What Is: Schizophrenia

 

Image Credit: Scientific Frontline

Beyond the Misconceptions

Schizophrenia is one of the most misunderstood mental health conditions. It is not, as commonly portrayed, a "split personality" (that is a separate, rare condition called dissociative identity disorder). Rather, schizophrenia is a chronic and severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves. At its core, it is a disorder of cognition and reality testing, characterized by a "fracturing" of the mind's essential functions, leading to a disconnect from reality for the individual experiencing it.

Globally, schizophrenia affects approximately 24 million people, or 1 in 300 worldwide. It is a universal human illness that does not discriminate based on race, culture, or socioeconomic status.

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder found in recently evolved region of the ‘dark genome’

They say these new proteins can be used as biological indicators to distinguish between the two conditions, and to identify patients more prone to psychosis or suicide.

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are debilitating mental disorders that are hard to diagnose and treat. Despite being amongst the most heritable mental health disorders, very few clues to their cause have been found in the sections of our DNA known as genes.

The scientists think that hotspots in the ‘dark genome’ associated with the disorders may have evolved because they have beneficial functions in human development, but their disruption by environmental factors leads to susceptibility to, or development of, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

The results are published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

“By scanning through the entire genome we’ve found regions, not classed as genes in the traditional sense, which create proteins that appear to be associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder,” said Dr Sudhakaran Prabakaran, who was based in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Genetics when he conducted the research, and is senior author of the report.

He added: “This opens up huge potential for new druggable targets. It’s really exciting because nobody has ever looked beyond the genes for clues to understanding and treating these conditions before.”

The researchers think that these genomic components of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are specific to humans - the newly discovered regions are not found in the genomes of other vertebrates. It is likely that the regions evolved quickly in humans as our cognitive abilities developed, but they are easily disrupted - resulting in the two conditions.

Researchers detect that people with schizophrenia have an altered ability to visually perceive contrast

UB researchers Cristina de la Malla and Daniel Linares.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of University of Barcelona

According to a review of more than 600 studies, these patients would have difficulty in detecting differences in light intensity between adjacent areas, without which they cannot adequately see their surroundings and objects.

The article, published in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin, is signed by researchers Daniel Linares and Cristina de la Malla, together with master’s student Aster Joostens, from the Vision and Control of Action Group of the Faculty of Psychology and the UB Institute of Neurosciences (UBneuro).

A key indicator of visual function

The symptoms of schizophrenia are characterized by alterations in thinking and behavior, such as loss of contact with reality, delusions or hallucinations, but there are also abnormalities in the perception of visual stimuli, such as deficits in the perception of color or contrast. Understanding these abnormalities may provide clues as to how information processing disturbances contribute to the characteristic symptoms of schizophrenia. “Contrast perception is one of the most fundamental abilities of vision, as without it, we cannot adequately perceive the environment and the objects in it, which can compromise everyday tasks such as moving through space, recognizing faces or reading”, explains the research team, part of the Department of Cognition, ​​​​​​​Development and Educational Psychology.

An unexpected link between 2 schizophrenia risk proteins

The study findings suggest that when the proteins don’t bind properly, signaling among neurons, illustrated above, becomes imbalanced, which can lead to related negative behavioral symptoms.
 Image Credit: T. Ahmed, A. Buonanno, National institute of Child Health and Human Development

The discovery of a physical interaction between two proteins in brain cells that can be traced in mice to control of movement, anxiety and memory could one day open the door to development of new schizophrenia treatment strategies.

The research group is the first to determine that the two proteins, both among the dozens of proteins related to risk for the development of schizophrenia, bind to each other under normal conditions in multiple regions of the brain, and that their connection was found in mice to be key to maintaining normal movement, memory function and anxiety regulation.

When that connection doesn’t happen as it should, they found, behavior can be negatively affected – in mice, disruption to the proteins’ ability to interact increased hyperactivity, reduced risk avoidance and impaired memory. Though delusions and hallucinations are hallmark symptoms of schizophrenia, the condition also encompasses additional symptoms, including movement and memory problems. 

“These two proteins are seemingly unrelated, and our study has provided a link between them that wasn’t recognized before,” said lead author Chen Gu, associate professor of biological chemistry and pharmacology in The Ohio State University College of Medicine.  

Pilot study shows ketogenic diet improves severe mental illness

A study led by researchers at Stanford Medicine showed that diet can help those with serious mental illness.

Video Credit: Stanford Medicine

For people living with serious mental illness like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, standard treatment with antipsychotic medications can be a double-edged sword. While these drugs help regulate brain chemistry, they often cause metabolic side effects such as insulin resistance and obesity, which are distressing enough that many patients stop taking the medications.

Now, a pilot study led by Stanford Medicine researchers has found that a ketogenic diet not only restores metabolic health in these patients as they continue their medications, but it further improves their psychiatric conditions. The results published in Psychiatry Research, suggest that a dietary intervention can be a powerful aid in treating mental illness.

“It’s very promising and very encouraging that you can take back control of your illness in some way, aside from the usual standard of care,” said Shebani Sethi, MD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and the first author of the new paper.

Early changes during brain development may hold the key to autism and schizophrenia

Photo Credit: Michal Jarmoluk

Researchers at the University of Exeter have created a detailed temporal map of chemical changes to DNA through development and aging of the human brain, offering new insights into how conditions such as autism and schizophrenia may arise.

The team studied epigenetic changes – chemical tags on our DNA that control how genes are switched on or off. These changes are crucial in regulating the expression of genes, guiding brain cells to develop and specialize correctly.

One important mechanism, called DNA methylation, was examined in nearly 1,000 donated human brains, spanning life from just six weeks after conception through to 108 years of age. The researchers focused on the cortex, a region of the brain involved in high-level functions such as thought, memory, perception, and behavior. Correct development of the cortex during early life is important to support healthy brain function after birth.

New research finds the risk of psychotic-like experiences can start in childhood

 

It has long been understood that environmental and socio-economic factors – including income disparity, family poverty, and air pollution – increase a person’s risk of developing psychotic-like experiences, such as subtle hallucinations and delusions that can become precursors to a schizophrenia diagnosis later in life. Research has long focused on young adults but now, thanks to data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, researchers at the University of Rochester have found these risk factors can be observed in pre-adolescent children.

“These findings could have a major impact on public health initiatives to reduce the risk of psychotic-like experiences,” said Abhishek Saxena, a graduate student in the department of Psychology at the University of Rochester and first author of the study recently published in Frontiers in Psychiatry. “Past research has largely focused on the biological factors that lead to development of schizophrenia spectrum disorders, but we now know that social and environmental factors can also play a large role in the risk and development of schizophrenia. And this research shows these factors impact people starting at a very young age.”

Researchers looked at data collected from 8,000 kids enrolled in the ABCD study. They found that the more urban of an environment a child lived in – proximity to roads, houses with lead paint risks, families in poverty, and income disparity – the greater number of psychotic-like experiences they had over a year’s time. These findings are in line with past research conducted in young adults, but have not been found like this in pre-adolescences.

How Does the Brain Differentiate New Stimuli from Old Ones?

The illustration represents how sounds are encoded in the cerebral cortex, with neurons (at right) using "echoing" activity to track auditory stimuli to change and improve its predictions of the future.
Illustration Credit: Yuriy Shymkiv

The cerebral cortex is the largest part of a mammal’s brain, and by some measures the most important. In humans in particular, it’s where most things happen—like perception, thinking, memory storage, and decision-making. One current hypothesis suggests that the cortex’s primary role is to predict what’s going to happen in the future by identifying and encoding new information it receives from the outside world and comparing it with what was expected to occur.

A new study published today in the journal Neuron takes a big step toward proving that hypothesis. The paper’s lead author is Yuriy Shymkiv, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Professor Rafael Yuste.

“We found that the cortex acts like a memory machine, encoding new experiences, and predicting the very near future,” Shymkiv said.

New report finds smoking is a cause of depression and schizophrenia

Credit: Uki Eiri from Pixabay

Smoking increases the risk of developing schizophrenia by between 53% and 127% and of developing depression by 54% to 132%, a report by academics from the University of Bristol published today has shown. More research is needed to identify why this is the case, and more evidence is needed for other mental health conditions such as anxiety or bipolar disorder.

The evidence presented today at the Royal College of Psychiatrists International Congress has been shared with the Government which is currently developing a new Tobacco Control Plan for publication later this year.

The Congress will also be given new data on the numbers of smokers with mental health conditions. Rates of smoking are much higher among people with mental health conditions than those without, and among England’s 6 million smokers there are an estimated:

• 230k smokers with severe mental illness (e.g., schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder)
• 1.6 million with depression and anxiety

These analyses are timely as the Government is currently considering recommendations by the Khan Review for the forthcoming Tobacco Control Plan to deliver its Smokefree 2030 ambition. The independent review by Javed Khan was commissioned by the Secretary of State to help the Government to identify the most impactful interventions to reduce the uptake of smoking, and support people to stop smoking, for good. One of Khan’s 15 recommendations was that action is needed to tackle the issue of smoking and mental health.

Cannabis users at 'much higher' risk of developing poor mental health

 

Those with a recorded history of cannabis use in general practice records are at a much higher risk of developing mental ill health problems such as anxiety or depression as well as severe mental illnesses, new research shows.

The findings point to the need for a public health approach to the management of people misusing cannabis, including the need to emphasize the importance of general practitioners to continue enquiring about recreational drug use.

While the links between cannabis use and severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and psychosis are well researched, the associations are less clear between cannabis use as described in patient’s GP records and other, more common types of mental ill health such as depression and anxiety.

In a new study, published in Psychological Medicine, researchers in the University of Birmingham’s Institute for Mental Health and the Institute of Applied Health Research found a strong link between general practice recorded cannabis use and mental ill health in one of the largest cohorts ever explored.

Senior author Dr Clara Humpston said: “Cannabis is often considered to be one of the ‘safer’ drugs and has also shown promise in medical therapies, leading to calls for it be legalized globally. Although we are unable to establish a direct causal relationship, our findings suggest we should continue to exercise caution since the notion of cannabis being a safe drug may well be mistaken.”

Dr Joht Singh Chandan said: “The research reaffirms the need to ensure a public health approach to recreational drug use continues to be adopted across the UK. We must continue to progress measures to improve the prevention and detection of drug use as well as implement the appropriate supportive measures in an equitable manner to prevent the secondary negative health consequences.”

Using primary care data drawn from the IQVIA Medical Research Database (IMRD-UK), the researchers found following the first recorded use of cannabis, patients were three times more likely to develop common mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. In addition, they were almost 7 times more likely to develop severe mental illnesses such as psychosis or schizophrenia.

The dataset included records from 787 GP practices around the UK gathered over a 23-year period between 1995 and 2018. The researchers were able to include data from 28,218 patients who had a recorded exposure to cannabis. These were matched to 56,208 patients who had not been using cannabis and controlled for sex, age, ethnicity, smoking status and other relevant characteristics.

The cannabis users also had much higher rates of having a recorded history of using other drugs such as heroin, cocaine and amphetamines.

Future research in this area will investigate the levels of cannabis use or the potency of ingredients.

Source/Credit: University of Birmingham

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Scientists discover genetic variants that speed up and slow down brain aging

Researchers from a USC-led consortium have discovered 15 “hot spots” in the genome that either speed up brain aging or slow it down — a finding that could provide new drug targets to resist developmental delays, Alzheimer’s disease and other degenerative brain disorders.

The research appeared online Tuesday in Nature Neuroscience.

“The big game-changer here is discovering locations on the chromosome that speed up or slow down brain aging in worldwide populations. These can quickly become new drug targets,” said Paul Thompson of USC, a lead author on the study and the co-founder and director of the ENIGMA Consortium. “Through our AI4AD [Artificial Intelligence for Alzheimer’s Disease] initiative we even have a genome-guided drug repurposing program to target these and find new and existing drugs that help us age better.”

ENIGMA is working group based at USC that is exploring a vast trove of brain data and has published some of the largest-ever neuroimaging studies of schizophrenia, major depression, bipolar disorder, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and even HIV infection.

To discover the hot spots, or genomic loci, more than 200 ENIGMA-member scientists from all over the world looked for people whose brains were scanned twice with MRI. The scans provided a measure of how fast their brains were gaining or losing tissue in regions that control memory, emotion and analytical thinking.

Eight Psychiatric Disorders Share the Same Genetic Causes

Image Credit: Won Lab

Building off previous groundbreaking research, a new study identifies specific genetic variants that have significant impacts on brain development and are shared across eight different psychiatric disorders. Targeting these variants could pave the way for treatments that address multiple conditions at once.

Psychiatric disorders often overlap and can make diagnosis difficult. Depression and anxiety, for example, can coexist and share symptoms. Schizophrenia and anorexia nervosa. Autism and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, too. But, why?

Life experiences, environment, and genetics can all influence psychiatric disorders, but much of it comes down to variations in our genetics. Over the past few years, scientists in the field of psychiatric genetics have found that there are common genetic threads that may be linking and causing coexisting psychiatric disorders.

In 2019, researchers at the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, Harvard University, and the UNC School of Medicine identified 136 “hot spots” within the genome that are associated with eight psychiatric disorders. Among them, 109 hot spots were shared among multiple disorders, or “pleiotropic”. However, it was not clear at the time how genetic variations within these hot spots differed from those that only have roles in only one disorder.

Risk factors for faster aging in the brain revealed in new study

Governments have been urged to act decisively before 2035 to ensure global warming can be kept below 2°C by 2100.
Photo Credit: Nöel Puebla

Researchers from the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Oxford have used data from UK Biobank participants to reveal that diabetes, traffic-related air pollution and alcohol intake are the most harmful out of 15 modifiable risk factors for dementia.

The researchers had previously identified a ‘weak spot’ in the brain, which is a specific network of higher-order regions that not only develop later during adolescence, but also show earlier degeneration in old age. They showed that this brain network is also particularly vulnerable to schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease.

In this new study, published in Nature Communications, they investigated the genetic and modifiable influences on these fragile brain regions by looking at the brain scans of 40,000 UK Biobank participants aged over 45.

The researchers examined 161 risk factors for dementia, and ranked their impact on this vulnerable brain network, over and above the natural effects of age. They classified these so-called ‘modifiable’ risk factors − as they can potentially be changed throughout life to reduce the risk of dementia − into 15 broad categories: blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, weight, alcohol consumption, smoking, depressive mood, inflammation, pollution, hearing, sleep, socialization, diet, physical activity, and education.

Exposure to air pollution linked with increased mental health issues

 

Exposure to traffic-related air pollution is associated with increased mental health service-use among people recently diagnosed with psychotic and mood disorders such as schizophrenia and depression, a study on data from over 13,000 people has found.

Increased use of mental health services reflects mental illness severity, suggesting that initiatives to lessen air pollution could improve outcomes for those with these disorders and reduce costs of the healthcare needed to support them.

The research was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry and funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre.

In 2019 119,000 people lived with illegal levels of polluted air in London. Previous research has found that adults exposed to high levels of traffic-related air pollution are more likely to experience common mental health disorders such as anxiety and mild depression but, until now, little was known about whether air pollution exposure contributes to the course and severity after the onset of more serious mental illness.

Researchers at King’s College London, University of Bristol and Imperial College London analyzed data from 13,887 people aged 15 years and over who had face-to-face contact with South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM) services between 2008 and 2012. Individuals were followed from the date of their first face-to-face contact for up to seven years.

Anonymized electronic mental health records were linked with quarterly average modelled concentrations of air pollutants (20x20 meter grid points) at the residential address of the participants. These included nitrogen dioxide and nitrogen oxides (NO2 and NOx) and fine and coarse particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10).

The study found people exposed to higher residential levels of air pollutants used mental healthcare services more frequently in the months and years following their initial presentation to secondary mental healthcare services compared to those exposed to lower air pollution.

The researchers found that for every 3 micrograms per cubic meter increase in very small particulate matter (PM2.5) and 15 micrograms per cubic meter increase in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) over a one-year period there was an increased risk of having an inpatient stay of 11 per cent and 18 per cent. Results also showed increases in PM2.5 and NO2 were associated with a 7 per cent and 32 per cent increased risk of requiring community-based mental healthcare for the same period. These findings were also replicated over a seven-year period.

Dr Ioannis Bakolis, Senior Lecturer in Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) King’s College London and lead author of the study, said: ‘There is already evidence linking air pollution to the incidence of mental disorders, but our novel findings suggest that air pollution could also play a role in the severity of mental disorders for people with pre-existing mental health conditions.’

He continued: ‘Our research indicates that air pollution is a major risk factor for increased severity of mental disorders. It is also a risk factor that is easily modifiable which suggests more public health initiatives to reduce exposure such as low emission zones could improve mental health outcomes as well as reduce the high healthcare costs caused by long-term chronic mental illness.’

According to the researchers, if the UK urban population’s exposure to PM2.5 was reduced by just a few units to the World Health Organization's recommended annual limit (10 micrograms per cubic metre), this would reduce usage of mental health services by around two per cent, thereby saving tens of millions of pounds each year in associated healthcare costs.

Dr Joanne Newbury, Sir Henry Wellcome Research Fellow, Bristol Medical School (PHS), and the study’s first author, added: ‘We observed these findings for both mood disorders and psychotic disorders, as well as for both inpatient and community-based mental healthcare, and over seven years follow-up. This suggests that air pollution may contribute to a broad range of mental health problems, across a wide spectrum of clinical need, and over long periods of time.

‘We now plan to examine whether air pollution is associated with a broader range of mental health, neurodevelopmental, and educational outcomes, particularly among children, who might be especially vulnerable to air pollution.’

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust provides comprehensive secondary mental healthcare to approximately 1.36 million people within the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark. These are inner-city areas with high-traffic flows and high average air pollution concentrations compared to other UK urban areas that reflect London’s diversity in terms of ethnicity and wealth.

The researchers controlled the analyses for a number of potential variables that could influence the association between air pollution and service-use association, such as deprivation, population density, age, season, marital status and ethnicity. However, they cautioned that the study does not prove cause and effect, and further research needs to demonstrate exactly how air pollution might increase severity of mental health problems.

Dr Adrian James, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: ‘The environmental and climate emergency is also a mental health emergency. Our health is fundamentally linked to the quality of our environment, whether that's about cleaner air, access to green spaces or protection from extreme weather.

‘If air pollution is exacerbating pre-existing serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression, then improving air quality could reduce the pressure on mental health services. As we look ahead to our post-pandemic future, it is vital that we find ways to build back greener and prevent poor health. This important research presents a clear example where these go hand-in-hand.’

The research was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre, Wellcome, the Economic and Social Research Council, and the UK Medical Research Council.

Press Release
Source / Credit: University of Bristol

New study reveals strong connection between heart and brain health

A growing amount of evidence points to interactions between heart health and brain health.

Cardiovascular diseases serve as a crucial backdrop for brain diseases like stroke, dementia, cerebral small vessel disease and cognitive impairment. Studies have shown, for example, that atrial fibrillation, even in stroke-free individuals, is associated with an increased incidence of dementia and silent cerebral damage. Heart failure has been linked to cognitive impairment and dementia due to reduced cerebral blood flow caused by a failing heart. Conversely, mental disorders and negative psychological factors may contribute to the onset and progression of cardiovascular diseases. Individuals with conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, epilepsy or depression are more prone to cardiovascular diseases.

Despite this growing knowledge, previous studies on heart-brain interactions and associated risk factors have been limited in scope, focusing on specific diseases or utilizing small sample sizes. Consequently, the overall understanding of the structural and functional links between the heart and brain remains incomplete.

A new study conducted by researchers from UNC-Chapel Hill, the University of Pennsylvania and Purdue University leverages large magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data to shed light on the close relationship between cardiovascular diseases and brain diseases such as stroke, dementia and cognitive impairment, unraveling the underlying genetic signatures and inter-organ connections between the heart and brain.

Mushroom consumption may lower risk of depression

Image: Pexel

Mushrooms have been making headlines due to their many health advantages. Not only do they lower one’s risk of cancer and premature death, but new research led by Penn State College of Medicine also reveals that these superfoods may benefit a person’s mental health.

Penn State researchers used data on diet and mental health collected from more than 24,000 U.S. adults between 2005 and 2016. They found that people who ate mushrooms had lower odds of having depression.

According to the researchers, mushrooms contain ergothioneine, an antioxidant that may protect against cell and tissue damage in the body. Studies have shown that antioxidants help prevent several mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression.

“Mushrooms are the highest dietary source of the amino acid ergothioneine — an anti-inflammatory which cannot be synthesized by humans,” said lead researcher Djibril Ba, who recently graduated from the epidemiology doctoral program at the College of Medicine. “Having high levels of this may lower the risk of oxidative stress, which could also reduce the symptoms of depression.”

How bats distinguish different sounds

Seba's short-tailed bat (Carollia perspicillata) filters out important signals from ambient sound and distinguishes between echolocation and communication calls.
Photo Credit: Julio Hechavarría, Goethe University Frankfurt

Bats live in a world of sounds. They use vocalizations both to communicate with their conspecifics and for navigation. For the latter, they emit sounds in the ultrasonic range, which echo and enable them to create an “image" of their surroundings. Neuroscientists at Goethe University Frankfurt have now discovered how Seba's short-tailed bat, a species native to South America, manages to filter out important signals from ambient sound and especially to distinguish between echolocation and communication calls. 

Seba's short-tailed bat (Carollia perspicillata) lives in the subtropical and tropical forests of Central and South America, where it mostly feeds on pepper fruit. The animals spend their days in groups of 10 to 100 individuals in hollow trunks and rocky caverns, and at night they go foraging together. They communicate using sounds that create distinct ambient noise in the colony – like the babble of voices at a lively party. At the same time, the bats also use vocalizations to navigate their surroundings: a phenomenon known as echolocation, for which they emit ultrasonic sounds that reflect off solid surfaces. The animals then assemble these echoes into an “image" of their surroundings. 

Covid-19 is linked to increased degradation of connections between nerve cells in a new brain model

Postdoctoral fellow Samudyata and doctoral student Susmita Malwade.
Source: Karolinska Institutet

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have used cellular reprogramming in a new study to create human three-dimensional brain models and infected them with SARS-CoV-2. In infected models, the brain's immune cells showed an excessive elimination of connections between the nerve cells. The gene expression of these cells also mimicked changes observed in neurodegenerative diseases. The results hope to identify new treatments for cognitive symptoms after Covid-19 infection.

Several studies have reported persistent cognitive symptoms following a covid-19 infection, but the underlying mechanisms for this are still unknown. The researchers behind the study, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, have created from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) three-dimensional models of the brain in test tubes, so-called brain organoids. The model differs from previous organoid models in that they also contain microglia - the brain's immune cells. In the infected models, microglia regulated genes involved in phagocytosis, "cell-eating," the researchers could also see how microglia contained an increased amount of proteins from brain cell connections, so-called synapses. The developed model and results of the study can help guide future efforts to address cognitive symptoms in the aftermath of COVID-19 and other neuroinvasive viral infections.

People with severe mental illness at 50 per cent higher risk of death following COVID-19 infection

Photo Credit: Darina Belonogova

New research from King’s College London has found that people in the UK with severe mental illness were at increased risk of death from all causes following COVID-19 infection compared to those without severe mental illness.

Published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, the study investigated the extent to which having severe mental illness, which includes schizophrenia and psychosis, increased the risk of death during the first two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) and ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health analyzed data from over 660,000 UK patients between February 2020 and April 2021.

Among the 7146 people with severe mental illness, there was a 50 per cent greater risk of death from all causes following COVID-19 infection compared with those without severe mental illness.

Black Caribbean/Black African people were at 22 per cent higher risk of death following COVID-19 infection than White people, and this was similar for people with and without severe mental illness. However, in around 30 per cent of patient data, ethnicity was not recorded.

Marker for brain inflammation finally decoded

TSPO protein (in green) was quantified in microglia (in red) in proximity to lesion characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease, the amyloid plaques (in blue) and pTau lesions (in white), in post mortem human brain samples.
Image Credit: Stergios Tsartsalis

An international team co-led by UNIGE and HUG has decoded the only protein that can be used to "see" neuroinflammation. This discovery will improve the understanding of neurological and psychiatric disease mechanisms.

 Inflammation is the sign that our body is defending itself against aggression. But when this response escalates, for example in the brain, it can lead to serious neurological or psychiatric diseases. A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG), Imperial College London and Amsterdam UMC, investigated a marker protein targeted by medical imaging to visualize cerebral inflammation, but whose interpretation was still uncertain. The team reveals that a large quantity of this protein goes hand in hand with a large quantity of inflammatory cells, but its presence is not a sign of their overactivation. These results, published in Nature Communications, pave the way for optimal observation of neuroinflammatory processes and a re-reading of previous studies on the subject.