Scientists Make Breakthrough Discovery, Move A Step Closer To The Cause Of Schizophrenia

In a breakthrough study, scientists have taken a giant leap forward in determining the cause of schizophrenia. Millions of people around the world are affected by the psychiatric disorder and even though medicines are available to curb its symptoms, they do not touch the root of the disease at its base.

AP

The findings that were published in the journal Nature will not give way to treatments anytime soon. But it will augment biological research of schizophrenia, a disorder that has puzzled neurologists since time immemorial.

The steps leading up to a person developing schizophrenia are connected to a biological process called synaptic pruning - wherein the brain wears out the connection between neurons as it matures. When a person reaches adolescence and early adulthood, this process takes place in the brain's prefrontal cortex which carries out a person's thinking abilities.

Hence, according to the study, people who carry genes that intensify this pruning are at a much higher risk of developing schizophrenia than those who don't.

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Scientists strongly believe that schizophrenic people displayed a poor connection between their neurons which led to a diminished pruning. Their study also goes to show how this pruning goes wrong and why, along with the genes responsible for it. They believe that schizophrenic people carry a gene variant that intensifies the pruning process.

The study was conducted by scientists from the Harvard Medical School, Boston Children¡¯s Hospital and the Broad Institute. After analysing the genomes of 64,000 people, the scientists found that patients with the disorder seemed to carry "overactive forms of C4-A" - a gene variant of the protein C4 that is considered a driving factor for schizophrenia.

The discovery is definitely being celebrated by the medical community but there's still a long way to go before treatments can commence.