Changes in hippocampus are nearly identical in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a serious mental condition for which many Americans buy Zyprexa.
Schizophrenia is a serious mental condition for which many Americans buy Zyprexa. Researchers from Ireland's Royal College of Surgeons recently discovered that this illness shares strikingly similar brain characteristics with bipolar disorder, pinpointing a particular process that controls information transmission and is affected in those with emotional disorders.
Lead author David Cotter and his team looked at the hippocampus, the region of the brain that tends to exhibit abnormalities in the presence of schizophrenia. Certain areas, including cornu ammonis regions two and three, were found to be different in individuals with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, compared to those in the general poulation.
The researchers explained that these differences were almost identical in the two illnesses, meaning that patients had disparities in how information was transmitted by the neurons.
"Our study is the first to show the depth of protein similarities between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as they appear in the brain and the processes associated with them. Although, the two conditions present with different symptoms, the research has shown that they are almost identical in terms of how they present in the brain," Cotter said.
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