Schizophrenia affects 1 in 100 people, and yet its causes remain largely unclear. To improve understanding, treatment and management of the disease, the team performing this research will evaluate whether mobile DNA elements found in our genome are activated by stress and thereby alter how brain cells work in individuals affected by schizophrenia. They will also test whether mobile DNA can be blocked by drugs, perhaps revealing new strategies to treat the disease.
Multivariate Whole Genome Estimation And Prediction Analysis Of Genomics Data Applied To Psychiatric Disorders
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$639,582.00
Summary
We have made major contributions to the development of statistical methods applied to data from the international Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. Major new data sets will soon become available, with immense sample sizes (100,000s) and more extensive clinical and environmental data. We will develop and apply novel statistical analyses of these data, to answer fundamental questions about the genetic basis of psychiatric disorders and the interplay of genetic and environmental risk factors.
Dopamine, Frontal-subcortical Circuits And Risk For Schizophrenia
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$671,684.00
Summary
Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental disorder characterized by psychotic experiences and emotional and cognitive difficulties. This project will map how disruptions of specific brain circuits relate to risk for schizophrenia and use genetic modeling techniques to understand how dysregulation of a specific chemical in the brain, dopamine, might cause these changes. This work will have important implications for developing new, more targeted treatments.
Schizophrenia is classified among the world’s top ten enduring disabilities. Hearing voices are a profound and distressing symptom, which have proven difficult to successfully treat. We plan to use the latest brain imaging techniques and genetic testing to develop the most comprehensive understanding of hearing for voices to date. These data are vital to the development of novel tailored treatment for patients who hear voices.
Patients with schizophrenia differ widely in their symptoms, long-term outcome and response to medication. However, most patients are treated with the same medications and interventions. This study aims to better facilitate the targeting of novel treatments to groups of patients (biotypes) that are likely to benefit most from a treatment. Groups of patients that share distinct patterns of deficits in brain connectivity will be delineated using state-of-the-art white matter imaging techniques.
A New Animal Model Of The Prodrome In Schizophrenia. Enhanced Dopamine In Prodromal Schizophrenia (EDiPs)
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$571,990.00
Summary
Psychiatrists now recognize a pre-symptomatic stage is present in people at risk of developing schizophrenia. Using new brain imaging techniques we now know that some of these individuals have changes in a major neurotransmitter, dopamine, prior to being diagnosed. We have developed a new model in animals, which recreates these exact same changes at a comparable age. We want to now understand what are the broader effects in the brain and try and block these changes in dopamine with new drugs.
Schizophrenia: Reversal Of Atypical Antipsychotic Drug-induced Obesity And Its Related Metabolic Disorders
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$619,854.00
Summary
Atypical antipsychotic drugs such as olanzapine are commonly used to treat mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. While these drugs are effective, their side effects of obesity and metabolic disorders are a major hurdle leading to a serious lack of compliance in taking medication. This project aims to develop better antipsychotic treatment with reduced side-effects including obesity and metabolic disorders for mental illness patients.
Resilient Brain Networks In Patients With Schizophrenia And Their Unaffected Siblings
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$474,226.00
Summary
An individual’s risk for schizophrenia is usually evaluated in terms of their familial, environmental and neurobiological risk factors. Our research indicates that factors conferring resilience to becoming ill are just as important. This study will use brain imaging techniques to study individuals with schizophrenia and their unaffected siblings, aiming to identify factors that have provided the unaffected siblings with resilience to becoming ill, despite their familial risk.
Schizophrenia is a serious and debilitating psychotic illness often characterized by delusions: fixed, false beliefs that preoccupy the patient and affect behaviour, and which are resistant to current drug treatments. This project investigates dysfunctions in belief mechanisms that allow delusions to form and be maintained. This will help clinicians design more effective programs of cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis by allowing more focussed interventions to reduce delusions.
Antipsychotic Medication In First-episode Psychosis: An RCT To Assess The Risk-benefit Ratio
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$1,141,117.00
Summary
There has been an increasing emphasis on intervening early in psychotic disorders. A fundamental principle in early intervention is “to do no harm” and benefits must outweigh the risks of treatment. While antipsychotic medication is very effective and evidence-based form of treatment for positive symptoms in most first episode psychosis (FEP) patients it has risks. This study has the potential to determine whether antipsychotic medication should be the initial treatment option for FEP.