Epilepsy and schizophrenia

Vaddadi KS. The use of gamma-linolenic acid and linoleic acid to differentiate between temporal lobe epilepsy and schizophrenia. Prostaglandins Med 1981 6(4) 375-9. 

C. The symptoms are not due to a general medical condition (e.g., anatomical lesions and infections of the brain, visual epilepsies) and are not better accounted for by another mental disorder (e.g., delirium, dementia. Schizophrenia) or hypnopompic hallucinations. 

Most studies of overall cell density have reported no significant change in schizophrenia (Dwork, 1997 Harrison, 1999 Arnold, 2000). Two studies provided estimates of total hippocampal cell number and found no changes in any of the four sectors of the cornu ammonis in schizophrenia (Heckers et al., 1991 Walker et al., 2002). The finding of normal total cell number is important for the interpretation of decreased hippocampal volume reported by neuroimaging studies of patients with schizophrenia. In contrast to neuropsychiatric disorder such as temporal lobe epilepsy and dementia, smaller hippocampal volume is not the macroscopic correlate of pyramidal cell loss in schizophrenia. 

N1 and P300 abnormalities in patients with schizophrenia, epilepsy, and epilepsy with schizophrenialike features. Biol Psychiatry 49 848-860. 

The interest in neuronal nAChRs has increased in the past few years and a great number of papers were published on the establishment of the physiology of nAChRs including the determination of type, composition, and number of nAChRs present in different tissues, as well as on their pharmacological properties. The need to understand the functional implications of nAChRs in the human brain arises from several known facts, namelly, the reduced number of nAChRs seen in both Alzheimer s and Parkinson s diseases, the importance of cholinergic defects in particular forms of human epilepsy and the decreased number of hippocampal nicotinic receptors seen in postmorten brain tissue of schizophrenia patients. The presence of nAChRs in lung carcinoma cells and the potential role of nicotine in learning and memory was also reported. 

Disorders of the CNS can be divided into psychiatric (or mentai) disorders and neu-roiogicai disorders, aithough the distinction is not aiways ciear. Psychiatric disorders inciude types of depression, schizophrenia, anxiety and insomnia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Neurological disorders include epilepsy and Parkinson s disease, dementia and Alzheimer s disease. 

Binding to GABAp receptors causes an increase in the potassium conductance of the membrane, thereby hyperpolarizing the neuron. Disfunctioning of GABA-ergic synapses has been invoked for Parkinson s disease, epilepsy, and some forms of schizophrenia. " ... 

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