Rachel Loewy was an undergraduate in 1995 when she answered a flyer seeking students to assist with a research study. A couple of floors up in a psychology department building, Loewy sat, clipboard in hand, interviewing teenagers whose brain health was beginning to falter. Some heard whispers. Others imagined that their teachers could read their minds, or that fellow students stared at them and wished them harm as they walked down the halls.
The teenagers had been diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder, a condition that can precede schizophrenia. Among the most debilitating and stigmatized psychiatric diseases, schizophrenia can rob sufferers of their self and their future, often in early adulthood.
Although these teens didn’t have schizophrenia, the researchers believed that some would later deteriorate and be diagnosed with the disorder. But when Loewy met them they were lucid and self-aware. And they were frightened that their mind sometimes spun out of control.
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In recent years, brain specialists have refined their ability to anticipate who’s at highest risk of psychosis—a defining feature of schizophrenia—identifying subtle signs in some children and more vivid precursors in late adolescence. And increasingly, researchers feel they’d be derelict not to pursue prevention. Tests of preventive measures are up and running, ranging from cognitive therapies to pregnancy supplements for the fetal brain to psychiatric drugs. Last month, a German pharmaceutical company enrolled the first volunteer into what is intended to be a 300-person randomized clinical trial testing an experimental drug to prevent psychosis in those at extremely high risk. It’s believed to be the first time a company has poured millions of dollars into an effort like this one.
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