Compared to the brains of healthy individuals, those of
people with schizophrenia have higher expression of a gene called Complement C4,
according to a paper published in Nature today (January 27). The gene encodes
an immune protein that moonlights in the brain as an eradicator of unwanted
neural connections (synapses). The findings, which suggest increased synaptic
pruning is a feature of the disease, are a direct extension of genome-wide
association studies (GWASs) that pointed to the major histocompatibility (MHC) locus
as a key region associated with schizophrenia risk.
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