Posted on 02/20/2023 7:41:28 PM PST by ConservativeMind
A team used the drug fasudil to reverse two common symptoms associated with schizophrenia: reduced density of pyramidal neurons and cognitive dysfunction associated with methamphetamine treatment.
Genetic vulnerability is generally accepted to be involved in the development of schizophrenia. One key genetic factor involved is copy-number variation, a genetic trait in which people have different numbers of a particular gene. In particular, variations in the copy number of the ARHGAP10 gene are associated with symptoms of schizophrenia.
ARHGAP10 encodes a protein that is involved in regulation of the Rho GTPase family of enzymes. Among these Rho GTPase family members, a few reports have implicated RhoA in schizophrenia. In the current research, the group theorized that some of the downstream factors of RhoA may be treatment targets. They identified Rho-associated kinase (ROCK), as a potential therapeutic target, since activation of the RhoA/ROCK signaling pathway stimulates many risk factors for schizophrenia.
"ROCK signaling promotes spine shrinkage and destabilization," said Rinako Tanaka. "This is important because schizophrenia is known to be associated with spine morphology."
A team used fasudil to inhibit ROCK in model mice with mutations in their ARHGAP10 gene to see if this improved symptoms. They found that treatment restored the density of pyramidal neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain associated with attention and long-term memory. As a result, mice with methamphetamine-induced cognitive impairment treated with the drug also performed better on visual discrimination tests.
"Our findings clarify how ROCK contributes to the neuropathological changes in spine morphology and to the cognitive vulnerability to methamphetamine caused by schizophrenia-associated mutations in the ARHGAP10 gene," Tanaka said. "Targeting Rho-kinase signaling may provide new therapeutic approaches for schizophrenia patients. Inhibitors of Rho kinase, such as fasudil, or those downstream of Rho kinase may be future therapeutic drugs for schizophrenia."
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
There are other drugs that are Rho kinase inhibitors, which are available, here.
Wonder how they know a mouse is schizo???
Like what? Hearing voices?
I was just going to say the same thing! LOL!
Great news for schizophrenic mice.
Or maybe they hear “meows” that aren’t there!
Possibly the biggest therapeutic innovation to treat symptoms of schizophrenia / psychosis since chlorpromazine.
Well, since neither schizophrenia nor marijuana has anything to do with multiple personality disorder I don’t know.
I find all this animal testing barbaric. Each year tons of mice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, monkeys of various sorts, and who knows what else, are bred to be poisoned, gassed, blinded, crushed and other atrocities, The lucky ones are humanely euthanized. They are then loaded up into hazardous waste trucks and sent to incinerators... so we can have our drugs, cosmetics, and other niceties of modern life. Good thing no one got hurt.
There’s a short paragraph at the link describes how they breed that, and know.
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Eating something, and permanently blinding it to find out if underarm deodorant is safe are two vastly different things.
You either believe their lives are valuable, or not.
That’s a simplistic conflation of two very different things. “Primitive” human cultures have ceremonies and practices to help reconcile the obvious dilemma of the need for food and the act of killing to get it. Our modern society has forgotten that. However blinding a rabbit to determine if oven cleaner is ‘safe’ doesn’t even compare.
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