No organ in the human body is as resistant to study as the brain. Whereas researchers can examine living cells from the liver, lung and heart, taking a biopsy of the brain is, for many reasons, more problematic.

The inability to watch living human brain cells in action has hampered scientists in their efforts to understand psychiatric disorders. But researchers have identified a promising new approach that may revolutionize the study and treatment of conditions such as schizophrenia, autism and bipolar dis­order. A team led by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., took skin cells from a patient with schizophrenia, turned them into adult stem cells and then grew those stem cells into neurons. The resulting tangle of brain cells gave neuroscientists their first real-time glimpse of human schizophrenia at the cellular level. Another team, from Stanford University, converted human skin cells directly into neurons without first stopping at the stem cell stage, potentially making the process more efficient. The groups published their results recently in Nature (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group).

Scientists have used the disease-in-a-dish strategy to gain insight into sickle-cell anemia and heart arrhythmias. But the Salk team, led by neuroscientist Fred H. Gage, is the first to apply the approach to a genetically complex neuropsychiatric disorder. The group found that neurons derived from patients with schizophrenia formed fewer connections with one another than those derived from healthy patients; they also linked the deficit to the altered expression of nearly 600 genes, four times as many as had been previously implicated. The approach may eventually improve therapy, allowing psychiatrists to screen a variety of drugs to find the one that would be most effective for each patient, Gage says.

Whereas the research is still preliminary, many neuroscientists are excited by it. “This study opens up a whole new area of work,” says Daniel Weinberger, director of the Genes, Cognition and Psychosis Program at the National Institute of Mental Health. It is unclear what answers the stem cells approach can provide, but by making the inaccessible accessible, it opens up questions that until now could not have been asked.

This article was originally published with the title Mental Illness in a Dish.

6 Comments

1. 1. Didonai 09:15 PM 7/24/11

   It would be most constructive were all the doctors involved in such research FIRST test all their stuff
   on each other and THEN the ones who survive/are CURED
   can attempt to replicate the positive effects on patients.
   
   Fair is fair...
   
   Psychiatry and psychology is nothing but expensive voodoo.
   

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2. 2. kcw0214 04:43 PM 8/8/11

   That is easy for you to say. There may be bad doctors out there just like there are plenty of bad priest. But, there are also good ones, doctors I mean. There may be good priest also, but stupidity is another subject that would drag this reply out too long.
   
   Anyways, I decided to get the definition of "voodoo", and here is what I came up with: Voodoo is a polytheistic religion practiced chiefly by West Indians, deriving principally from African cult worship and containing elements borrowed from the Catholic religion.
   
   Hardly sounds like what the doctors/scientist from this article are trying to do, right?
   
   The thing is, people have this weird thing about thinking that the brain cannot be ill or in need of help. But people can have a bad heart, asthma, bad eyesight, and many other weaknesses. So, why can't the brain have a weakness also? And, for those who do realize that we are not all born equal, and there is such a thing as mental illness, why should we not pursue methods which can help us cure and overcome mental illness?
   
   Let me ask you, do you have any physical ailments? If so, have they been treated or cured? If so, how do you think a treatment or cure was found/created for your ailment? If you don't have any ailments, then good for you. But think about this... If you were suffering from a horrible illness which, if doesn't kill you, would surely make the rest of your life a living hell, wouldn't you appreciate those scientist who are out there, probably not suffering from your ailment, trying to find a way to help you?
   
   A scientist in the field of research averages an annual salary of $84,000 a year. On the other hand, a general practitioner could be making upwards of several hundreds of thousands a year.
   
   Just a few thoughts for you to consider before you try to term science research with any lowly noun related to any religious act.
   
   :)

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3. 3. Marc Barre Levesque 06:54 PM 8/9/11

   "The group found that neurons derived from patients with schizophrenia formed fewer connections with one another than those derived from healthy patients"
   
   I wonder how the number of connections varies between healthy individuals, all unhealthy individuals whatever their medical diagnoses, and between individuals with particular diagnoses.
   
   And furthermore, when are we going to work on the environment people live in. Individual biology is a good angle. But lets also put as much energy into maximizing the environment's socio-cultural healthiness from conception till death.
   
   --

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4. 4. brianss1407@yahoo.com 10:25 PM 8/9/11

   Neurons in a petri dish! Where have I heard that before? Well for about 30 years of my own life as a neuroscientist and I must not forget the work of hundreds of other scientists including the early neuroembryologist eg Harrison, the Stanley Crain and Edith Peterson group or the many others who continue this type of work today. Only the use of stem cells is new and that only adds another level of complexity and complication to the normality of neurons and glia in culture (or did they induce glia as well?).
   
   
   

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5. 5. bosh322 in reply to Didonai 04:38 PM 8/10/11

   WRONG!

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6. 6. bucketofsquid in reply to Didonai 09:21 AM 8/12/11

   Thank you for confirming what most of us have suspected for quite some time Didonai - you are schizophrenic. It is quite clear from your long history of posts but now we know for sure.

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