Potential Biomarkers For Schizophrenia

Main Category: Schizophrenia
Article Date: 24 Aug 2006 - 23:00 PDT

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Schizophrenia is a disease for which no "objective" biological test exists. The current diagnosis is based on the symptoms experienced and reported by the patient, in combination with signs observed by a psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, or other clinician. Results by Sabine Bahn and colleagues reported in the international open-access medical journal PLoS Medicine suggest that studying "metabolic profiles" of patients might yield a set of biomarkers that could reliably help in early diagnosis of schizophrenia. Such biomarkers might possibly also help in monitoring patients' responses to drug treatment.

In their search for biomarkers, Bahn and colleagues examined the levels of different molecules present in the cerebrospinal fluid of 82 patients with schizophrenia and 70 healthy controls. Of the patients, 54 had just been diagnosed with schizophrenia (or a similar illness called brief psychotic disorder) and had not yet taken any schizophrenia-specific drugs. The remaining patients were undergoing treatment with a range of antipsychotic drugs. The researchers found different levels of certain molecules in the spinal fluid of newly diagnosed patients who had never taken schizophrenia drugs compared with healthy individuals of the same ages. These molecules might therefore turn out to be useful biomarkers for schizophrenia. The differences between patients and controls suggested that the metabolism of several substances--including glucose and acetate--might be altered in the brains of patients with schizophrenia or brief psychotic disorder. The researchers also found that the levels of these molecules in some of the patients with newly diagnosed schizophrenia who were given medication became similar to the levels in the control individuals.

These are promising early results which need to be tested in larger studies to determine their clinical relevance.

Citation: Holmes E, Tsang TM, Huang JTJ, Leweke FM, Koethe D, et al. (2006) Metabolic profiling of CSF: Evidence that early intervention may impact on disease progression and outcome in schizophrenia. PLoS Med 3(8): e327.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0030327

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CONTACT:
Sabine Bahn
University of Cambridge
Cambridge Centre for Neuropsychiatric Research
Tennis Court Road
Cambridge, CB2 1QT
United Kingdom
sb209@cam.ac.uk

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PLoS Medicine is an open access, freely available international medical journal. It publishes original research that enhances our understanding of human health and disease, together with commentary and analysis of important global health issues. For more information, visit http://www.plosmedicine.org/

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