Schizophrenia — every hundredth person in the world will hear such a verdict. This ruthless statistic has not changed for years, although modern drugs allow much better control of an incurable disease.
Schizophrenia is a mental illness that makes it very difficult to function in society, not only because of hallucinations or delusions, but also because of difficulty in establishing intimate relationships or experiencing emotions. Symptoms can be extremely unpleasant and lead to suicide in about 10% of patients. It is also impossible to ignore the huge financial burden that this disease generates in every country, and yet, in addition to the costs of treatment (often closed), lifelong pensions and benefits should be considered, because not all patients can receive permanent treatment.
Origin of the disease
Because of all these aspects, schizophrenia — though still a social taboo — has fascinated physicians for millennia, always trying to figure out its origins. The first description of the disease is believed to be in Egyptian records around 1550 BC. Since then, more and more new ideas about the etiology of the disease have emerged, sometimes calling it a disease of the soul, and sometimes finding flaws in defective genes or unsatisfactory relationships with parents. However, recent research shows that those who were looking for causes long before the onset of the first symptoms, which usually occur in the second or third decade of life, were right.
Once again, stem cells helped solve the mystery. In 2014, an article was published in which the authors took a fragment of the epidermis of healthy people and people with schizophrenia and differentiated it into stem cells, from which they, in turn, cultivated the so-called neural progenitor cells (the so-called neural progenitor cells — NPCs). They usually occur in the embryo during the first trimester of pregnancy and gradually differentiate into neurons, allowing the nervous system to develop normally. However, NPCs from schizophrenic patients were significantly different from normal in terms of substrate adhesion, migration and response to oxidative stress, i.e. the action of oxygen free radicals. pregnancies may contribute to the development of schizophrenia in offspring. However, scientists decided to go even further.
A few weeks ago, Michal and Ewa Stachowiak, professors of pathology and anatomical sciences at the University of Buffalo, announced the results of their mini-brain study. These are structures formed in vitro similarly to those described above, with the difference that this is not limited to the production of NPCs, but due to the proper nutrition of the cells, organs similar to the fetal brain are grown in the first trimester of pregnancy. . Such organs already have a certain spatial structure, and the properly regulated divisions and migration of NPCs that occur in them eventually lead to the formation of a normal brain.
Unfortunately, in a mini-brain grown from schizophrenic epidermal cells, these processes are disturbed in the form of too many NPC divisions, their too rapid differentiation into mature neurons, and uncoordinated migration, especially in regions. surrounding the ventricles of the brain. The scientists also described bumps in so-called interneurons, or interneurons, that connect different levels of the brain together. Their dysfunction causes discoordination of individual neural networks, especially those responsible for memory, emotions and motivation. Thus, the described deviations explain the genesis of such symptoms of schizophrenia as a lack of interest in the outside world and interpersonal relationships. A flattened affect, that is, a significant limitation in the range of emotions experienced, or, finally, a violation of concentration.
Thus, it seems that genes or damaging factors in early pregnancy seem to play a larger role in the etiology of schizophrenia than later stress or environmental factors. What is the significance of this discovery for psychiatry? Perhaps, on this basis, it will be possible to create tests that reveal a predisposition to schizophrenia in the womb (for example, in the offspring of schizophrenics who are considered a high-risk group), and even its intrauterine treatment. So far, only the effects of widely used — and effectively suppressing the symptoms of already diagnosed schizophrenia — antipsychotic drugs have been tested on NPC patients. Unfortunately, not only did they not improve the functioning of the cells, but sometimes even aggravated the disturbances in migration and division. Therefore, we have yet to wait for an effective therapy that reduces the incidence of schizophrenia.