Body versus brain: New evidence for an autoimmune cause of schizophrenia

Schizophrenia affects how people think and act. It's hard to treat because it has many different causes. In a study published last month in Cell Reports Medicine, researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University discovered that an autoantibody is produced by the immune system to attach to a specific substance from the individual's own body. They found that when they injected the autoantibody into mice, it changed the brain.

The research team had a specificProtein in mind when considering autoantibodies that could cause schizophrenia. Neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM 1), which helps cells in the brain talk to one another, may have a role in the development of schizophrenia.

Hiroki Shiwaku is the lead author of the study that looked for autoantibodies against NCAM1. The autoantibodies were found in 12 patients, suggesting that they may be associated with the disorder in a small subset of cases.

The research team injected autoantibodies from some of the patients into the brains of mice to see if they could cause any changes in the brain.

The results were very impressive. Although the mice only had these autoantibodies in their brains for a short time, they had changes in their behavior that were similar to what is seen in humans with schizophrenia.

mice with the patient autoantibodies had cognitive impairment and changes in their regulation of the startle reflex, which are both seen in other animal models ofSchizophrenia The structures that are important for the connections between brain cells are not as important as they used to be.

The results of the study are promising, given that schizophrenia can present very differently among patients. If it's true that some patients have autoantibodies against NCAM1, this will lead to better diagnoses and treatment.

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Tokyo Medical and Dental University provide materials. The content can be edited for style and length.

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1. Hiroki Shiwaku, Shingo Katayama, Kanoh Kondo, Yuri Nakano, Hikari Tanaka, Yuki Yoshioka, Kyota Fujita, Haruna Tamaki, Hironao Takebayashi, Omi Terasaki, Yukihiro Nagase, Teruyoshi Nagase, Tetsuo Kubota, Kinya Ishikawa, Hitoshi Okazawa, Hidehiko Takahashi. Autoantibodies against NCAM1 from patients with schizophrenia cause schizophrenia-related behavior and changes in synapses in mice. Cell Reports Medicine, 2022; 3 (4): 100597 DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100597