Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0036341 (schizophrenia)
 60,220 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The growing spread of HIV infection and AIDS incidence has led the medical milieu to increase efforts in the study of the at-risk population and in the development of prevention programmes. Nevertheless, little attention has been focused on psychiatric patients as a vulnerable and disadvantaged segment of the population with high risk of HIV infection. In fact, several studies in the last years have shown that high-risk behaviour, especially intravenous drug abuse and non-protected at-risk sexual intercourse, is reported by 20-50% of psychiatric patients, particularly those affected by bipolar disorders and schizophrenia. The prevalence of HIV infection has also been found to be higher in psychiatric patients than in the general population. In general, only a proportion (15-50%) of HIV-positive psychiatric patients have knowledge about their serological status, while the others do not know that they have been infected. Preliminary studies show that educational programmes specifically developed for psychiatric patients improved knowledge of HIV infection and reduced the patients' HIV-risk behavior. Specific intervention strategies should also be known when dealing with mentally ill HIV-positive patients. Open problems and further issues to be addressed by future research are discussed.
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PMID:Risk of HIV infection in psychiatrically ill patients. 866 63

Abuse of cannabis is frequent among the young and is suspected to precipitate schizophrenia in vulnerable subjects. Cannabinoid receptor (CB1) is particularly concentrated in dopamine-modulated areas of the nervous system. An association between an AAT polymorphism of the CB1 gene and intravenous drug abuse has been previously reported, but not with schizophrenia. In a French Caucasian population, we compared the distribution of a single-base polymorphism revealed by MspI within the first exon of the CB1 gene in patients with schizophrenia (n = 102) and ethnic- and gender-matched controls (n = 63). No significant difference was seen in the allele or genotype distribution between the whole sample of schizophrenic patients and controls. However, we found a borderline lack of allele g and a significant lack of gg genotype in the non-substance-abusing patients compared to substance-abusing patients, the latter being similar to the controls. These results are the first report of an significant association between CB1 receptor and a subtype of schizophrenia. Studies are needed to confirm and further explore the precise role of the cannabinoid system in schizophrenia.
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PMID:Schizophrenia and the cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1): association study using a single-base polymorphism in coding exon 1. 1211 85