Project Summary

John A. Bates, Ph.D. (Young Investigator 2004) of The Zucker Hillside Hospital and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, points out the neuregulin 1 (NFG1) gene may be a candidate schizophrenia gene and responsible for an information-processing deficit, called prepulse inhibition, associated with the disorder. In healthy individuals, a brief auditory warning presented shortly before a noxious auditory stimulus reduces a resulting startle reflex. The phenomenon is called prepulse inhibition. But schizophrenics fail to show startle attenuation when presented with the prepulse stimulus. Mice with reduced NRG1 expression also reveal similar sensory deficits, a finding which led to the identification of an NRG1 gene variant in schizophrenia families in Iceland. But prepulse inhibition was not studied in the NRG1 variant population so it remains unknown if NRG1 is associated with prepulse inhibition in schizophrenia. Dr. Bates aims to assess the NRG1 and prepulse inhibition relationship in schizophrenia by screening 300 schizophrenia patients, expecting to find 30 subjects with the variant, based on the 10 percent to 15 percent prevalence of the variant in the schizophrenia population. He will measure prepulse inhibition in the 30 with the variant and 30 schizophrenics without the variant. He hypothesizes schizophrenics with the risk variant will display reduced prepulse inhibition compared with non-variant subjects.

Program Area: SCHIZOPHRENIA/PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS\Schizophrenia

Search Again