Schizophrenia research: A route to the brain via nose
A common obstacle for researchers of psychiatric disorders is obtaining live brain tissue to use in their research, but new advances in cellular neuroscience can utilize stem cells found in the nose to research some mechanisms of psychiatric illnesses, including schizophrenia.
The smell sense organ in the nose, the olfactory mucosa, is constantly regenerating new sensory neurons, which are among the few in the body that directly connect to the brain. Researchers have found that by taking a biopsy they can compare the tissue of people with schizophrenia to cells from individuals without schizophrenia.
“We have discovered that patient cells proliferate faster—they are running with a faster speed to their clock controlling the cell cycle—and we have identified some of the molecules that are responsible,” said Alan Mackay-Sim, PhD, from the National Centre for Adult Stem Cell Research in Brisbane, Australia, and the author of the study. The findings have indicated that the cell cycle of people who are diagnosed with schizophrenia is dysregulated.
“This is a first insight into real differences in patient cells that could lead to slightly altered brain development,” Mackay-Sim added.
“The current findings are particularly interesting,” noted Biological Psychiatry editor, John Krystal, MD, “because when we look closely at the clues to the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders, we find new and often unexpected mechanisms implicated.”
Source—Mental Health News
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