People with schizophrenia have different brain functions. Taking this parameter into consideration in their treatment would be more appropriate.
Schizophrenia is a disease linked to a problem in the functioning of certain neural circuits, the networks of nerve cells present in the brain. In most studies, scientists compare the brains of sick people with those of healthy people. This new research, conducted at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, focuses only on people with schizophrenia, which has highlighted the differences between patients. Their results were published in The American Journal of Psychiatry.
Schizophrenia is linked to a disorder of brain maturation during adolescence. The symptoms are varied but can be grouped under three aspects: dissociation, when the person can no longer make the link between ideas and has difficulty communicating clearly, hallucinations and symptoms called deficit, when the person withdraws , loses his intellectual and cognitive abilities.
Compare the different types of schizophrenia
For this research, 179 people with schizophrenia were recruited. The researchers conducted tests in order to obtain information on the biomarkers of these individuals, which make it possible to measure the symptoms of a mental illness. They asked them to imitate emotions with their faces, as this task reflects the ability to interact socially, and at the same time they performed MRI scans of their brains.
Three disease profiles have been identified, related to neural circuits: typical, over-activated and deactivated. “We believe that those with over-activated networks are unproductive in terms of brain activity, they have to struggle and work more to do certain tasks compared to others,” explains Colin Hawco, one of the authors of this study. Conversely, he establishes a completely different observation for the “disabled” group: “they seem to show a very efficient use of their brain, and had better results on behavior tests related to social processes”.
Establish more effective treatments
Today, the different aspects of the disease remain little known, which is why the therapeutic management concerns only the symptoms. It still improves the daily life and quality of life of patients: a third of them experience lasting remission.
“This is why we have really invested in making the brain networks of social behavior a real avenue for treatment and research”, underlines Dr. Anil Malhotra, co-author of the study. Thanks to their results, they hope to be able to develop new therapeutic solutions that will precisely target the neural circuits and that will be better adapted to each patient. In France, schizophrenia affects approximately 1% of the population, or 600,000 people.