Researchers aim to reveal mechanisms leading to schizophrenia
Despite new discoveries on risk factors associated with schizophrenia, little is still known about the mechanisms underlying the development of schizophrenia. Now, researchers from the University of Copenhagen, Karolinska Institute, and University of Zurich have joined forces to close the knowledge gap.
Psychiatric disorders are one of the most common classes of disorders in Europe; however, scientists have not been able to fully explain how genetic and environmental risk factors lead to the development of such psychiatric disorders as schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia and in general psychiatric drug discovery suffered from lack of new and efficient drugs targeting the spectrum of symptoms.
Therefore, researchers from three European universities have received a 30 million DKK grant from the Lundbeck Foundation to study the risk factors and development of schizophrenia.
“We are thrilled to receive large funds from Lundbeckfonden to establish collaborative consortium that has an ultimate goal to determine how schizophrenia-associated brain dysfunctions arise during brain development,” says Professor Konstantin Khodosevich from Biotech Research and Innovation Center, University of Copenhagen,
The project runs in five years from March 2025.
Need for more efficient treatment
Although schizophrenia is one of the most prevalent psychiatric disorders, patients have limited treatment options. Many are resistant to existing treatments, which are often non-specific, fail to address all major symptoms, and frequently cause side effects.
“Schizophrenia and in general psychiatric drug discovery suffered from lack of new and efficient drugs targeting the spectrum of symptoms. In our project, we propose a whole novel approach to identify mechanisms of brain impairment and candidate targets for therapeutics by high-throughput exploration of schizophrenia risk factors in integrated and longitudinal experimental models,” says Konstantin Khodosevich.
The aim of the project is to determine how schizophrenia-associated brain dysfunctions arise during brain development and why symptoms manifest much later in life during adolescence. Moreover, the researchers aim to identify why risk factors induce brain dysfunction in some individuals, whereas others are resilient to the risk factor effects. Finally, the consortium aims to find new directions for treatments of schizophrenia by stimulating resilience mechanisms.