Role of neurotransmitters in schizophrenia: a comprehensive study

Investigating the association between symptoms and functional activity in brain regions in schizophrenia: A cross-sectional fmri-based neuroimaging study

Schizophrenia is a persistent neurological disorder profoundly affecting cognitive, emotional, and behavioral functions, prominently characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disordered speech, and abnormal motor activity. These symptoms often present diagnostic challenges due to their overlap with other forms of psychosis. Therefore, the implementation of automated diagnostic methodologies is imperative. This research leverages Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), a neuroimaging modality capable of delineating functional activations across diverse brain regions. Furthermore, the utilization of evolving machine learning techniques for fMRI data analysis has significantly progressive. Here, our study stands as a novel attempt, focusing on the comprehensive assessment of both classical and atypical symptoms of schizophrenia. We aim to uncover associated changes in brain functional activity. Our study encompasses two distinct fMRI datasets (1.5T and 3T), each comprising 34 schizophrenia patients for the 1.5T dataset and 25 schizophrenia patients for the 3T dataset, along with an equal number of healthy controls. Machine learning algorithms are applied to assess data subsets, enabling an in-depth evaluation of the current functional condition concerning symptom impact. The identified voxels contribute to determining the brain regions most influenced by each symptom, as quantified by symptom intensity. This rigorous approach has yielded various new findings while maintaining an impressive classification accuracy rate of 97 %. By elucidating variations in activation patterns across multiple brain regions in individuals with schizophrenia, this study contributes to the understanding of functional brain changes associated with the disorder. The insights gained may inform differential clinical interventions and provide a means of assessing symptom severity accurately, offering new avenues for the management of schizophrenia.

From bean to brain: Coffee, gray matter, and neuroprotection in neurological disorders spectrum

Coffee is a popular drink enjoyed around the world, and scientists are very interested in studying how it affects the human brain. This chapter looks at lots of different studies to understand how drinking coffee might change the brain and help protect it from neurodegenerative disorders especially like schizophrenia. With the help of available literature a link between the coffee mechanism and neurodegenerative disorders is established in this chapter. Researchers have found that drinking coffee can change the size of certain parts of the brain that control things like thinking and mood. Scientists also study how coffee's ingredients, especially caffeine, can change how the brain works. They think these changes could help protect the brain from diseases. This chapter focuses on how coffee might affect people with schizophrenia as hallucination is caused during and after excess consumption of caffeine. There's still a lot we don't know, but researchers are learning more by studying how different people's brains respond to coffee over time. Overall, this chapter shows that studying coffee and the brain could lead to new ways to help people with brain disorders. This study also draws ideas for future research and ways to help people stay healthy.

Inhibition of Prolyl Oligopeptidase Restores Prohibitin 2 Levels in Psychosis Models: Relationship to Cognitive Deficits in Schizophrenia

Cognitive impairment represents one of the core features of schizophrenia. Prolyl Oligopeptidase (POP) inhibition is an emerging strategy for compensating cognitive deficits in hypoglutamatergic states such as schizophrenia, although little is known about how POP inhibitors exert their pharmacological activity. The mitochondrial and nuclear protein Prohibitin 2 (PHB2) could be dysregulated in schizophrenia. However, altered PHB2 levels in schizophrenia linked to N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) activity and cognitive deficits are still unknown. To shed light on this, we measured the PHB2 levels by immunoblot in a postmortem dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) of schizophrenia subjects, in the frontal pole of mice treated with the NMDAR antagonists phencyclidine and dizocilpine, and in rat cortical astrocytes and neurons treated with dizocilpine. Mice and cells were treated in combination with the POP inhibitor IPR19. The PHB2 levels were also analyzed by immunocytochemistry in rat neurons. The PHB2 levels increased in DLPFC in cases of chronic schizophrenia and were associated with cognitive impairments. NMDAR antagonists increased PHB2 levels in the frontal pole of mice and in rat astrocytes and neurons. High levels of PHB2 were found in the nucleus and cytoplasm of neurons upon NMDAR inhibition. IPR19 restored PHB2 levels in the acute NMDAR inhibition. These results show that IPR19 restores the upregulation of PHB2 in an acute NMDAR hypoactivity stage suggesting that the modulation of PHB2 could compensate NMDAR-dependent cognitive impairments in schizophrenia.

Face pareidolia in male schizophrenia

Faces are valuable signals for efficient social interaction. Yet, social cognition including the sensitivity to a coarse face scheme may be deviant in schizophrenia (SZ). Tuning to faces in non-face images such as shadows, grilled toasts, or ink blots is termed face pareidolia. This phenomenon is poorly investigated in SZ. Here face tuning was assessed in 44 male participants with SZ and person-by-person matched controls by using recently created Face-n-Thing images (photographs of non-face objects to a varying degree resembling a face). The advantage of these images is that single components do not automatically trigger face processing. Participants were administered a set of images with upright and inverted (180° in the image plane) orientation. In a two-alternative forced-choice paradigm, they had to indicate whether an image resembled a face. The findings showed that: (i) With upright orientation, SZ patients exhibited deficits in face tuning: they provided much fewer face responses than controls. (ii) Inversion generally hindered face pareidolia. However, while in neurotypical males, inversion led to a drastic drop in face impression, in SZ, the impact of orientation was reduced. (iii) Finally, in accord with the signal detection theory analysis, the sensitivity index (d-prime) was lower in SZ, whereas no difference occurred in decision criterion. The outcome suggests altered face pareidolia in SZ is caused by lower face sensitivity rather than by alterations in cognitive bias. Comparison of these findings with earlier evidence confirms that tuning to social signals is lower in SZ, and warrants tailored brain imaging research.

Levels of Acylcarnitines and Branched-Chain Amino Acids in Antipsychotic-Treated Patients with Paranoid Schizophrenia with Metabolic Syndrome

Several studies have shown that patients with schizophrenia are at high risk for metabolic syndrome (MetS) and bioenergetic dysfunction. Because acylcarnitines are involved in bioenergetic pathways and reflect the functioning of mitochondria, we hypothesized that these compounds are biomarkers of MetS in schizophrenia. The aim of this work was to quantify acylcarnitines and branched-chain amino acids in patients with schizophrenia comorbid with MetS. The study included 112 patients with paranoid schizophrenia treated with antipsychotics. Among them, 39 subjects met criteria of MetS. Concentrations of 30 acylcarnitines and three amino acids in dry serum spots were measured by liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. MetS patients were found to have higher levels of valeryl carnitine (C5), leucine/isoleucine, and alanine as compared with patients without MetS, indicating possible participation of these compounds in the pathogenesis of metabolic disorders in schizophrenia. In patients with paranoid schizophrenia with or without MetS, lower levels of carnitines C10, C10:1, C12, and C18 were recorded as compared with the healthy individuals (n = 70), implying deterioration of energy metabolism. We believe that this finding can be explained by effects of antipsychotic medication on an enzyme called carnitine-palmitoyl transferase I.

Trends and Gender Differences in Mental Disorders in Hospitalized Patients in Thailand

Previous studies have shown that gender differences play a substantial role in the influence of mental disorders. This study was designed to investigate gender differences in mental disorders by presenting odd ratio (OR) trends and cumulative effects over a period of 13 years in Thailand. This observational study used hospital data from the Ministry of Public Health on selected patients admitted to inpatient departments in public hospitals with mental disorders, according to ICD-10 cause groups from 2007 to 2019, counting from more than 1,90,000 cases in 2007 to more than 4,00,000 cases in 2019. Data were collected from the Thailand Ministry of Public Health website. The results indicate that compared to women, men were positively related to five mental disorders revealed by the OR and the ratio per 100,000 population (mean and SD): psychoactive alcohol use (OR = 7.31-9.07, 271.19 (59.26)), substance abuse (OR = 5.06-7.82, 59.25 (33.71)), schizophrenia (OR = 1.64-1.93, 108.32 (19.62)), mental retardation (OR = 1.15-1.58, 10.64 (1.88)), and other mental and behavioral disorders (OR = 1.10-1.55, 70.67 (22.75)). Three mental disorders in men were found to be negatively related: neurotic and related disorders (OR=.34-.46, 27.98 (3.26)), mood (affective) disorders (OR = .44-.56, 31.91 (9.59)), and dementia (OR = .78-10.82, 13.75 (2.73)). Gender can become a key biological element that contributes to the dissimilarity of mental illness. Preventive care for men and women should, therefore, be prioritized for health conditions separately. More specifically, screening and detection, and providing appropriate intervention.