3 minute read
YEREVAN, JANUARY 29, ARMENPRESS. For the first time, scientists have pinned down a molecular process in the brain that helps to trigger schizophrenia.The researchers involved in the landmark study, which was published on January 27 in the journalNature. The discovery of this new genetic pathway probablyreveals what goes wrong neurologically in a young person diagnosed with the devastating disorder, “Armenpress” reports, citing The Washington Post.
The study marks a watershed moment, with the potential for early detection and new treatments that were unthinkable just a year ago, according to StevenHyman,director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute at MIT. Hyman, a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, calls it "the most significant mechanistic study about schizophrenia ever."
"I’m a crusty, old, curmudgeonly skeptic," he said. "But I’m almost giddy about these findings."
The researchers,chiefly from the Broad Institute, Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital, found that a person's risk of schizophrenia is dramatically increased if they inherit variants of a geneimportant to "synaptic pruning" -- the healthy reduction during adolescence of brain cell connections that are no longer needed.
In patients with schizophrenia, a variation in a single position in the DNA sequence markstoo manysynapses for removal and that pruning goes out of control. The result is an abnormal loss of gray matter.
The genes involved coat the neurons with "eat-me signals," said study co-author Beth Stevens, a neuroscientist at Children's Hospital and Broad. "They are tagging too many synapses. And they're gobbled up."
The Institute'sfounding director, Eric Lander, believes the research represents an astonishing breakthrough."It’s taking what has been a black box...and letting us peek inside for the first time. And that is amazingly consequential," he said.