Hippocampus and Schizophrenia
Professor Daniel Weinberger discusses evidence that abnormalities in the hippocampus are associated with schizophrenia.
There’s also a lot of evidence that the hippocampus is disrupted in schizophrenia. So, schizophrenia is not likely, because of the complexity of this condition, is not likely to be the result of a problem of one little compartment in the brain. It’s very likely, because of the complexity of the kind of behavioral difficulties that are seen, that a number of centers in the brain, responsible for different types of processing, are involved. It has been known for quite a while that patients with schizophrenia have trouble with memory. It’s not so much that they don’t necessarily remember things. They do remember things but they don’t seem to be able to access and use memory quite the way people who don’t have this condition do. Memory is very much related to the functional part of the brain called the hippocampus. So based on the observation that clinically patients have memory problems, and the hippocampus is a source of memory processing, there’s been a lot of interest in studying the hippocampus directly in schizophrenia. Studies looking at the tissue of the brains of the people who died with schizophrenia and studies using neuroimaging to look at the size and the function of the hippocampus, as well as some studies of the neurochemistry of the hippocampus, have all converged on evidence that the hippocampus also is an area of abnormality in the brain in schizophrenia.
schizophrenia, memory, hippocampus, neuroimaging, neurochemistry, imaging, brain, daniel, weinberger
- ID: 1164
- Source: DNALC.G2C
- Download: MPEG 4 Video Windows Media Video Theora Video
Related Content
1163. Neuroimaging and Schizophrenia
Professor Daniel Weinberger describes how neuroimaging techniques are being used to examine the brains of schizophrenic patients.
1166. N-Acetylaspartate and Schizophrenia
Professor Daniel Weinberger discusses the role played by the biochemical N-Acetylaspartate in schizophrenia.
1169. COMT expression
Professor Daniel Weinberger explains that the schizophrenia candidate gene, COMT, is abundantly expressed in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.
1173. Glutamate and Schizophrenia
Professor Daniel Weinberger discusses evidence from a number of research areas that highlight the importance of the neurotransmitter glutamate in schizophrenia.
1165. Dopamine and Schizophrenia
Professor Daniel Weinberger explains that dopamine is the major focus of biochemical research into schizophrenia.
2226. Schizophrenia
An overview of schizophrenia-related content on Genes to Cognition Online.
818. Schizophrenia, the Cancer of Mental Illness
Professor Daniel Weinberger explains that schizophrenia has been called 'the cancer of mental illness' because of the severity of its impact.
1162. Frontal Lobes and Schizophrenia
Professor Daniel Weinberger explains that the frontal lobes, which are involved in planning and reasoning, may be disrupted in schizophrenia.
1171. Dysbindin and Schizophrenia
Professor Daniel Weinberger discusses research that makes dysbindin a candidate gene for schizophrenia.
2278. Positron Emission Tomography (PET) - Demonstration
Professor Wayne Drevets explains how positron emission tomography (PET) is used to examine biochemicals in the brain such as serotonin.