Thursday, 27 January 2022
New research has shown that over-activity in a specific area of the brain is linked to certain symptoms of Schizophrenia, opening up possibilities for the development of more targeted treatments.
Researchers from the University of Nottingham found that faulty inhibitory neurotransmission and abnormally increased activity in the hippocampus doesn’t disrupt the ability to filter out irrelevant information, a key process which has been shown to be deficient in patients with schizophrenia and is thought to cause hallucinations or delusions but does disrupt associative learning. Deficits in associative learning, such as Pavlovian fear conditioning, have been linked to the negative symptoms of the disorder which include reduced motivation and disrupted emotional and reward processing. Their findings have been published in eNeuro.
Schizophrenia is a major illness. At any one time about 220,000 people are being treated for schizophrenia in the UK by the NHS. It is psychotic illness which exhibits itself in three ways: negative symptoms such as lethargy, apathy and social withdrawal, positive symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions and cognitive symptoms such as impaired memory. Either or all three may be present in an individual at the same time.
Neurons in the brain interact by sending each other chemical messages, so-called neurotransmitters. Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is the most common inhibitory neurotransmitter, which is important to restrain neural activity, preventing neurons from getting too trigger-happy and from firing too much or responding to irrelevant stimuli.
The hippocampus is a part of the brain that sits within our temporal lobes and plays a major role in our memories and emotions. This latest research has implications for understanding more about how this part of the brain affects specific aspects of schizophrenia.
The study was carried led by post-doctoral researcher Stuart Williams, he said: “We know that people with schizophrenia have increased hippocampal activity, we wanted to explore this further and find out exactly how this manifests itself. Through our research carried out in rats we were able to ascertain the importance of GABAergic inhibition within the hippocampus in relation to certain symptoms associated with schizophrenia. Specifically, we found no evidence that faulty inhibition within the hippocampus disrupts behaviours related to the underlying cognitive processes which are thought to contribute to the onset of hallucinations or delusions but did find that it may contribute to some of the negative symptoms, disrupting associative learning in the form of conditioned fear.”
This study has important implications for developing treatments for the negative symptoms of schizophrenia.
Stuart continues: “By revealing previously unknown detail about the role of aberrant activity in the hippocampus, we are providing insights into the behavioural consequences that disruption of specific neural structures, such as the hippocampus, have in schizophrenia. This could help to develop more targeted treatments that improve the management of specific aspects of schizophrenia symptomatology such as improving negative symptoms, potentially by dampening down this over-activity in the hippocampus."
Story credits
More information is available from Dr Tobias Bast on Tobias.bast@nottingham.ac.uk
Notes to editors:
About the University of Nottingham
Ranked 32 in Europe and 16th in the UK by the QS World University Rankings: Europe 2024, the University of Nottingham is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities. Studying at the University of Nottingham is a life-changing experience, and we pride ourselves on unlocking the potential of our students. We have a pioneering spirit, expressed in the vision of our founder Sir Jesse Boot, which has seen us lead the way in establishing campuses in China and Malaysia - part of a globally connected network of education, research and industrial engagement.
Nottingham was crowned Sports University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024 – the third time it has been given the honour since 2018 – and by the Daily Mail University Guide 2024.
The university is among the best universities in the UK for the strength of our research, positioned seventh for research power in the UK according to REF 2021. The birthplace of discoveries such as MRI and ibuprofen, our innovations transform lives and tackle global problems such as sustainable food supplies, ending modern slavery, developing greener transport, and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
The university is a major employer and industry partner - locally and globally - and our graduates are the second most targeted by the UK's top employers, according to The Graduate Market in 2022 report by High Fliers Research.
We lead the Universities for Nottingham initiative, in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, a pioneering collaboration between the city’s two world-class institutions to improve levels of prosperity, opportunity, sustainability, health and wellbeing for residents in the city and region we are proud to call home.
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