Over the past five years, the researchers have collected genetic data from 65,000 people in 30 countries. They knew that mutations in certain genes were linked to schizophrenia, but the researchers wanted to use their huge dataset to find the strongest correlation possible. And they found one—people with highly expressed variations of a gene called complement component 4 (C4) were much more likely to develop schizophrenia. They confirmed the connection between C4 genes and protein production by analyzing 700 samples of human brains.
Scientists already knew that the C4 gene generates a protein that the body uses to mark pathogens so that the immune system destroys them. But, importantly, it’s also used during synaptic pruning, a period in adolescence in which the brain eliminates excess connections in order to strengthen the pathways it uses most often. Through experiments in animal models, the researchers found that greater C4 expression leads to more synaptic pruning.
Because I have read two downloads of new psychiatric research every day for about a decade now, I can say with relative certainty that this is the latest in a very long line of articles (probably 30 that I can recall) claiming to have found The Cause. Some of them point to similar circumstances; most are all over the block.
I understand that those who suffer (just as I did quite frighteningly from '94 to '03, and less so, but still disturbingly since then) hope for The Grail. But it doesn’t look like there is an single – or even “major” – cause of sz outside of excessive dopamine flooding in the synaptic junctions between the neurons along several major neural pathways.
Those pathways include the entire circuitry of the brain’s limbic emotion and cognition regulation system (see below), though the major offender appears to be in the channel from the insula through the amygdala to the hippocampus and hypothalamus to the pituitary gland that controls the function of the autonomic nervous system and the adrenal glands (the so-called “HPA” that sets off “fight or flight” in response to actual or mis-perceived threat).
Current anti-psychotic medications to selectively block this circuitry do so by reducing dopamine flooding in the synapses connecting the neurons that connect all these subcomponents of the limbic system and HPA. But these meds cannot accomplish that without causing other circuits to under- and over-fire. And since every individual sz patient’s neurocircuitry is different, the upshots of blocking the “worst of the flood” are going to be different.
I just realized today that my brain functions like a teenager’s. I am easily influenced by my peers. My mom has influenced me, as well as my friend. This is just a personal observation. I’m learning to care less about what other people think of me as well.
I have a brother and two cousins with MS so the autoimmune disorder theory is tempting to me. It is a shame that we don’t have complete information. (I just read Notmose’s post before the second paragraph.)
I guess the sad thing is that for those of us who have schizophrenia they won’t be able to do more than find a drug that we take forever to help us because it’s too late to cure us. However as we look at our kids or our nieces, nephews, and cousins somewhere down the line of those descendants they will hopefully be able to prevent the disease from happening in their children and save them from the suffering we and our loved ones have gone through.
Great quote! I agree, maybe it’s too late for us schizophrenics who’ve had episodes, but it’s not too late for future generations of schizophrenics!
We’re all similar, like neurologically and we have similar thoughts, too (i.e. fear of zombification), We should look out for each other.
Has anyone read Clans of the Alphane Moon by Philip K. Dick?? It’s about how, in the future, the normals put all their depressives, schizophrenics, bipolars, etc…into a rocket and rocket them off to the Alphane moon because they are seen as a ‘burden’ on normals. Once there, the mental patients develop their own civilizations and communities. It’s awesome and same as @Blizzard said, they care about descendants and try to save the world for the future…(it’s science fiction, by the way, lol)
Link!!! clans of the alphane moon on amazon by philip k dick
Scientists open the ‘black box’ of schizophrenia with dramatic genetic discovery
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 Wednesday in the journal Nature, say the discovery of this new genetic pathway probably reveals what goes wrong neurologically in a young person diagnosed with the devastating disorder.
The study marks a watershed moment, with the potential for early detection and new treatments that were unthinkable just a year ago, according to Steven Hyman, 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.”
This is particularly interesting (especially for those anti-medication / anti-psychiatry people):
In patients with schizophrenia, a variation in a single position in the DNA sequence marks too many synapses for removal and that pruning goes out of control. The result is an abnormal loss of gray matter.
The other thing that might happen at some point is better diagnostics: genetic testing, language sampling, eye movement, brain scans.
Better diagnostics might help people who already have these illnesses because then there would be actual tests that can be shown to government agencies so people can receive needed supports for disabling medical illnesses.
The matter of synaptic pruningis germane. (I’m sorry if my post seemed to suggest that it wasn’t.) A significant # of the physiologists I learned to respect over the years have barked up this tree with good reason. Insufficient synaptic pruning appears to be related to complex PTSD induced in early life.
In this new research, what we’re seeing is the old saw about too much of a good thing not being. Over-prune the synapses in the tracks leading down from the pre-frontal cortex, for example, and one has insufficient neural connectivity to “apply the brakes” to one’s limbic emotion regulation system when it gets over-stimulated.
BUT, having said that, mere discovery of one of the genes that plays a role in over-pruning does not present us with a “miracle cure.” Because messing with gene will need to be very carefully handled to insure that a very precise targeting of its expression. Because imprecise targeting will almost surely cause at least as many problems as not using such a mechanism at all.
Here’s another version of the same story from ScienceDaily:
Genetic study provides first-ever insight into biological origin of schizophrenia
Finding explains clinical observations, opens new therapeutic avenues
Date: January 27, 2016
Source: Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Summary: A landmark study, based on genetic analysis of nearly 65,000 people, has revealed that a person’s risk of schizophrenia is increased if they inherit specific variants in a gene related to “synaptic pruning” – the elimination of connections between neurons. The findings represent the first time that the origin of this devastating psychiatric disease has been causally linked to specific gene variants and a biological process.
I have become highly skeptical of any report about SZ. But seeing the video, I had respect for the scientists and researchers who are working on this problem. They are scientists and the work must be tedious, taxing, and extremely involved. Many of them are devoted to their work. Some of them are excited about new findings down the line with this disease and the huge puzzle it presents to them. They are left with words and numbers to explain their feelings and their findings.
