RESEARCH UPDATE 2004
 Konradi, foreground, with lab assistant Rachael Youngs. |
| A new hypothesis for Bipolar Disorder |
| Using a technique known as gene array analysis, Christine Konradi, PhD, and investigators in the Mailman Research Center's Neuroplasticity Laboratory have studied the expression of more than 12,000 genes in postmortem brain samples from patients diagnosed with either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The latter group shows a decrease in expression of genes involved in cellular energy metabolism. These findings support the hypothesis that a malfunction in the brain cells mitochondria, where most of a cells energy is produced, may be involved in bipolar disorder. In the Brain Imaging Center, studies done by Perry Renshaw, MD, PhD, and his colleagues, using magnetic resonance spectroscopy have also demonstrated changes in brain chemistry that are consistent with mitochondrial dysfunction in untreated individuals with bipolar disorder. These observations have led to the investigation of novel natural products that increase mitochondrial function as potential treatments for the illness. |
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Philip Holzman, PhD, and investigators in the Mailman Research Center's Psychology Research Laboratory have found that the difficulty schizophrenic patients and many of their relatives have in judging the velocity of moving objects is regulated in the middle temporal region of the brain, an area not previously suspected to be involved in schizophrenia. They also have discovered that schizophrenic patients have an impairment in their short-term memory which suggests some part of the prefrontal cortex may be impaired. Studies of these specific brain sites may enhance the ability of investigators to identify inherited genes that predispose individuals to schizophrenia.