Neuropsychiatric disease mechanisms & treatments

Schizophrenia is a very common and extremely debilitating disease, is a severe form of mental illness that affects approximately 1% of the population worldwide.The exact causes of schizophrenia are unknown. However, injuries to the developing brain, genetic and environmental factors all act to increase the risk of the disease.

The aim of this project is to understand the causes of schizophrenia and related disorders, and help the development of improved treatments for the disease. The drugs currently used to treat the disease only work against some symptoms, and cause very unpleasant side effects. In particular the drugs treat the positive symptoms but have little effect against the negative symptoms and cognitive deficits. A high percentage of patients suffering from schizophrenia stop taking their treatments due to the severity of the side effects. This is a serious problem

There is a need to discover drugs that will have improved effects and reduce the side effects compared with current medication. None of these drugs provide a long-term cure, and typically patients experience repeated periods of relapse throughout life. The negative symptoms and cognitive deficits are thought to represent the major barrier to a better long-term prognosis. The majority of patients remain severely debilitated for the rest of their lives. Improved drugs are urgently needed.

Gaining a better understanding of how genetic predisposition and environmental factors contribute to causing the disease is crucial to helping patients lead a more normal life. A significant part of our work is aimed at identifying novel compounds for the treatment of schizophrenia and the understanding of how genetic risk factors impact on brain cell function. It relies on the use of cell culture and other in vitro systems.

However, the hypotheses based on these studies ultimately need to be tested in animal models that relate to schizophrenia. This work looks at what happens to behaviour and brain function in genetic and environmental models of schizophrenia”