Thursday, June 8, 2023
SCIENMAG: Latest Science and Health News
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Scienmag - Latest science news from science magazine
No Result
View All Result
Home SCIENCE NEWS Medicine & Health

Researchers find clues to treating psychoses in mental health patients

May 16, 2018
in Medicine & Health
0
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
IMAGE

Credit: John Kerns

Psychotic disorders often are severe and involve extreme symptoms such as delusions or hallucinations in which people lose their sense of reality. Researchers at the University of Missouri recently found evidence that boosting how well people at risk for psychosis learn from positive and negative feedback could potentially keep psychosis at bay. The team also found that brain scans using functional magnetic resonance imaging, coupled with behavioral measures, could provide markers for the diagnosis of psychosis risk. Researchers hope findings will help mental health professionals to understand how to better treat their patients with psychoses and prevent the onset of psychosis.

"Around the time Nobel Prize winner John Nash first developed psychosis he turned down an endowed chair at the University of Chicago because he said he believed he was going to become the emperor of Antarctica– despite the population of Antarctica being zero," said John G. Kerns, professor of psychological sciences in the MU College of Arts and Science. "How a genius like John Nash could develop a delusion has long baffled clinicians and scientists. We wanted to examine whether dysfunction in a brain region called the striatum and a disruption in feedback-based learning were related to risk for psychosis."

Feedback-based learning helps learners raise their awareness of strengths and weaknesses and identify actions to be taken to improve. It is heavily dependent on varying levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that sends signals to other nerve cells, specifically located in a specialized part of the brain called the striatum. Dopamine in the striatum provides an important teaching signal that increases or decreases the chance that certain thoughts and actions occur again in the future.

In research conducted at the Mizzou Brain Imaging Center and using a feedback-based learning task, Kerns and his team found that people at risk for psychosis are impaired when they need to rely on feedback to learn. Using fMRI brain scans, the team found that people at risk for psychosis failed to activate the striatum when they received feedback.

"Current research suggests that people like John Nash develop delusions in part because they have problems learning from feedback, like a car driving without a brake," Kerns said. "Our research is also consistent with other research that people with psychosis have an increased level of dopamine in the striatum. However, for the first time we have linked psychosis risk to both a behavioral impairment, poor feedback learning, as well as striatum dysfunction."

It is also hoped that this research will be useful in detecting risk for psychosis, Kerns said. Measuring dopamine in the striatum is both invasive and expensive and cannot be done in routine clinical assessment. However, Kerns found that non-invasive measures can be used in every day clinical practice to effectively detect striatal dysfunction. Ultimately, Kerns believes this research will help professionals both detect risk and prevent psychosis, which could mean decreased suffering for many people and their families.

###

The study, "Probabilistic Category Learning and Striatal Functional Activation in Psychosis Risk," was published in the Schizophrenia Bulletin. Funding was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (Grants: MH014677 and MH100359) and University of Missouri research funds. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.

Media Contact

Jeff Sossamon
[email protected]
573-882-3346
@mizzounews

http://www.missouri.edu

Original Source

https://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2018/0516-mu-researchers-find-clues-to-treating-psychoses-in-mental-health-patients/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sby033

Share25Tweet16Share4ShareSendShare
  • Bumblebees

    When it comes to bumblebees, does size matter?

    66 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 17
  • Solving cancer, together

    66 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 17
  • Investigating the placenta: Discovery from Stowers Scientists shows why this often-overlooked organ should be given more attention

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
  • ‘Smart drugs’ give new hope to some patients with advanced pancreatic cancer

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
  • Paul Ellison, PhD, receives SNMMI Mars Shot Fund award

    65 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
  • Insilico Medicine Founder and CEO Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD presents at Jefferies Global Healthcare Conference

    64 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16
ADVERTISEMENT

About us

We bring you the latest science news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Latest NEWS

UTHSC researchers’ work on human pangenome aids understanding of common chromosomal abnormality

Null results research now published by major behavioral medicine journal

Multiple sclerosis more prevalent in Black Americans than previously thought

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 206 other subscribers

© 2023 Scienmag- Science Magazine: Latest Science News.

No Result
View All Result
  • HOME PAGE
  • BIOLOGY
  • CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
  • MEDICINE
    • Cancer
    • Infectious Emerging Diseases
  • SPACE
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • CONTACT US

© 2023 Scienmag- Science Magazine: Latest Science News.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In