Protein researchers closing in on the mystery of schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a severe disease for which there is still no effective medical treatment. In an attempt to understand exactly what happens in the brain of schizophrenic people, researchers from the University of Southern Denmark have analysed proteins in the brains of rats that have been given hallucinogenic drugs. This may pave the way for new and better medicines.

Seven per cent of the adult population suffer from schizophrenia, and although scientists have tried for centuries to understand the disease, they still do not know what causes the disease or which physiological changes it causes in the body. Doctors cannot make the diagnosis by looking for specific physiological changes in the patient's blood or tissue, but have to diagnose from behavioral symptoms.

In an attempt to find the physiological signature of schizophrenia, researchers from the University of Southern Denmark have conducted tests on rats, and they now believe that the signature lies in some specific, measurable proteins. Knowing these proteins and comparing their behaviour to proteins in the brains of not-schizophrenic people may make it possible to develop more effective drugs.

It is extremely difficult to study brain activity in schizophrenic people, which is why researchers often use animal models in their strive to understand the mysteries of the schizophrenic brain. Rat brains resemble human brains in so many ways that studying them makes sense if one wants to learn more about the human brain.

Schizophrenic symptoms in rats

The strong hallucinogenic drug phenocyclidine (PCP), also known as "angel's dust", provides a range of symptoms in people which are very similar to schizophrenia.

“When we give PCP to rats, the rats become valuable study objects for schizophrenia researchers,” explains Ole Nørregaard Jensen, professor and head of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Along with Pawel Palmowski, Adelina Rogowska-Wrzesinska and others, he is the author of a scientific paper about the discovery, published in the international Journal of Proteome Research.

Among the symptoms and reactions that can be observed in both humans and rats are changes in movement and reduced cognitive functions such as impaired memory, attention and learning ability.

"Scientists have studied PCP rats for decades, but until now no one really knew what was going on in the rat brains at the molecular level. We now present what we believe to be the largest proteomics data set to date," says Ole Nørregaard Jensen.

PCP is absorbed very quickly by the brain, and it only stays in the brain for a few hours. Therefore, it was important for researchers to examine the rats' brain cells soon after the rats were injected with the hallucinogenic drug.

"We could see changes in the proteins in the brain already after 15 minutes. And after 240 minutes, it was almost over," says Ole Nørregaard Jensen.