Schizophrenia is a serious brain disorder that affects about 1 out of every 100 people, or over 2.5 million people in the United States alone.
This condition often causes people to hear voices or see things that aren’t really there (hallucinations), or believe things that aren’t true (delusions).
Some people with schizophrenia also have a hard time thinking clearly or getting along with others.
Sadly, the drugs we currently have for treating schizophrenia don’t work well for everyone. In fact, they don’t work at all for more than 30% of people, who have a form of the disorder that doesn’t respond to treatment.
This means that over 750,000 Americans are living with schizophrenia that we can’t currently treat effectively.
Even when these drugs do work, they can cause a lot of unpleasant side effects. Some people develop uncontrollable body movements, a condition called tardive dyskinesia.
Others develop symptoms like those seen in Parkinson’s disease, such as rigidity, tremors, and slowness of movement. Clearly, we need better drugs for treating schizophrenia.
Surprising Findings Open a New Door
Recently, a team of scientists at Northwestern Medicine made a discovery that could help us develop these better drugs.
They found out that the drugs we currently use to treat schizophrenia actually work on a different part of the brain than we thought.
Here’s a bit of background to understand this finding: People with schizophrenia have too much of a chemical called dopamine in a part of their brain called the striatum.
There are two main types of cells in this part of the brain that dopamine can affect. They’re like two different types of locks that dopamine, the key, can open.
We’ve long believed that the drugs used to treat schizophrenia work by blocking one of these types of locks, known as D2 receptors.
However, this new study found that these drugs actually have a bigger impact on the other type of lock, known as D1 receptors.
Changing Our Understanding
This finding turns our understanding of how these drugs work on its head.
It suggests that if we want to develop more effective drugs for treating schizophrenia, we should be focusing on how these drugs affect the D1 receptors, not the D2 receptors.
Jones Parker, the lead scientist on this study, believes that this is a major discovery.
He says, “This is a landmark finding that completely changes our understanding of how psychosis works in the brain, and it gives us a new path for developing better treatments for it.”
The results of this study were published in a prestigious scientific journal called Nature Neuroscience.
Other scientists at Northwestern who worked on this study include Seongsik Yun, Ben Yang, Justin Anair, Madison Martin, Stefan Fleps, Arin Pamukcu, Nai-Hsing Yeh, Anis Contractor, and Ann Kennedy.
A Path Forward
While there is still much work to be done, this study has given scientists a new direction to look in as they work to develop more effective treatments for schizophrenia.
They now know to focus on the D1 receptors in the brain, and this could potentially lead to drugs that are more effective and have fewer side effects.
As Jones Parker puts it, “Our study revealed our lack of understanding of how these drugs work and pointed us towards new therapeutic strategies for developing more effective antipsychotics.”
This discovery is a shining example of the importance of scientific research. It reminds us that even when we think we understand something, there’s always more to learn.
And in the case of schizophrenia, these new lessons could lead to better treatments that improve the lives of millions of people.
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The study was published in Nature Neuroscience.
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