Individuals with schizophrenia were shown to have altered antibody plasma concentrations against protein fragments of schizophrenia-correlated genes, and increased plasma concentrations of anti-TRANK1 immunoglobin G (IgG) may serve as a biomarker for the disease.
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Hope they will find the stuff that causes negative symptoms any time sooner…!!!
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This is really exciting! So could they potentially discover the sz before having to wait for 6 months of prolonged psychosis?
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Ideally, they could detect it in the prodrome or even before.
This group isn’t the only one working on blood levels of certain protiens in sz. It appears these changes take place well in advance of symptoms.
Also it opens the possibility to use drugs to alter the levels of these protiens.
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“When the effects of antipsychotic treatments were evaluated, risperidone was shown to reduce overall antibody levels in the plasma, but it did not have an effect on anti-TRANK1 IgG.”
This is the interesting part. Judging from the sensitivity and specificity (20.7% and 95.2%), it’s still a very long way from being particularly useful for diagnostic purposes.
Assuming a base rate of 0.5% for sz (and assuming I’ve done the maths correctly), for every 100 positive results for this biomarker, about 2 would have sz (correct positives) and 98 would not (false positives). We already have psychological tests that place people in high risk groups (before the traditional prodromal phase), and of these people between 1/3 and 1/2 will go on to develop psychosis. The gap between these tests and this biomarker is huge.
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Is this about blood testing to identify sz in person.?? Hell no…!!!
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Yes. Or the effect of treatment. But take my numbers with a grain of salt. I’m still double checking them…
Nope pretty sure my numbers are correct. Here’s the details if anyone wants to argue with me:
95% specificity = 5/100 healthy will be identified as sick
20% sensitivity = 1/5 people with sz will be identified as such
Base rate of 0.5%
For every 100 random people tested = 0.5 have sz, (0.5 x 0.2=) 0.1 will be correctly identified as having sz and (5 x 0.995)= 4.975 will be wrongly identified as having sz. That means 0.1/5.075 is the ratio of correct positives to false positives, and for every 100 positive results we will have about 1.97 who actually have sz and 98.03 who don’t have sz.
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That’s assuming that sz is just one condition caused by just one thing?
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We want effective treatment…!!! This is also okay for me…!!! Plz identify the causes of sz faster.
!! I am just waiting…
!!
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You always find good stuff. Thank you for sharing.
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Yeah I don’t think it will come down to being able to test based on a single protien. There was another group that identified about 60 protiens, 12 of which, when the results were taken together, had a strong predictive value. The others were less specific.
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I know that Risperdal is a very effective drug for me. And it was very effective for my son, at one time at least.
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Exciting news!
Thanks for posting @twinklestars.
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