Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder in which people interpret reality

abnormally. Schizophrenia
may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely
disordered thinking and behaviour that impairs daily functioning, and can
be disabling.

The correlation between metabolic syndrome and

neurocognitive and social cognitive performance of
patients with schizophrenia

Cognitive impairment is one of the core symptoms of schizophrenia, and patients

with schizophrenia are at increased risk of metabolic syndrome (MS). However,
the role of MS in cognitive impairment of schizophrenia is not established. This
study investigated the correlation between neurocognitive, social cognitive
performance and MS with schizophrenia. 158 schizophrenia patients were divided
into 3 groups with 1) normal metabolism, 2) metabolic disorder (only meeting 1 or
2 MS criteria), and 3) metabolic syndrome (meeting 3 or more MS criteria).
(MATRICS) Consensus Cognitive Battery MCCB and the Brief Psychiatric Rating
Scale (BPRS) were used to evaluate cognitive performance and clinical symptoms.
Blood samples were obtained to detect glucose and lipid metabolic levels. Overall
MCCB and subscale T scores in the normal metabolism and metabolic disorder
groups were better than in the MS group. After controlling for the confounding
factors including age, sex, the usage of hypolipidemic and hypoglycemic drugs,
and disease duration, metabolic deficits had effects on the symbol coding and
spatial span scores. The results suggest that a defective metabolic state might play
a role in neurocognitive performance of schizophrenia patients.

Co-Morbidity between Major Depression and

Schizophrenia: Prevalence and Clinical Characteristics

A cohort-study was carried out on 396 patients affected by MDD and SZ.
MDD patients with comorbid SZ (146) were 42.69±14.33 years old whereas MDD
without SZ patients (250) aged 41.59±13.59. Statistically significant differences
between MDD with SZ patients and MDD without SZ patients were: higher BMI
(Body Mass Index) higher rate of cigarette smoking, and higher level of
consanguinity. Also, statistically significant differences were found in General
Health Score (p=0.017), Clinical Global Impression-BD Score (p=0.042), duration of
 illnesses (p=0.003), and Global Assessment of Functioning (p=0.012). Rates of
anxiety dimensions (e.g.: general anxiety, agoraphobia, somatisation, etc.) Mood
dimensions (e.g.: major depression, mania, oppositional defiant behaviour, Bipolar
disorder), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, psychotic and personality
dimensions were higher among MDD with SZ patients than MDD without SZ.
This study confirms that MDD with SZ is a common comorbidity especially among
patients reporting higher level of consanguinity. MDD/SZ comorbidity presents
unfavourable clinical characteristics and higher levels of morbidity at rating scales.

New Insights into Schizophrenia. A Look at the Eye and

Related Structures

Multiple retinal functional and structural abnormalities are found in patients with
schizophrenia. Wider retinal venules suggest chronically insufficient brain supply
of oxygen and this could contribute to the occurrence of psychotic symptoms.
Optical coherence tomography (OCT) showed that retinal nerve fiber layer,
macular thickness, and macular volume were significantly lowered in the chronic
phase of schizophrenia. Results from electroretinogram recordings have
demonstrated different declinations such as abnormalities of alpha wave activity
in the photoreceptors or beta wave activity in the bipolar and Muller cells.
Abnormalities in eye movements such assmooth pursuit eye movements, are one
of the most reliable and reproducible impairments associated with schizophrenia.
Disrupted visual processing of the magnocellular pathway may result in a decrease
of contrast sensitivity, sensory processing, orientation discrimination, visual
integration, trajectory and spatial localization, backward masking and motion
tracking. Visual perceptual abnormalities occur in more than 60% of schizophrenic
patients and these are visual hallucinations, perceptual distortion of colours,
shapes and light intensity, decrease in contour integration and surround
suppression. Other, frequently present eye disorders include impaired visual
acuity, strabismus and nystagmus.
Visual impairments are one of the most important features of schizophrenia,
which could help in defining the disease state and assigning appropriate
treatment.
 Neuroimmune biomarkers in schizophrenia.

Due to the lack of objective tests, the accurate diagnosis and selection of effective
treatments for schizophrenia remains challenging. Numerous technologies have
been employed in search of schizophrenia biomarkers. These studies have
suggested that neuroinflammatory processes may play a role in schizophrenia
pathogenesis, at least in a subgroup of patients. The evidence indicates alterations
in both pro- and anti-inflammatory molecules in the central nervous system,
which have also been found in peripheral tissues and may correlate with
schizophrenia symptoms. In line with these findings, certain immunomodulatory
interventions have shown beneficial effects on psychotic symptoms in
schizophrenia patients, in particular those with distinct immune signatures. In this
review, we evaluate these findings and their potential for more targeted drug
interventions and the development of companion diagnostics. Although currently
no validated markers exist for schizophrenia patient stratification or the prediction
of treatment efficacy, we propose that utilisation of inflammatory markers for
diagnostic and theranostic purposes may lead to novel therapeutic approaches
and deliver more effective care for schizophrenia patients.

Research on electroencephalogram specifics in patients

with schizophrenia under cognitive load
 Cognitive impairment is one of the three primary symptoms of schizophrenic
patients and shows important value in early detection and warning for high-risk
individuals. To study the specifics of electroencephalogram (EEG) in patients with
schizophrenia under the cognitive load, EEG signals were collected from 17
schizophrenic patients and 19 healthy controls, extracted signals of each band
based on wavelet transform, calculated the characteristics of nonlinear dynamic
and functional brain networks, and automatically classified the two groups of
people by using a machine learning algorithm. Experimental results indicated that
the correlation dimension and sample entropy showed significant differences in
α(alpha), β(Beta) and γ (Gamma) rhythm of the Fp1 and Fp2 electrodes between
groups under the cognitive load. These results implied that the functional
disruptions in the frontal lobe might be the important factors of cognitive
impairments in schizophrenic patients. Further results of the automatic
classification analysis indicated that the combination of nonlinear dynamics and
functional brain network properties as the input characteristics of the classifier
showed the best performance, with the accuracy of 76.77%, sensitivity of 72.09%,
and specificity of 80.36%. The results of this study demonstrated that the
combination of nonlinear dynamics and function brain network properties may be
potential biomarkers for early screening and auxiliary diagnosis of schizophrenia.

SUMMARY

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder in which people interpret really abnormally,

Cognitive impairment is one of the core symptoms of schizophrenia,and patients
with schizophrenia are at increased risk of metabolic syndrome (MS). A study
investigation was held dividng patients in 3 categories, 1) normal metabolism, 2)
metabolic disorder, and 3) metabolic syndrome which showed patients that had
SZ with normal metabolism were less likely to have any complications and had a
lower death rate comparatively to patients of SZ with metabolic syndrome and
metabolic disorders.
Moving on, it is very common for Patients of Schizophrenia to have Major
depression. Patients with MDD and SZ have a higher BMI (body mass index),
higher rate of cigerette smoking, significant differences in the General health
score, Mood dimensions and rates of anxiety dimensions. This was proven by a
Cohort study carried out on 396 patients in which 146 (aged 42.69±14.33) were
MDD patients with SZ and 250 (aged 41.59±13.59) were patients with only MDD.
One of the most major symptom of SZ is Visual perceptual abnormalities which
occurs in more than 60% of schizophrenic patients and these are visual
hallucinations,perceptual distortion of colours, shapes and light intensity,
decrease in contour integration and surround suppression. Other, frequently
present eye disorders include impaired visual acuity,strabismus and nystagmus.
Numerous technologies have been employed in search of schizophrenia
biomarkers, These studies have suggested that neuroinflammatory processes may
play a role in schizophrenia pathogenesis, at least in a subgroup of patients. The
evidence indicates alterations in both pro- and anti-inflammatory molecules in the
central nervous system, which have also been found in peripheral tissues and may
correlate with schizophrenia symptoms.
One of the 3 main causes of SZ is Congnitive impairment, to study specifics of
electroencephalogram (EEG) in patients with schizophrenia, EEG signals were
collected from 17 SZ patients and 19 healthy controls,Experimental results
indicated that the correlation dimension and sample entropy showed significant
differences in α(alpha), β(Beta) and γ (Gamma) rhythm of the Fp1 and Fp2
electrodes between groups under the cognitive load. These results implied that
the functional disruptions in the frontal lobe might be the important factors of
cognitive impairments in schizophrenic patients

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/