SYDNEY, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- A gene involved in regulating the body's response to stress switches on more easily in the brains of people with schizophrenia, potentially opening the way for new psychiatric treatments, new research has found.
The study examined the FKBP5 gene and the corresponding FKBP51 protein, which help regulate the body's response to stress hormones such as cortisol, according to a statement released Wednesday by Australia's University of Sydney (USYD).
Using donated brain tissue, researchers found that in people with schizophrenia, chemical tags that normally keep the FKBP5 gene in check had been stripped away, leading to higher activity of the gene and opening up the possibility of developing new treatments targeting it.
"For people who have lost the chemical tags that keep their stress gene in check, it is like having the volume on their speaker stuck on high," said Natalie Matosin of the USYD School of Medical Sciences, senior author of the study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
The researchers from USYD and the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Germany found that changes in the stress-response system become more pronounced with age, meaning the system may be switched on more easily and stay on for longer. These changes, in turn, increase vulnerability to psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia later in life.
Matosin said the altered stress response was particularly concentrated in the brain's frontal cortex, an area of the brain that supports memory, decision-making and emotional control.
Having a persistently heightened stress response may mean that, as the brain ages, the circuits in the frontal cortex become more vulnerable to damage, increasing susceptibility to serious psychiatric illness, she added. ■