From: mjs23x@gmail.com   
      
   On Monday, August 11, 2014 at 1:38:19 PM UTC-5, Oliver Crangle wrote:   
   > In schizophrenia research, a path to the brain through the nose   
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   > Jan 25, 2012   
   > A significant obstacle to progress in understanding psychiatric disorders is   
   the difficulty in obtaining living brain tissue for study so that disease   
   processes can be studied directly. Recent advances in basic cellular   
   neuroscience now suggest that,    
   for some purposes, cultured neural stem cells may be studied in order to   
   research psychiatric disease mechanisms. But where can one obtain these cells   
   outside of the brain?   
   >    
   > Increasingly, schizophrenia research is turning to the nose. Strange as it   
   may seem, the idea makes sense because the olfactory mucosa, the sense organ   
   of smell in the nose, is continually regenerating new sensory neurons from   
   "adult" stem cells. These    
   neurons are among the very few nerve cells outside of the skull that connect   
   directly to nerve cells in the brain.   
   > Over several decades, researchers found that these cells can be collected   
   directly by obtaining a small tissue sample, called a biopsy. By taking small   
   pieces of olfactory tissue from the nose, researchers of this new study were   
   able to gain access to    
   the stem cells from patients with schizophrenia and compare them to cells from   
   healthy individuals.   
   >    
   > "We have discovered that patient cells proliferate faster - they are running   
   with a faster speed to their clock controlling the cell cycle - and we have   
   identified some of the molecules that are responsible," explained Dr. Alan   
   Mackay-Sim from the    
   National Centre for Adult Stem Cell Research in Brisbane, Australia, an author   
   of the study. The findings clearly indicate that the natural cell cycle is   
   dysregulated in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia.   
   >    
   > "This is a first insight into real differences in patient cells that could   
   lead to slightly altered brain development," Mackay-Sim added. This is an   
   important finding, as scientists are already aware of many developmental   
   abnormalities in the '   
   schizophrenia brain'.   
   >    
   > Dr. John Krystal, editor of Biological Psychiatry, commented: "The current   
   findings are particularly interesting because when we look closely at the   
   clues to the neurobiology of psychiatric disorders, we find new and often   
   unexpected mechanisms    
   implicated."   
   >    
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   > More information: The article is "Altered Cell Cycle Dynamics in   
   Schizophrenia" by Yongjun Fan, Greger Abrahamsen, John J. McGrath, and Alan   
   Mackay-Sim (doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2011.10.004). The article appears in   
   Biological Psychiatry, Volume 71,    
   Issue 2 (January 15, 2012)   
   >    
   > Provided by Elsevier   
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   > http://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-schizophrenia-path-brain-nose.html   
      
   II   
      
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