Biomedical Frontiers: Winter/Spring 1996, Vol.3, No.2
Schizophrenia: Searching for answers
Ongoing Research

Other basic and clinical research at Columbia aims to understand and treat schizophrenia. These studies include:

• Protein may identify schizophrenia subset: CPMC researchers have found that approximately 30 percent of patients with schizophrenia have serum antibodies to human hsp60 protein (heat shock protein). Dr. Saud A. Sadiq, assistant professor of neurology, and colleagues have patented a method for detecting antibodies to hsp60. Of potentially greater interest, when cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is analyzed, about 67 percent of patients with schizophrenia have anti-hsp60 antibodies, compared to 6 percent of controls with inflammatory neurological diseases. Antibodies were not detected in the CSF of normal subjects. Detection of these antibodies may serve as a marker for autoimmune forms of schizophrenia, conceivably opening up avenues of treatment for these patients, says Dr. Sadiq.

• Dr. Dolores Malaspina (see main story) and colleagues are using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) brain imaging to examine the dopamine system in the brain. Present studies include the dopamine 2 receptor and measurement of dopamine stores in the brain. In addition, Dr. Malaspina is using brain imaging to explore the pathways involved in odor discrimination. Dr. Malaspina and colleagues have found that defective odor discrimination is associated with the deficit symptom syndrome in schizophrenia and correlates with eye movement abnormalities and other measures of neuropsychological impairment function. The researchers are now using odor discrimination as a brain activation task during SPECT, which can show regional brain blood flow and is correlated with brain metabolism.

• Dr. Xavier Amador, associate professor of clinical psychology and psychiatry and director of the division of diagnosis and evaluation at NYSPI, is investigating the unique pattern of unawareness in schizophrenia, in which patients are not aware that they have a mental illness. His research indicates that a majority of patients with schizophrenia have awareness deficits and that aspects of unawareness stem from brain dysfunction. Dr. Amador is now developing a treatment for increasing awareness, based on cognitive behavioral therapy strategies used to treat people with brain injuries.