosed by psychiatrists in the East and the West, which might affect the results of clinical trials.

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Using state-of-the-art whole-genome sequencing and machine learning techniques, researchers conducted one of the first and the largest investigations of tandem repeats in schizophrenia, elucidating their contribution to the development of this devastating disease.

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The ADHD medication lisdexamfetamine was associated with the lowest risk of hospitalization and death in people with amphetamine addiction, when medications generally used among persons with substance use disorders were compared, according to a new study.

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Schizophrenia patients have fewer connections between nerve cells. This is believed to be caused by genetic risk variants leading to an excessive elimination of nerve cell connections by the immune cells of the brain. Researchers now report that the levels of protein from the relevant risk gene are elevated in first-episode patients and that inflammation further increases the expression of the risk gene.

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People with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia are 2.5 times more likely than those without a psychotic disorder to eventually develop dementia, according to a new review.

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Researchers have identified specific cells that regulate the transmission of information between brain areas. This discovery forms the basis for the development of new treatment options for neuropsychiatric disorders which are characterized by impaired coordination of information flow in the brain.

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The gene defect underlying Krabbe disease causes degeneration of neurons directly, independent of its effects on other cell types, according to a new study. The discovery represents a new mechanism of action for the mutant gene, presenting a more accurate picture of the disease process that may help in the development of therapies.

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The cerebellum is essential for sensorimotor control but also contributes to higher cognitive functions including social behaviors. Researchers uncovered how dopamine in the cerebellum modulates social behaviors via its action on D2 receptors (D2R). These new findings pave the way to determine whether socially related psychiatric disorders are also associated with altered dopamine receptors expression in specific cerebellar cell types.

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Researchers have found that some people with schizophrenia have autoantibodies -- which are made by the immune system and recognize the body's own proteins, rather than outside threats such as viruses or bacteria -- against NCAM1, a protein that's important for communication between brain cells. The patients' autoantibodies also caused schizophrenia-related behaviors in mice. These findings may improve the diagnosis and treatment of a subset of patients with schizophrenia.

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Emotion-recognition among people with disorders such as Parkinson's disease or schizophrenia may be affected by changes in the levels dopamine in the brain, say researchers.

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Researchers have reported new evidence that cognitive abnormalities seen in neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia may be traceable to altered activity in the thalamus during adolescence, a time window of heightened vulnerability for schizophrenia.

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An analysis of 11 major psychiatric disorders offers new insight into why comorbidities are the norm when it comes to mental illness. The study suggests that while there is no single gene or set of genes underlying risk for all of them, subsets of disorders -- including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia; anorexia nervosa and obsessive-compulsive disorder; and major depression and anxiety --s hare a common genetic architecture.

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Researchers have found that the more urban of an environment a child lived in -- proximity to roads, houses with lead paint risks, families in poverty, and income disparity -- the greater number of psychotic like experiences they had over a year's time.

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Compared to the general population, people with severe mental illness, including schizophrenia, have higher levels of cardiovascular-related mortality, and that association has become stronger over recent decades, according to a new study.