The schizophrenia is a psychiatric illness that affects nearly 0.7% of the world population, including 600,000 people in France, according to figures from theNational institute of health. Among its most impressive symptoms are delusions and hallucinations. Researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, in the United States, tried to understand the mechanism of auditory hallucinations in these patients.
In a study published by the journal Science, they explain having identified connection problems between the different structures of the brain which would explain the famous symptom of voices in the head. In question, a missing gene. This absence causes chemical changes in the brain that reduce the flow of information between the structures involved in processing auditory information.
Scientists have analyzed mice affected by a human genetic disease in which 30% of cases develop schizophrenia. “We believe that by reducing the flow of information between these two brain structures that play a central role in the processing of auditory information, we can reduce the state of stress and other associated factors that trigger the voices, which are the most common psychotic symptom of schizophrenia, ”says study author Stanislav Zakharenko.
