THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF OPHTHALMOLOGY
September 1, 2009
Jayne M. Dawkins
Strategic Marketing Manager - Elsevier
215-239-3674
ja.dawkins@
First Year of Brain Development Affects Adult Brain State:
A Common increase in Neuronal Density in Schizophrenia and Bipolar
It is thought that defects in brain development play a role in psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. But many questions remain regarding the type and timing of these developmental insults. The lack of insight into the precise molecular and cellular mechanisms contributing to these disorders makes it tricky to pinpoint when they start, as it is clear that the disease processes begin well in advance of the emergence of symptoms.
In a new study published in Biological Psychiatry, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School examined postmortem brain tissue from adult subjects diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar illness. They found numbers of a specific subgroup of nerve cells that were identified by the marker “NeuN” positioned in the white matter beneath the cerebral cortex. Some of these cells develop very early in life and guide the migration of other nerve cells in the brain.
Connor and colleagues add to the mounting support that there may be some disease mechanisms that are shared between schizophrenia and bipolar illness. Moreover, the authors show that white matter neuron densities decline steeply during the first postnatal year, but then remain stable thereafter. This would imply that late prenatal or early postnatal development may have been compromised in those who later developed these disorders.
John Krystal, M.D., Editor of Biological Psychiatry, comments: “This study provides new evidence of links in the neurobiology of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. These data are consistent with a growing number of genetics studies that suggest that there are neurobiological links between some forms of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.” Conner and colleagues provide evidence that in both disorders, nerve cell bodies are present in abnormal numbers in the cingulate white matter, i.e., in a region of brain tissue that usually contains the fiber “connections” between nerve cells rather than their cell bodies. They suggest that the fate of these nerve cells is determined by the end of the first year of life.
Corresponding author Schahram Akbarian, M.D., Ph.D., notes: “Importantly, the abnormal elevation of white matter neuron numbers was present only in a subset of cases (approximately one quarter), suggesting that not all subjects with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are affected.” Dr. Krystal adds that “this means that the trajectory of cortical development may be altered well in advance of the onset of symptoms. This finding presents a serious challenge to efforts to prevent schizophrenia and bipolar disorder during adolescence or adulthood.”
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Notes to Editors:
The article is “Cingulate White Matter Neurons in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder” by Caroline M. Connor, Yin Guo, and Schahram Akbarian. The authors are affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. Connor is also from the Program in Neurobiology, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Worcester, Massachusetts. The article appears in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 65, Issue 5 (September 1, 2009), published by Elsevier.
The authors’ disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available in the article.
John H. Krystal, M.D. is Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine and a research psychiatrist at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. His disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available at .
Full text of the article mentioned above is available upon request. Contact Jayne M. Dawkins at ja.dawkins@ to obtain a copy or to schedule an interview.
About Biological Psychiatry
This international rapid-publication journal is the official journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry. It covers a broad range of topics in psychiatric neuroscience and therapeutics. Both basic and clinical contributions are encouraged from all disciplines and research areas relevant to the pathophysiology and treatment of major neuropsychiatric disorders. Full-length and Brief Reports of novel results, Commentaries, Case Studies of unusual significance, and Correspondence and Comments judged to be of high impact to the field are published, particularly those addressing genetic and environmental risk factors, neural circuitry and neurochemistry, and important new therapeutic approaches. Concise Reviews and Editorials that focus on topics of current research and interest are also published rapidly.
Biological Psychiatry (journal) is ranked 4th out of the 101 Psychiatry titles and 14th out of 219 Neurosciences titles on the 2008 ISI Journal Citations Reports® published by Thomson Scientific.
About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. Working in partnership with the global science and health communities, Elsevier’s 7,000 employees in over 70 offices worldwide publish more than 2,000 journals and 1,900 new books per year, in addition to offering a suite of innovative electronic products, such as ScienceDirect (), MD Consult (), Scopus (), bibliographic databases, and online reference works. Elsevier () is a global business headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and has offices worldwide. Elsevier is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc (), a world-leading publisher and information provider. Operating in the science and medical, legal, education and business-to-business sectors, Reed Elsevier provides high-quality and flexible information solutions to users, with increasing emphasis on the Internet as a means of delivery. Reed Elsevier's ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).
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