Scientists breed first mentally ill mouse

[Martin]

Imagine if they started doing this with Humans... geez..


Scientists breed world’s first mentally ill mouse - Times Online

Scientists breed world’s first mentally ill mouse

SCIENTISTS have created the world’s first schizophrenic mice in an attempt to gain a better understanding of the illness.

It is believed to be the first time an animal has been genetically engineered to have a mental illness. Until now they have been bred only for research into physical conditions such as heart disease. It will allow researchers to study the disease and develop treatments using a limitless supply of laboratory animals.

Animal rights campaigners have condemned the research, saying that it is morally repugnant to create an animal doomed to mental suffering.

The mice were created by modifying their DNA to mimic a mutant gene first found in a Scottish family with a high incidence of schizophrenia, which affects about one in every 100 people. The mice’s brains were found to have features similar to those of humans with schizophrenia, such as depression and hyperactivity.

“These mutant mice may provide an important new tool for further study of the combinations of factors that underlie mental illnesses like schizophrenia and mood disorders,” said Takatoshi Hikida, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, a leading researcher.

The egg cells of mice were genetically modified by inserting a gene associated with schizophrenia into their DNA. The eggs were fertilised and grown into viable baby mice using surrogate mothers.

Animal Aid, a campaign group, said rodents were not a reliable way of modelling human disease.

[waltky]

New theory on schizophrenia...

A dynamical systems hypothesis of schizophrenia
November 9, 2007 - The inconsistent expressions related to schizophrenia are newly structured in a recent study by researchers at the Universitas Pompeau Fabra (Barcelona) and Oxford University.

Marco Loh, Edmund Rolls and Gustavo Deco have created a dynamical system framework to discuss the disorder, publishing on November 9, 2007 in the journal PLoS Computational Biology. People with schizophrenia are known to have difficulty in maintaining attention, unstable thoughts, and reduced emotions. Creating a unifying and statistical model to understand these symptoms has always posed a challenge to researchers and clinicians. For this study Loh et al. developed a top-down analytical approach based on the different types of symptoms and related them to instabilities in attractor neural networks in a statistical dynamical framework.

The researchers found that a decrease in the excitatory NMDA-mediated synaptically activated receptor conductances reduces the depth of the attractor basins, therefore reducing the stability of attention in the presence of noise caused by the statistically variable firing of neurons, thus increasing distractibility. This reduced depth in the attractor basins destabilizes the activity at the network level. The cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia (like distractibility) could be caused by this attractor instability in the prefrontal cortex. Loh et al. also found that lower firing rates are produced by reducing the excitatory (NMDA) synaptic conductances, which could account in the orbitofrontal cortex for the negative symptoms associated with schizophrenia, such as a reduction of emotions.

Decreasing both the NMDA and the inhibitory conductances results in switches between attractor states and jumps from spontaneous activity into one of the attractors. This action may cause symptoms related to temporal lobe dysfunction such as delusions and paranoia. The dynamical framework put forth in this study may better the understanding of the symptoms of schizophrenia, therefore culminating in better treatment for those with the disorder.

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[waltky]

Strange correlation...

Schizophrenics at increased risk of ruptured appendix
Nov 15, 2007 : A new research has revealed that people with schizophrenia are more likely to suffer from ruptured appendix than others.

Most of the healthcare provision studies for mentally ill patients usually focus on psychological problems but often ignore physical disease. For the study, Jen-Huoy Tsay and colleagues at the National Yang Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., compared the results of appendicitis sufferers, looking specifically at patients with and without mental illness, including schizophrenia and different major mental illnesses.

The research team used Taiwanese National Health Insurance (NHI) hospital-discharge data and compared the likelihood of a ruptured appendix among almost 100,000 people aged 15 and over who were hospitalised for acute appendicitis in Taiwan during the period 1997-2001. It was found that a ruptured appendix occurred in 46.7 percent of the schizophrenic patients, in 43.4 percent of the patients with other major mental disorders, and in 25.1 percent of the patients with no major mental diseases. More ruptured cases were found among males and older patients.

After accounting for age, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic background, and hospital characteristics, the team found that patients with schizophrenia were still almost three times as likely to suffer a ruptured appendix as the general population. The presence of affective psychoses or other major mental disorders did not, however, remain associated with a significantly increased risk of rupture.

The results have suggested that even though the NHI program reduces financial barriers to care for people with mentally illness, schizophrenics are still at a disadvantage in obtaining timely treatment for physical problems. The research is published in the online open access journal, BMC Public Health.

Schizophrenics at increased risk of ruptured appendix

[waltky]

Using TV to Ease Schizophrenia...

New Non-Drug Therapy Promising for People with Schizophrenia
Nov. 16, 2007 - SCIT Groups Improve Quality of Life, Help People Cope With Social Situations

Imagine trying to live in society without the ability to understand facial expressions. Your sister frowns, but instead of guessing that she might be sad, you decide she is annoyed. And you're convinced that she must be angry with you. Now imagine that in addition to this, you can't understand other people's intentions. One day your spouse says pointedly, "I'd like to wear this shirt, but unfortunately no one has done the laundry!" The hint is wasted on you, since you're immune to this kind of prodding.

The condition described above is schizophrenia, a severe brain disorder that usually emerges during young adulthood, and affects one percent of Americans, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). People with this condition are typically treated with a variety of drugs and various group and individual therapy sessions.

But now a new non-drug therapy called Social Interaction and Cognition Training (SCIT) is generating interest from clinics across the country as a promising way to help people with schizophrenia interact with others. Creators David Penn and David Roberts at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Dennis Combs at the University of Texas at Tyler hope that SCIT will help participants understand intentions and dispositions.

Lost in Translation

[waltky]

Is schizophrenia an infection?

Microbes and Chronic Disease
31 January 2008 - n the US, most deaths are attributable to chronic afflictions, such as heart disease and cancer. Typically the medical community has attributed these diseases to accumulated damage, such as plaque formation in arteries or mutations in genes controlling cellular replication. This view is changing.

Scientists are now beginning to recognize that many of these chronic illnesses are due to microbial infections. A recent report in the American Journal of Psychiatry suggests that schizophrenia, a mental illness leading to errors in perception, is associated with the pathogen, Toxoplasma gondii. "Our findings reveal the strongest association we've seen yet between infection with this very common parasite and the subsequent development of schizophrenia," study investigator Dr. Robert Yolken of John Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore said in a statement.

Toxoplasma gondii, a parasitic protozoa usually carried by cats, is an interesting microbe, having been associated with behavioral changes in humans and rats. Other diseases are also showing microbial connections. The most famous example is Helicobacter pylori, the unequivocal cause of peptic ulcers and suspected agent of gastric cancer. Human papillomavirus is associated with 90% of cervical cancers. Hepatitis B is linked with 60% of liver cancers. Some diseases look suspiciously like infections, such as Hodgkin's disease, multiple sclerosis, juvenile onset diabetes and Crohn's disease.

In evolutionary terms, these speculations make sense. Microbes exist to pass on their genes, and they may have evolved ways to "cryptic" rather than "conspicuous". Paul Ewald divides diseases into three categories: environmental, genetic and infectious. Environmental diseases are acquired from toxins such as those in cigarettes and pollution. Genetic diseases are those caused by errors in replication and development. Ewald reasons that, if diseases are too common to have arisen by random mutation and too ruinous to have survived natural selection, and if it is not environmental, then it must be infectious. By being cryptic, these infectious diseases enhance their spread by increasing the odds of transmission.

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[waltky]

Uncle Ferd wonderin' how many o' dem rats is mentally ill?...

Rat epidemic threatens to plague Britain
Feb. 4, 2008 -- Britain is now home to around 80 million brown rats -- 1.3 rats for each of the 61 million people living in the country.

The recent spike in rat population is partly being attribute to the cut in the trash pick up program, dropping from one a week to around once a month, Britain's The Sun reported Monday. Brown rats are known to spread numerous diseases, including Weil's, salmonella, tuberculosis, E.Coli and foot-and-mouth.

Since 2000 there has been a 39 percent increase in the number of rats in Britain. Jed Kenrick, who heads the environmental services group Rentokil UK, suggested the country is facing a rat epidemic of "plague-like proportions."

"The rodent population has grown significantly in recent times," he said, "and a contributing factor has been the introduction of fortnightly rubbish collections."

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[waltky]

Wonder if it comes in mouse doses?...

'Love hormone' may help mental disorders
Feb. 8, `08 -- U.S. researchers say the "love hormone" or oxytocin, which releases during hugs or when a mother bonds with a newborn, may help mental disorders.

Dr. Kai MacDonald of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine says oxytocin is a brain chemical associated with pair bonding, including mother-infant and male-female bonds and increased paternal involvement with children.

"That's why oxytocin is sometimes called 'the love hormone,'" MacDonald in a statement. "It's said that the eyes are the window to the soul ... they certainly are the window to the emotional brain. We know that the eye-to-eye communication -- which is affected by oxytocin -- is critical to intimate emotional communication for all kind of emotions -- love, fear, trust, anxiety."

People with schizophrenia or autism often avoid eye-to-eye gaze, focus on less relevant areas of the face, and avoid meaningful social contact. The researchers theorize that oxytocin might act on the brains of patients with schizophrenia and anxiety and may ultimately increase the level of trust or emotional contact between patient and physician, or with patients and significant others.

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[waltky]

LSD leads to schizophrenia discovery...

LSD reveals schizophrenia treatment
February 25, 2008 - SCIENTISTS looking at the effects of LSD in the brain have made an unexpected discovery that could lead to improved treatments for schizophrenia, according to a study published today.

While investigating how hallucinogens change brain chemistry, a team of researchers led by Stuart Sealfon at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York noticed that the neural pathways affected, as well as key symptoms, were very similar to those in schizophrenia patients. Schizophrenics often hear voices, and may believe that other people are reading their minds or controlling their thoughts. These frightening experiences can cause social withdrawal and extreme agitation. There is no known cure for the chronic disorder, which affects approximately one in 200 people, emerging in men in their late teens and early 20s, and a decade later in women, according to the World Health Organisation.

Created by a Swiss chemist in the late 1930s as a possible treatment for neural and respiratory troubles, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) emerged the 1950s and 1960s as a popular recreational drug. LSD influences the same serotonin receptors that are imbalanced in schizophrenics, and both the drug and the disease result in delusions and hallucinations. In experiments on mice, Mr Sealfon also found that LSD - in order to produce the effects sought after - must simultaneously act on a receptor regulating glutamate, the principal excitatory neurotransmitter. "While the LSD is binding to the serotonin part of this complex, it takes glutamate and serotonin together to create the unique changes in the cell that occur with LSD," Mr Sealfon said.

When mice under the influence of LSD were given a second drug targeting only the glutamate receptor, it neutralised the hallucinogenic effect of the LSD, said the study, published in the British journal Nature. This is significant, said Mr Sealfon, in light of a recent breakthrough treatment for schizophrenia that - unlike any previous drugs - acts only on the glutamate receptors. A study published last fall on successful clinical trials "was international news because it was the first completely new approach to schizophrenia in decades", he said. An older class of so-called atypical anti-psychotic drug acts exclusively on serotonin levels, but Mr Sealfon's findings suggest that - like LSD - the abnormal brain chemistry in schizophrenics may require medicines that regulate both at once.

Autopsies of schizophrenic patients who had been treated with any of the atypical anti-psychotic medications show normal serotonin levels, but low glutamate, he said. "This could lead to identifying new kinds of drugs to treat schizophrenia that act on this serotonin-glutamate complex," said Mr Sealfon, adding that his research was not originally designed to investigate the disease. His study also helps settle a decades-long debate, providing further evidence that LSD does, in fact, mirror the symptoms and chemical activity found in the brains of schizophrenics.

LSD reveals schizophrenia treatment | NEWS.com.au

[waltky]

Yea, Granny says bein' zoned out on dem placebos is what makes Uncle Ferd so goofy...

Antidepressants may not help many patients
Tues., Feb. 26, 2008 - Researchers find placebos work just as well, except in severe cases

Antidepressant medications appear to help only very severely depressed people and the drugs work no better than placebos in many patients, British researchers said Tuesday. Their findings raise questions about the use of antidepressants, the most commonly prescribed drugs in the U.S. The study, led by Irving Kirsch of the University of Hull, concludes that less severely depressed patients might benefit just as much from therapy, exercise or other non-medical interventions.

"There is little reason to prescribe new-generation antidepressant medications to any but the most severely depressed patients unless alternative treatments have been ineffective," wrote researchers in the latest issue of the public Library of Science Medicine. Researchers reviewed published and unpublished U.S. Food and Drug Administration studies of the four of the most commonly prescribed new generation antidepressants to learn whether patients' response depended on how depressed they were to begin with.

The studied drugs included Prozac, Effexor, Paxil and Serzone, which are all so-called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. About 118 million antidepressant prescriptions were issued in 2005 in the U.S., according to the National Center for Health Statistics. The researchers found that compared with placebo, the antidepressant medications did not yield clinically significant improvements in depression in patients who initially had moderate or even very severe depression. The study found that significant benefits occurred only in the most severely depressed patients.

More Antidepressants may not help many patients - Mental health - MSNBC.com

See also:

Think twice before you dump antidepressants
Tues., Feb. 26, 2008 - Placebos may work as well in many, but that might not include you

There's little question antidepressants are overprescribed and that many people who take the most popular drugs in America might do just as well with therapy or even a trip to the gym. But that doesn't mean patients should toss out that bottle of Prozac or Paxil without careful consideration, warned psychology experts and scientists responding to a study that concluded placebos are as effective as medication in all but the most depressed.

And it certainly doesn't mean that severe depression — including the mood disorders that affect nearly 21 million adults in the U.S. — should be regarded as anything but the debilitating disease that it is. "This is about very sick people; there's something wrong with their brains," said Dr. Helen Mayberg, a professor of psychiatry neurology at the Emory University School of Medicine.

Mayberg and others worried that a study released Tuesday by Irving Kirsch of the University of Hull in England might lead depressed patients to abruptly stop their drugs without medical guidance. Kirsch and his researchers analyzed results of published and unpublished studies from the federal Food and Drug Administration to find that four of the most common new-generation antidepressants appear to help only the most severely depressed.

The drugs, which include those commonly known as Prozac, Effexor, Paxil and Serzone, worked no better than placebos in less severely depressed people, the researchers concluded. They suggested the drugs shouldn't be prescribed unless other therapies, including counseling and lifestyle changes such as exercise, have been tried.

Don't stop abruptly

[waltky]

Zyprexa on trial...

Common Schizophrenia Drug on Trial
Mar 8th, 2008 • The pharmaceutical giant, Eli Lilly, is being sued by the state of Alaska over allegedly covering up the potential risks of Zyprexa (olanzapine).

Attorneys for the state argue that the company knew that the drug, approved for the treatment of Schizophrenia and acute manic and mixed episodes of Bipolar Disorder, may cause diabetes in patients taking it.

According to the prosecution, the presented evidence suggests that Lilly’s management was aware of the drug’s potential risks soon after its introduction to the market in 1996, but chose to limit the public’s awareness, in order to keep the drug’s sales numbers up. The state wants Eli Lilly to pay Medicaid expenses of patients who developed diabetes and other illnesses after taking the medication.

Attorneys for Eli Lilly claim that the company has properly disclosed all of the drug’s side-effects to the Food and Drug Administration and that company has done nothing wrong. It is proud to offer the breakthrough drug to individuals suffering from mental illness. Zyprexa continues to be covered by Alaska’s Medicaid.

Zyprexa is one of the top-selling drugs worldwide, being used by over 20 million patients. According to a large National Institute of Mental Health study published in 2005, Zyprexa helps patients control their symptoms for a significantly longer period of time than with other antipsychotic drugs.

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