Scientists brains of schizophrenia patients try to repair themselves

Recent research brings hope for people with schizophrenia
When people suffer from schizophrenia, a variety of characteristic disorders occur. These impair perception, thinking, our so-called ego functions, the will, the impulse and the psychomotricity. Researchers have now discovered that the brains of patients with schizophrenia, however, have the ability to reorganize themselves and fight the disease.

An international team led by Canadian scientists from the Lawson Health Research Institute and the Roberts Research Institute at Western University has now found in an investigation that the brains of people with schizophrenia can safely reorganize and repair themselves. This is the first evidence of our brain's ability to reverse the effects of schizophrenia. The physicians published the results of their study in the journal "Psychology Medicine".

People with schizophrenia suffer from a variety of characteristic disorders. A treatment usually turns out to be extremely difficult. Now it has been found that our brain apparently has the ability to reorganize itself. (Image: psdesign1 / fotolia.com)

Slight increase in brain tissue volume detectable
Schizophrenia is a disease that is generally associated with a widespread reduction in brain tissue volume. However, a recent study found that there is a subtle increase in tissue in certain brain areas. The study monitored 98 patients with schizophrenia, whose data were compared with 83 healthy volunteers, say the doctors. The research team used so-called Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and a sophisticated concept called covariance analysis to record the increase in brain tissue.

New findings could enable future cure of schizophrenia
The new findings could enable a future cure of schizophrenia and other serious mental illness, explained author Dr. Lena Palaniyappan from the Lawson Health Research Institute. Current treatments are designed only to alleviate the disease. A reversal of cognitive and functional deficits is not yet provided for in the treatment, adds dr. Palaniyappan added.

Brains of schizophrenia patients are constantly trying to reorganize
There is a long-standing notion that schizophrenia is a degenerative disease that, so to speak, sows a destructive seed very early in the brain's development, the experts say. This will later trigger the damage to our brain. Despite the severity of tissue damage, the brain of a patient with schizophrenia is constantly trying to reorganize, the researchers explain. This may happen to save oneself or to reduce the damage already suffered Palaniyappan.

The result is a tremendous advance in the understanding of schizophrenia
Next, the research team will examine the evolution of the reorganization process by performing repeated brain analyzes of individual patients with early schizophrenia. Thereafter, the effect of this reorganization on recovery is to be assessed. As recently as 100 years ago, the disease was thought to be a form of premature dementia that causes a seemingly progressive deterioration of our brain's abilities, the experts say.

Involved researchers and institutes in the study:
The new findings could help our brain make use of its own compensatory changes and thereby improve recovery, explain the physicians. The project is the result of international collaboration between scientists from the University of Nottingham (UK), Fudan University (Shanghai, People's Republic of China), Hunan Normal University (Changsha, People's Republic of China), Roberts Research Institute at Western University, and Lawson Health Research Institute. (As)