Poor Communication In The Brain Linked To Schizophrenia

By Nadja Popovich

New evidence suggests that schizophrenia can be caused by a lack of synchronization between regions of the brain.

Mice with a genetic defect linked to schizophrenia had trouble navigating through a maze.
In a study, just published in the journal Nature, researchers from Columbia University compared mice bred to have a genetic mutation linked to schizophrenia in humans with healthy mice and found that mutant mice had more trouble completing spatial tasks -- like getting through a maze.

Though most people associate schizophrenia most strongly with hallucinations and delusions, the disease also impairs cognitive abilities, including working memory. The Columbia researchers found that the two regions of the brain associated with working memory in the mutant mice -- the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex -- weren't communicating the way they do in normal animals.

The short circuit may lend a clue to the causes of schizophrenia in humans.