Toward a Molecular Explanation for Schizophrenia — TAU researchers find inhibition of a basic cellular process may contribute to the mysterious disease – Surprisingly little is known about schizophrenia. It was only recognized as a medical condition in the past few decades, and its exact causes remain unclear. Since there is no objective test for schizophrenia, its diagnosis is based on an assortment of reported symptoms.
Rare genetic disorder points to molecules that may play role in schizophrenia — Finding may suggest novel therapeutic target for treating disease – Scientists studying a rare genetic disorder have identified a molecular pathway that may play a role in schizophrenia. The findings may one day guide researchers to new treatment options for people with schizophrenia ? a devastating disease that affects approximately 1 percent of the world’s population.
Antipsychotics for Schizophrenia Associated With Subtle Loss in Brain Volume – Patients with schizophrenia who take antipsychotic medications appear to lose a small but measurable amount of brain tissue over time, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.
Immune responses during pregnancy linked to schizophrenia among offspring – Infections like the flu are common occurrences during pregnancy, and research has shown that children born to mothers who suffered from flu, viruses and other infections during pregnancy have about a 1.5 to 7 times increased risk for schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia linked for first time to chromosome region in study led by Stanford scientists — Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder share genetic roots. – Researchers has discovered that nearly a third of the genetic basis of schizophrenia may be attributed to the cumulative actions of thousands of common genetic variants.
Study finds cancer is the second most frequent cause of death in individuals with schizophrenia – Schizophrenia patients are four times as likely to die from all causes and are 50 percent more likely to die from cancer compared to people in the general population, revealed by researchers.
Substance Abuse Appears To Be an Important Factor in Increased Risk of Violent Crime By Persons With Schizophrenia – The increased risk of persons with schizophrenia committing violent crime may be largely mediated by co-existing substance abuse problems, according to a study in the May 20 issue of JAMA.
FDA Approves Vanda Pharmaceuticals’ Fanapt(TM) for the Treatment of Schizophrenia – Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: VNDA) announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted marketing approval of Fanapt (iloperidone) for the acute treatment of adult patients with schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia may be partly caused by the effects of unusual structural changes in genes. – People with schizophrenia (mental illness variously affecting behavior, thinking, and emotion) have an increased number of unusual chromosomal changes, particularly structural changes that have the potential to alter the function of the genes.
A team of researchers at the University of Washington and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories has uncovered genetic errors that may shed light on the causes of schizophrenia. The scientists found that deletions and duplications of DNA are more common in people with the mental disorder, and that many of those errors occur in genes related to brain development and neurological function. – Schizophrenia, a debilitating psychiatric disorder, is caused by some genetic errors due to deletions and duplications of DNA are more common in people with the mental disorders, revealed by researchers at the University of Washington and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories.
