Disorders Of Synaptic Plasticity And Schizophrenia

A practical guide on how to assess and treat schizophrenia and related disorders using cognitive rehabilitation.

Recent studies show that changes in Glutamate/GABA synapses and related pathways may determine whether the synaptic plasticity that occurs as a response to stress is adaptive or maladaptive. Findings have shed new light on the mechanisms that determine the effects of stress on cognitive and affective function. Researchers have brought a wide range of techniques to bear on the study of this problem, including cutting-edge live imaging techniques, electrophysiology, glutamate release from isolated live synaptic terminals, development of transgenic and animal models and new behavioral methods. This book provides an overview of these recent findings and of the techniques used as well as a discussion of how the molecular, cellular, and functional effects of stress may trigger or precipitate neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, anxiety and PTSD.

What is schizophrenia? This is one of the most controversial questions in psychiatry and mental health research; however, in the last twenty years, there have been significant advances in our understanding of the topic. This book provides a balanced, comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the neuropathology of schizophrenia and its interpretation, covering the latest evidence derived from all fields of research, from brain scans to microscopy. The authors include many of the foremost international authorities in this rapidly developing field.

Schizophrenia is a severe brain disorder that affects 1% of the population. Its cause is due to the interaction of a number of abnormal genes with environmental factors. This book summarizes new advances schizophrenia research that focus on the field of neural and synaptic plasticity. Synapses in the brain in schizophrenia show a wide range of disorders, both structural and functional. This volume covers the most active and promising of these new developments, and opens up new avenues for the treatment of schizophrenia. * Addresses new areas of research in neurotransmitters, receptors, vitamin transport, metabolism, and signaling. * Reviews the growing field of synaptic plasticity research* Provides links with other diseases of the Central Nervous System (CNS)

Neuropsychiatric diseases, such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, and etc., represent a serious medical and socioeconomic problems. These diseases are often accompanied by impairments of cognitive function, e.g., abstract thinking, decision-making, attention, and several types of memory. Such deficits significantly disrupt quality of life and daily functioning of patients. Cognitive deficits in neuropsychiatric diseases are associated with alterations of brain morphology and function, and are often resistant to therapeutic interventions. In schizophrenia and related disorders, cognitive deficits are also defined as endophenotypes, i.e. measurable phenotypes linking these disaeses with discrete heritable and reproducible traits. This points to the importance of elucidating these endophenotypes in translational studies. Animal models may not mimic the full spectrum of clinical symptoms, but may act as analogies of particular behaviors or other pathological outcomes. They are useful to search for the etiology of particular psychiatric illnesses and novel therapeutics. Moreover, several behavioral tests to measure cognitive performance in rodents and other species have been implemented. The primary focus of the present topic is to provide up-to-date information on cognitive deficits of neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia. This Research Topic also delineates future directions for translational studies aimed at developing novel treatments/interventions of cognitive disturbances.

This volume provides an introduction to the essential techniques required for studying the molecular biology of brain disease. The approaches and strategies for investigations of gene structure and regulation are described with reference to the molecular genetics of prion and Alzheimer's disease. The effects of aberrant gene regulation can also be examined at the protein level by immunocytochemistry and autoradiography. Improved understanding of basic biology has resulted in new approaches to animal models using transgenic techniques and new therapeutic approaches. The volume is structured to illustrate all these approaches and demonstrate the practice and promise of molecular neuropathology.

This volume makes clear that the cognitive and behavioural symptoms of neurologic disorders and syndromes are dynamic and changing. Each chapter describes the neuroplastic processes at work in a particular condition, giving rise to these ongoing cognitive changes.