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

Dopamine, noradrenaline, glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) and choline acetyl-transferase (CAT) were measured in post-mortem brain samples from more than 50 patients dying with a hospital diagnosis of schizophrenia and an equal number of controls. GAD was measured in 14 different brain regions, and was significantly lower in both control and schizophrenia patients who died following a protracted illness. If GAD values from patients who died suddenly were compared, no significant differences were observed between the control and schizophrenia groups. There was also no differences between the CAT values measured in 13 different brain regions in the two groups. Noradrenaline values were not different in the two groups in most limbic areas or in the caudate nucleus, but were elevated in the schizophrenic group in nucleus accumbens and in anterior perforated substance. These differences were not, however, statistically significant. On the other hand dopamine concentrations in nucleus accumbens and in anterior perforated substance were significantly elevated (by 34 and 95 per cent, respectively) in the schizophrenia group as compared with controls, although dopamine values were not different in caudate nucleus, putamen, septal nuclei or amygdala. The finding of elevated concentrations of dopamine in certain areas of the limbic forebrain in schizophrenia is discussed in relation to current hypotheses of the involvement of dopamine in this illness, and the difficulties of determining whether the observed changes are related to chronic treatment with antischizophrenic drugs.
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PMID:Increased dopamine concentration in limbic areas of brain from patients dying with schizophrenia. 45 44

Studies of amino acid release were carried out using frozen sections from brains of schizophrenics and controls. Synaptosomes were prepared via differential centrifugation in Ficoll allowing the veratridine-induced release of aspartate, glutamate, glycine, and GABA to be measured. The release of glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) was reduced in the synaptosomes from schizophrenics. This decrease could be reversed partially by pre-incubation of the synaptosomes with haloperidol. Additionally, the activity of glutamate decarboxylase was decreased and partially restored by haloperidol pre-incubation. These data are consistent with the hypothesis of a glutamatergic/GABAergic deficit in schizophrenia.
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PMID:Evidence of glutamatergic deficiency in schizophrenia. 167 50

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) concentrations were measured in 10 regions of post-mortem brain from control, psychotic and choreic subjects; glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) activities were estimated in substantia nigra. In agreement with earlier observations, agonal status profoundly affected GAD measurements in the substantia nigra but had no effect on GABA levels in any brain region. Although GAD and GABA levels were significantly correlated in nigral tissue from sudden death control and psychotic cases, the association was lost in patients dying slowly. In Huntington's chorea significant reduction in GABA content were observed in the nucleus accumbens, lateral pallidum, subthalamic nucleus, substantia nigra and ventrolateral thalamic nucleus. In psychotic patients there were significant decreases in GABA concentrations in the amygdala and nucleus accumbens. Division of the psychotic group into schizophrenia and schizophrenia-like categories and into early-onset and later-onset cases revealed that GABA levels in the amygdala were diminished in all 4 psychotic subgroups, whereas in the nucleus accumbens the deficit was confined to cases of early-onset schizophrenia.
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PMID:Distribution of GABA in post-mortem brain tissue from control, psychotic and Huntington's chorea subjects. 644 63

The movement disorder tardive dyskinesia is a serious side effect of the long-term treatment of schizophrenia with neuroleptic drugs. Similar symptoms to those of tardive dyskinesia have been observed in Cebus apella monkeys following long-term treatment with neuroleptic drugs, and these monkeys may therefore be a useful animal model of tardive dyskinesia. Motor defects have persisted in these dyskinetic monkeys for periods of 1-6 yr after the cessation of neuroleptic treatment. We report here that in three regions of the brains of dyskinetic monkeys (substantia nigra, medial globus pallidus and subthalamic nucleus) glutamate decarboxylase activities and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) levels are reduced relative to control monkeys that had been treated with neuroleptics but which showed none of the symptoms of tardive dyskinesia. These results suggest that alterations in the GABA neurone system are involved in neuroleptic drug-induced tardive dyskinesia.
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PMID:Association with persistent neuroleptic-induced dyskinesia of regional changes in brain GABA synthesis. 672 89

Abnormalities in amygdala and hippocampus have been shown to coexist in schizophrenia (SZ). In the hippocampus, compelling evidence suggests that a disruption of GABA neurotransmission is present mainly in sectors CA4, CA3, and CA2. The amygdala sends important inputs to the hippocampus and is also believed to have a defective GABA system in schizophrenia. To explore the possibility that changes in the hippocampal GABAergic system could be related to an increased inflow of activity originating in the amygdala, a "partial" animal model has been developed. In awake, freely moving, rats a GABA(A) receptor antagonist was infused locally into the basolateral nuclear complex of the amygdala (BLn). Within 2 hours, a decreased density of both the 65- and 67-kDa isoforms of glutamate decarboxylase (GAD(65) and GAD(67)) -immunoreactive (IR) terminals was detected on neuron somata in sectors CA3 and CA2, but not in CA1, CA3, or dentate gyrus. An increase of GAD(67)-IR somata was also found in the dentate gyrus and CA4. In anterograde tracer studies, amygdalo-hippocampal projection fibers were exclusively found in CA3 and CA2, but not CA1. Taken together, these results indicate that activation of amygdalo-hippocampal afferents is associated with the induction of significant changes in the GABA system of the hippocampus, with a subregional distribution that is remarkably similar to that found in SZ. Under pathologic conditions, an excessive discharge of excitatory activity emanating from the amygdala could be capable of altering inhibitory modulation along the trisynaptic pathway. This mechanism may potentially contribute to disturbances of GABAergic function in the major psychoses. Such "partial" rodent modelling provides an important strategy for deciphering the effect of altered cortico-limbic circuits in SZ.
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PMID:Amygdalar activation alters the hippocampal GABA system: "partial" modelling for postmortem changes in schizophrenia. 1116 95

Recent postmortem studies have been suggesting that a defect of GABAergic neurotransmission might occur in the corticolimbic system of subjects with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. To explore this possibility, a method for immunolocalizing the 65 kdalton isoform of glutamate decarboxylase (GAD(65)) has been developed and applied to the anterior cingulate (ACCx) and prefrontal (PFCx) cortices of 12 normal controls (CONs), 12 schizophrenics (SZs) and 5 manic depressive (MDs) subjects. A computer-assisted technique was employed under strictly blind conditions to determine the density of GAD(65)-IR terminals in apposition with pyramidal (PNs) and nonpyramidal (NPs) neurons and in neuropil (NPL) of layers II, III, V and VI of each cortical region. For SZs, no difference in the numerical density of GAD(65)-IR terminals in contact with either PNs or NPs or in NPL of layers II-VI in ACCx or PFCx was detected. There were also no differences in the size of either PNs and NPs that could have influenced the nature of these findings. Using a pixel count analysis, the size of IR terminals was, however, found to be increased in layers II (10.3%) and III (15.8%) of SZs, but only in subjects treated with neuroleptic drugs. For MDs, the density of GAD(65)-IR terminals was significantly reduced in all four layers of ACCx, but these differences were most significant in layers II (27.8%) and III (37.2%), whether or not the subjected were treated with neuroleptics. In PFCx, the MDs showed similar differences in terminal density for PNs and NPs but not neuropil in the four laminae examined. The MD group showed no differences in either the size of cell bodies or IR terminals. Age and PMI did not account for any of the differences between the CONs vs SZs and MDs. Overall, the results of this study, though preliminary, suggest that there may be complex changes in GABAergic terminals in SZ and MD, ones that may vary with respect to primary diagnosis and neuroleptic exposure.
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PMID:Glutamate decarboxylase(65)-immunoreactive terminals in cingulate and prefrontal cortices of schizophrenic and bipolar brain. 1120 24

There is strong evidence for the involvement of the neurotransmitter glutamate system in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. In these mental diseases, the brain shows changes in the levels of glutamate and in the function and expression of its transporters and receptors. Since the levels of glutamate are largely determined by the rate of its metabolism, the changes of its concentrations may be associated with dysfunctions of appropriate enzymes. Actually, disturbances of glutamate metabolic enzymes, such as glutaminase, glutamate decarboxylase, and glutamine synthetase were detected in the brain of patients with Alzheimer's disease. The alterations in the expression of glutamine synthetase, glutamine synthetase-like protein, and three isoenzymes of glutamate dehydrogenase in the frontal cortex of patients with schizophrenia suggest that there are impaired glutamate metabolism in this mental disease and Alzheimer's disease.
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PMID:[Impaired cerebral glutamate metabolism in mental diseases (Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia]. 1152 27

Deficits in a variety of different neurochemical species are consistent with a loss of cortical gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)ergic interneurons in schizophrenia. As well as neurochemical markers that indicate all neurons using GABA as a transmitter, and which include GABA uptake sites and glutamate decarboxylase, deficits of certain neuropeptides and calcium binding proteins coexisting with GABA have been reported. These abnormalities are indicative of losses specific to certain subtypes of GABAergic neurons. The calcium binding proteins in particular demonstrate selective deficits; we find losses of parvalbumin- and calbindin-, but not calretinin-immunoreactive cells in the prefrontal cortex in schizophrenia. These selective reductions in the density of parvalbumin- and calbindin-containing neurons could reflect functional loss of expression in intact cells or alternatively a deficit in the density of certain GABAergic neuronal subtypes. The latter interpretation is consistent with a neurodevelopmental pathogenesis involving neuronal damage at a time prior to the expression of these protective calcium-binding proteins. In this review we discuss the evidence for altered GABAergic transmission in schizophrenia.
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PMID:Neurochemical correlates of cortical GABAergic deficits in schizophrenia: selective losses of calcium binding protein immunoreactivity. 1157 54

A defect in neurotransmission involving gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA) in schizophrenia was first proposed in the early 1970s. Since that time, a considerable effort has been made to find such a defect in components of the GABAergic system. After a brief introduction focusing on historical perspectives, this paper reviews post-mortem and other biological studies examining the following components of the GABAergic system in schizophrenic subjects: the GABA biosynthetic enzyme, glutamate decarboxylase; free GABA; the GABA transporter; the GABAA, GABAB and benzodiazepine receptors; and the catabolic enzyme GABA transaminase. Additionally, post-mortem studies using morphology or calcium-binding protein to identify GABAergic neurons are also reviewed. Substantial evidence argues for a defect in the GABAergic system of the frontal cortex in schizophrenia which is limited to the parvalbumin-class of GABAergic interneurons.
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PMID:The GABAergic system in schizophrenia. 1213 41

In schizophrenia, critical deficits in cognitive functions appear to reflect altered neural processing in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Given the essential role of inhibitory neurotransmission in mediating these cognitive functions, we sought to determine whether abnormalities in the inhibitory circuitry of the PFC may contribute to the cognitive deficits of schizophrenia. In situ hybridization analyses in postmortem brain tissue from subjects with schizophrenia revealed that a subset of GABA neurons in PFC layers 1-5 do not express detectable levels of the mRNAs encoding glutamate decarboxylase (GAD(67)), a synthesizing enzyme for GABA, or the GABA membrane transporter (GAT-1), which is responsible for the reuptake of GABA into the nerve terminal. Furthermore, the affected GABA neurons appear to include chandelier cells, since decreased expression of GAT-1 mRNA is associated with decreased GAT-1 protein immunoreactivity in chandelier neuron axon terminals. Finally, immunocytochemical studies revealed that decreased GAT-1 immunoreactivity in chandelier neuron axon terminals is associated with an increase in a marker of GABA(A) receptors at the postsynaptic targets of chandelier neuron axons, the axon initial segment (AIS) of pyramidal neurons. These findings suggest that schizophrenia is associated with an up-regulation of GABA(A) receptors at pyramidal neuron AIS in response to deficient GABAergic input from chandelier neurons. Selective disruptions in inhibitory neurotransmission are likely to distort aspects of pyramidal neuron function important for working memory tasks, and thus may contribute to cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia.
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PMID:Impaired prefrontal inhibition in schizophrenia: relevance for cognitive dysfunction. 1252 90


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