Schizophrenia is one of the genetic mental illnesses that even given time, scientists struggle to understand, much less cure. Hundreds of thousands of chronic cases of schizophrenia are reported annually.
Schizophrenia has multiple debilitating symptoms, Hallucinations, in which the victim experiences sensory inputs that might not be real, or other people around them do not perceive. This can include visions, smells, and noises among other things. Another symptom can be delusions, in which victims believe in a certain idea, no matter what facts or evidence is presented before them, and is sometimes known as paranoia. Sometimes, patients experience the same symptoms of depression, including showing little interest in life, speaking in a dull or flat way, or having little interest in finishing activities. These symptoms are called negative symptoms. Often, schizophrenia patients also have cognitive disorders, as in not being able to complete tasks efficiently or even organizing their thoughts.
Though many treatments can be prescribed or administered to those affected by schizophrenia, such as antipsychotics or psychotic-social treatment, as well as other types of special care, there is no long-term cure for this chronic disease. This is mostly based off the fact that many people do not even know exactly how this disease is developed. In addition to that, schizophrenia is an umbrella term with diagnosis only requiring that the patient exhibit two of the symptoms. However, scientists do know that this disease is the accumulation of mutations over time, and might have to be treated pre-birth in order to completely cure it.
Though animal models are usually accurate for finding causes and symptoms of pathogenic diseases, they are not as useful for modeling neuropsychiatric disorders such as Schizophrenia. Since the cause of disease is not entirely known, replicating the disease would pose a challenge that would require an understanding of the disease, not accounting for the fact that a mouse’s brain is very different from ours.
Even though this is the case, scientists are pushing forward in research using alternatives to the traditional animal model. By taking skin cells from several schizophrenia patients, the University of Buffalo reprogrammed the skin cells into pluripotent stem cells and then into neuronal progenitor cells. By recreating the development of the cell in a phase of early brain development named utero, Michal K. Stachowiak, a professor in pathology and anatomical sciences, was able to gain insight into the development of the disease. Using this, Dr. Stachowiak and his researchers found that genomic pathway, the Integrative Nuclear FGFR 1 Signaling (INFS), is a gene pathway involving more than 100 genes is integral in the case of Schizophrenia. These genes impact many more, growing into a developmental disease that can start even before someone is born.
Despite the complexity of schizophrenia, scientists say that this may be one of the first steps in solving the puzzle. In the future, they hope that this could lead to experiments that could develop a treatment administered to mothers that at high risk for bearing a child with schizophrenia.