Schizophrenia etiology

Machine learning has been increasingly used to obtain individualized neuroimaging signatures for disease diagnosis, prognosis, and response to treatment in neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. Therefore, it has contributed to a better understanding of disease heterogeneity by identifying disease subtypes with different brain phenotypic measures. In this Review, we first present a systematic literature overview of studies using machine learning and multimodal MRI to unravel disease heterogeneity in various neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, autism spectrum disorder, multiple sclerosis, as well as their potential in a transdiagnostic framework, where neuroanatomical and neurobiological commonalities were assessed across diagnostic boundaries...

Despite different etiologies, people with schizophrenia (SCZ) or with traumatic brain injury (TBI) both show aberrant neuroplasticity. One neuroplastic mechanism that may be affected is prediction error coding. We used a roving mismatch negativity (rMMN) paradigm which uses different lengths of standard tone trains and is optimized to assess predictive coding. Twenty-five SCZ, 22 TBI (mild to moderate), and 25 healthy controls were assessed. We used a frequency-deviant rMMN in which the number of standards preceding the deviant was either 2, 6, or 36...

Schizophrenia is a complex and serious brain disorder. Neuroscientists have become increasingly interested in using magnetic resonance-based brain imaging-derived phenotypes (IDPs) to investigate the etiology of psychiatric disorders. IDPs capture valuable clinical advantages and hold biological significance in identifying brain abnormalities. In this review, we aim to discuss current and prospective approaches to identify potential biomarkers for schizophrenia using clinical multimodal neuroimaging and imaging genetics...

BACKGROUND: Schizophrenia is a polygenic disorder associated with changes in brain structure and function. Integrating macroscale brain features with microscale genetic data may provide a more complete overview of the disease etiology and may serve as potential diagnostic markers for schizophrenia. OBJECTIVE: We aim to systematically evaluate the impact of multi-scale neuroimaging and transcriptomic data fusion in schizophrenia classification models. METHODS: We collected brain imaging data and blood RNA sequencing data from 43 patients with schizophrenia and 60 age- and gender-matched healthy controls, and we extracted multi-omics features of macroscale brain morphology, brain structural and functional connectivity, and gene transcription of schizophrenia risk genes...

BACKGROUND: Several hypotheses regarding the pathomechanisms of schizophrenia have been proposed. If schizophrenia is a unitary disease, then these pathological processes must be linked; however, if such links do not exist, schizophrenia may best be considered a group of disorders. Only a few studies have examined the relationships among these pathomechanisms. Herein, we examined the relationships among deficient myelination, NMDA receptor hypofunction, and metabolic dysregulation by measuring various plasma markers and examining their correlations...

Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a neuropsychiatric disorder, caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. The etiology behind the disorder remains elusive although it is hypothesized to be associated with the aberrant response to neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and glutamate. Therefore, investigating the link between dysregulated metabolites and distorted neurodevelopment holds promise to offer valuable insights into the underlying mechanism of this complex disorder. In this study, we aimed to explore a presumed correlation between the transcriptome and the metabolome in a SCZ model based on patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)...

Schizophrenia affects 1% of the population, causing chronic debilitating symptoms with largely unknown causes. Structural brain changes and neurochemical alterations are believed to contribute to its etiology. Delayed treatment initiation is a major concern. This case involves a male patient with a decade-long history of psychosis, experiencing isolation, agoraphobia, and paranoid delusions. His situation deteriorated to the point where he lived in a self-imposed physically constraining environment for a year, leading to muscle atrophy and deteriorating health...

BACKGROUND: Heterogeneity in the etiology, pathophysiology, and clinical features of schizophrenia challenges clinicians and researchers. A helpful approach could be stratifying patients according to the presence or absence of clinical features of the deficit syndrome (DS). DS is characterized by enduring and primary negative symptoms, a clinically less heterogeneous subtype of the illness, and patients with features of DS are thought to present abnormal brain network characteristics, however, this idea has received limited attention...

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BACKGROUND: Bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenia (SZ) are the two main mental disorders with unknown etiology that significantly impact individuals' quality of life. The potential pro-inflammatory role in their pathogenesis is postulated and Human Endogenous Retrovirus W (HERV-W) is an emerging candidate to modulate this pathogenic finding. HERVs, ancient retroviruses in the human genome, may play roles in inflammation and disease pathogenesis. Despite HERVs' involvement in autoimmune diseases, their influence on mental disorders remains underexplored...

Schizophrenia (SCZ) represents a set of enduring mental illnesses whose underlying etiology remains elusive, posing a significant challenge to public health. Previous studies have shown that the neurodevelopmental process involving small molecules such as miRNA and mRNA is one of the etiological hypotheses of SCZ. We identified and verified that miR-30e-3p and ABI1 can be used as biomarkers in peripheral blood transcriptome sequencing data of patients with SCZ, and confirmed the regulatory relationship between them...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: A global study of multimorbidity in schizophrenia, especially of the association with physical conditions, might offer much needed etiological insights. RECENT FINDINGS: Our review suggests that life-style factors and medication related to schizophrenia are only part of the explanation of the increase in risk for cardiovascular, metabolic, pulmonary disorders, and some cancers. Positive associations with autoimmune disorders (with the exception of rheumatoid arthritis) and epilepsy are promising avenues of research but to date have not been fully exploited...

BACKGROUND: Interest in the issue of childhood autism has surged in the recent decades. At the same time, despite the significant progress achieved in understanding the etiological and pathogenetic aspects of the condition, effective ways to treat it have continued to elude us. Stem cell therapy appears to hold great promise in the treatment and rehabilitation of patients with both neurological diseases (cerebral palsy, hydrocephalus) and mental disorders (autism, schizophrenia). METHODS: This article presents a case report describing the use of nucleated cord blood cells in a patient with regressive autism and resistance to standard therapies...

BACKGROUND: Interest in the issue of childhood autism has surged in the recent decades. At the same time, despite the significant progress achieved in understanding the etiological and pathogenetic aspects of the condition, effective ways to treat it have continued to elude us. Stem cell therapy appears to hold great promise in the treatment and rehabilitation of patients with both neurological diseases (cerebral palsy, hydrocephalus) and mental disorders (autism, schizophrenia). METHODS: This article presents a case report describing the use of nucleated cord blood cells in a patient with regressive autism and resistance to standard therapies...

Neuroinflammation and blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier (BCB) disruption could be key elements in schizophrenia-spectrum disorderś(SSDs) etiology and symptom modulation. We present the largest two-stage individual patient data (IPD) meta-analysis, investigating the association of BCB disruption and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) alterations with symptom severity in first-episode psychosis (FEP) and recent onset psychotic disorder (ROP) individuals, with a focus on sex-related differences. Data was collected from PubMed and EMBASE databases...

BACKGROUND: Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a profound mental disorder with a multifactorial etiology, including genetics, environmental factors, and demographic influences such as ethnicity and geography. Among these, the studies of SCZ also shows racial and regional differences. METHODS: We first established a database of biological samples for SCZ in China's ethnic minorities, followed by a serum metabolomic analysis of SCZ patients from various ethnic groups within the same region using the LC-HRMS platform...

BACKGROUND: Glutamatergic function abnormalities have been implicated in the etiology of treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS), and the efficacy of clozapine may be attributed to its impact on the glutamate system. Recently, evidence has emerged suggesting the involvement of immune processes and increased prevalence of antineuronal antibodies in TRS. This current study aimed to investigate the levels of multiple anti-glutamate receptor antibodies in TRS and explore the effects of clozapine on these antibody levels...

Despite extensive research over the last few decades, the etiology of schizophrenia (SZ) remains unclear. SZ is a pathological disorder that is highly debilitating and deeply affects the lifestyle and minds of those affected. Several factors (one or in combination) have been reported as contributors to SZ pathogenesis, including neurodevelopmental, environmental, genetic and epigenetic factors. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) methylation and post-translational modification (PTM) of histone proteins are potentially contributing epigenetic processes involved in transcriptional activity, chromatin folding, cell division and apoptotic processes, and DNA damage and repair...

Mental illnesses are one of the biggest contributors to the global disease burden. Despite the increased recognition, diagnosis and ongoing research of mental health disorders, the etiology and underlying molecular mechanisms of these disorders are yet to be fully elucidated. Moreover, despite many treatment options available, a large subset of the psychiatric patient population is nonresponsive to standard medications and therapies. There has not been a comprehensive study to date examining the burden and impact of treatable genetic disorders (TGDs) that can present with neuropsychiatric features in psychiatric patient populations...

BACKGROUND: Class and social disadvantage have long been identified as significant factors in the etiology and epidemiology of psychosis. Few studies have explicitly examined the impact of intersecting social disadvantage on long-term employment and financial independence. METHODS: We applied latent class analysis (LCA) to 20-year longitudinal data from participants with affective and non-affective psychosis ( n = 256) within the Chicago Longitudinal Research. LCA groups were modeled using multiple indicators of pre-morbid disadvantage (parental social class, educational attainment, race, gender, and work and social functioning prior to psychosis onset)...