Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Researchers Map the Genetic Landscape of Schizophrenia in the Brain

     The article "Researchers Map the Genetic Landscape of Schizophrenia in the Brain" says that researchers in the brain have mapped the genetic landscape to focus on the caudate nucleus. Researchers have identified 2,700 genes that have altered expression in individuals who have schizophrenia, which is a lot more than previous studies have shown. Genes have played an important role in schizophrenia risk. Researchers, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, aimed to map schizophrenia's genetic landscape in the brain, shedding light on biological risk factors and potential therapeutic targets. This research trial and project was led by the Lieber Institute and Johns Hopkins. The research highlighted that they had analyzed gene activities in the caudate nucleus, which is an essential region of the brain that is involved in schizophrenia, and used the post-mortem tissues from donors. The Antipsychotic medication was found to significantly influence gene expression and the dopamine receptor of gene DRD2, which is a critical genetic risk factor. In the study, the findings show that extensive gene expression changes, which both schizophrenia and antipsychotic medications can primarily influence. Lastly, it provides new information into biological risk factors and the potential of new therapeutic targets for schizophrenia, which can analyze the importance of the caudate nucleus in understanding the problems and schizophrenia much better.


Reference:Benjamin, K. J. M., Chen, Q., Jaffe, A. E., Stolz, J. M., Collado-Torres, L., Huuki-Myers, L. A., Burke, E. E., Arora, R., Feltrin, A. S., Barbosa, A. R., Radulescu, E., Pergola, G., Shin, J. H., Ulrich, W. S., Deep-Soboslay, A., Tao, R., the BrainSeq Consortium, Hyde, T. M., Kleinman, J. E., … Paquola, A. C. M. Analysis of the caudate nucleus transcriptome in individuals with schizophrenia highlights effects of antipsychotics and new risk genes. Nature Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-022-01182-7



No comments:

Post a Comment