Copyright 2012 Medical News TodayLatest Health News and Medical News posted throughout the day, every day.http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/sections/schizophrenia/admin@medicalnewstoday.com (MNT Admin)editors@medicalnewstoday.com (MNT Editors)en-us Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/241129.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/241129.phpFor the first time, scientists have tracked the activity, across the lifespan, of an environmentally responsive regulatory mechanism that turns genes on and off in the brain's executive hub...Schizophrenia Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/241084.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/241084.phpIn 2008, roughly 14.3 million Americans were taking antipsychotics - typically prescribed for bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or a number of other behavioral disorders - making them among the most prescribed drugs in the U.S...Bipolar Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/241024.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/241024.phpOver the past 30 years, numerous studies have linked Borna disease virus (BDV) with mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety disorder and dementia. Genetic fragments and antibodies to this RNA virus, which causes behavior disorders in a range of mammals and birds, have been found to be prevalent in psychiatric patients, but study results have been inconsistent...Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240796.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240796.phpA significant obstacle to progress in understanding psychiatric disorders is the difficulty in obtaining living brain tissue for study so that disease processes can be studied directly. Recent advances in basic cellular neuroscience now suggest that, for some purposes, cultured neural stem cells may be studied in order to research psychiatric disease mechanisms...Schizophrenia Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240732.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240732.phpChanges in the endocannabinoid system may have important implications for psychiatric and addiction disorders. This brain system is responsible for making substances that have effects on brain function which resemble those of cannabis products, e.g., marijuana...Psychology / Psychiatry Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240562.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240562.phpPCE in drinking water linked to an increased risk of mental illness The solvent tetrachloroethylene (PCE) widely used in industry and to dry clean clothes is a neurotoxin known to cause mood changes, anxiety, and depression in people who work with it...Bipolar Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240445.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240445.phpPeople with mental illness have gotten a bad rap in past research studies, being labeled the group of people with the highest return rates to prison...Mental Health Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240347.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240347.phpA new technology developed by neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) transforms the way highly detailed anatomical images can be made of whole brains. Until now, means of obtaining such images - used in cutting-edge projects to map the mammalian brain - have been painstakingly slow and available only to a handful of highly specialized research teams...Schizophrenia Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240166.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240166.phpIn a new study from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), people with schizophrenia showed greater brain activity during tests that induce a brief, mild form of delusional thinking. This effect wasn't seen in a comparison group without schizophrenia. The study appears in the December issue of Biological Psychiatry...Schizophrenia Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240045.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/240045.phpThere's a 3-D world in our brains. It's a landscape that mimics the outside world, where the objects we see exist as collections of neural circuits and electrical impulses. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies are using new tools they developed to chart that world, a key step in revolutionizing research into the neurological basis of vision...Neurology / Neuroscience Wed, 04 Jan 2012 08:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/239915.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/239915.phpA report in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals states, that in adolescents with diagnosed schizophrenia and other psychoses gray matter volume seems to decrease and cerebrospinal fluid in the frontal lobe increases compared to healthy adolescents without psychosis...Schizophrenia Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/239810.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/239810.phpAdolescents diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychoses appear to show greater decreases in gray matter volume and increases in cerebrospinal fluid in the frontal lobe compared to healthy adolescents without a diagnosis of psychosis, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals...Schizophrenia Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/239742.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/239742.phpScientists at The Scripps Research Institute have discovered that DNA stays too tightly wound in certain brain cells of schizophrenic subjects. The findings suggest that drugs already in development for other diseases might eventually offer hope as a treatment for schizophrenia and related conditions in the elderly...Schizophrenia Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/239632.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/239632.phpNew research led by University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, finds that rare copy number variants (CNVs) where sections of DNA are either duplicated or missing, seem to play a key role in the risk for early onset bipolar disorder, which appears in childhood or early adulthood...Bipolar Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/239408.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/239408.phpThe identification of genes that contribute to a susceptibility to complex neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorders has been not very successful using conventional genetic approach...Schizophrenia Thu, 15 Dec 2011 08:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/239272.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/239272.phpAccording to a study by Johns Hopkins investigators published in the Nov. 16 issue of Neuron, the risk of developing schizophrenia may be increased by carrying single DNA letter changes from two different genes. Researchers have found identifying the causes for psychiatric diseases like autism and schizophrenia difficult as they might be activated by several small genetic alterations...Schizophrenia Sun, 27 Nov 2011 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/238197.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/238197.phpAlthough many mental illnesses are uniquely human, animals sometimes exhibit abnormal behaviors similar to those seen in humans with psychological disorders. Such behaviors are called endophenotypes...Autism Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/238050.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/238050.phpExperienced meditators seem to be able switch off areas of the brain associated with daydreaming as well as psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, according to a new brain imaging study by Yale researchers. Meditation's ability to help people stay focused on the moment has been associated with increased happiness levels, said Judson A...Psychology / Psychiatry Sun, 20 Nov 2011 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/237917.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/237917.phpSignificant progress has been made in understanding the genetic risk factors underlying psychiatric disease. Recent studies have identified common genetic mutations conferring modest risk and rare variants comprising significant risk...Schizophrenia Fri, 18 Nov 2011 02:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/237884.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/237884.php Researchers have discovered how the gene variant DISC1, which is linked to schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders, impairs a particular signalling pathway in neurons that is crucial for normal brain development. Li-Huei Tsai, director of MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, and colleagues, write about their findings in the 17 November issue of the journal Neuron...Schizophrenia Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/237822.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/237822.phpNew research identifies the brain chemicals and circuits involved in mental illnesses like schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety, giving potential new directions to their treatment. In addition, research with children shows that early-life depression and anxiety changes the structure of the developing brain...Schizophrenia Thu, 10 Nov 2011 01:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/237367.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/237367.phpIn the first worldwide study of its kind, scientists from Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) found evidence that heavy methamphetamine users might have a higher risk of developing schizophrenia. This finding was based on a large study comparing the risk among methamphetamine users not only to a group that did not use drugs, but also to heavy users of other drugs...Schizophrenia Wed, 09 Nov 2011 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/237288.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/237288.phpComputer analysis of brain scans could help predict how severe the future illness course of a patient with psychosis will be, according to research funded by the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. The findings could allow doctors to make more accurate decisions about how best to treat patients...Schizophrenia Mon, 07 Nov 2011 01:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/237203.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/237203.phpA research group from the University of Leeds has shown that infection by the brain parasite Toxoplasma gondii, found in 10-20 per cent of the UK's population, directly affects the production of dopamine, a key chemical messenger in the brain. Their findings are the first to demonstrate that a parasite found in the brain of mammals can affect dopamine levels...Neurology / Neuroscience Mon, 07 Nov 2011 00:00:00 PSThttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/237197.phphttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/237197.phpA new chemical process developed by a team of Harvard researchers greatly increases the utility of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) in creating real-time 3-D images of chemical process occurring inside the human body...Radiology / Nuclear Medicine