Schizophrenia synaptic loss follows brain's wiring map — SkimNews
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- Researchers used specialized PET imaging to directly measure synaptic density in 122 living people, including 29 with schizophrenia, in one of the largest synaptic density PET imaging studies conducted so far.
- Schizophrenia patients showed widespread synaptic loss across frontal and temporal regions and areas tied to memory and emotion, with damage considerably greater on the left side of the brain than on the right.
- The synaptic pattern did not match brain volume changes seen on standard MRI, suggesting synaptic loss and atrophy reflect distinct biological processes rather than two imaging methods capturing the same underlying change.
- Brain regions with the greatest synaptic loss contained high concentrations of receptors for serotonin, GABA, and glutamate, pointing to a molecular basis for which areas are most vulnerable.
- Computer simulations based on the brain's structural connections identified a left frontal lobe region as a likely starting point from which synaptic loss could spread into connected areas.
- Published in Molecular Psychiatry, the study was led by Avram Holmes of Rutgers and Rajiv Radhakrishnan of Yale, with first author Sidhant Chopra, formerly of the Holmes Lab and now at Orygen in Australia.
Why it matters: For the 29 schizophrenia patients scanned, the work pinpoints a left frontal region as a candidate intervention site and ties vulnerability to serotonin, GABA, and glutamate receptor density—giving researchers concrete biological targets for emerging synapse-preserving or regrowing therapies instead of today's broad symptom management.
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