Schizophrenia interneurons

Woo TU, Whitehead RE, Melchitzky DS, Jewis DA (1998) A subclass of prefrontal GABA axon terminals are selectively altered in schizophrenia. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 95 5341-5346 Zhang Y, Perez Velazquez JL, Tian GE, Wu CP, Skinner FK, Caslen PL, Zhang L (1998) Slow oscillations (< 1 Hz) mediated by GABAergic interneuronal networks in rat hippocampus. J Neurosci 18 9256-9268... 

A mutation in the reeler gene has recently been associated with autism (Keller et al., 2000). Mild abnormalities in cortical neuron migration and in reelin-containing cortical interneurons have been observed in the brains of schizophrenic subjects (Guidotti et ah, 2000). Therefore, a mutation in the reelin gene has also been implicated in schizophrenia. Changes in reelin have also been reported in the hippocampus in affective disorders (Eatemi et al., 2000). 

Benes, F.M. and Berretta, S. (2001) GABAergic interneurons implications for understanding schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Neuropsychopharmacology 25 1—27. 

Reduced density of cholinergic interneurons in the ventral striatum in schizophrenia An in situ hybridization study. Biol Psychiatry 58 408-416. 

Holt DJ, Herman MM, Hyde TM, Kleinman JE, Sinton CM, et al. 1999. Evidence for a deficit in cholinergic interneurons in the striatum in schizophrenia. Neuroscience 94 21-31. 

Taken together, the evidence for a specific deficit of hippocampal interneurons is accumulating. Together with the neuroimaging findings, this pattern points to a disinhibition of hippocampal pyramidal cells in schizophrenia. Future studies will explore the molecular mechanisms of hippocampal dysfunction in schizophrenia and it s impact on the cognitive and social function in schizophrenia. 

In contrast, when using fluorescence immunocytochemistry to label proteins in tissue sections, the absolute relationship of fluorescence intensity to protein abundance can only be determined through conducting rigorous control experiments, and thus linearity should not be presumed. With that said, because CCD and photomultipHer tube detection systems are linear across a broad range of fluorescence intensities [36], quantitative fluorescence microscopy has been used in numerous smdies to measure relative changes in protein level [33, 35, 36]. In a system where the expression of a protein is only effected in a subpopulation of cells (e.g., GAD67 expression is reduced in a subset of PV+ interneurons in schizophrenia—see ref. 45), quantitative fluorescence immunohistochemistry will be more informative than techniques (e.g.. Western blot) that treat the tissue as a whole. 

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