Munich, Germany - Contrary to expectations, the opioid receptor antagonist naltrexone is no better than placebo and can be counterproductive in treating substance use disorder in patients with schizophrenia, according to data released at the 18th European Congress of Psychiatry...

The underlying causes of the debilitating psychiatric disorder schizophrenia remain poorly understood. In a study published online in Genome Research, scientists have performed a powerful gene network analysis that has revealed surprising new insights into how gene regulation and age play a role in schizophrenia...

An Australian study found that prolonged use of cannabis or marijuana by young adults was linked to a higher risk of developing psychosis, with the highest risk affecting those who started using the substance in their teens, and continued using it for 6 years or more into adulthood: the risk of developing psychosis among these users was more than double that of never users...

In reports of two new studies, researchers led by Johns Hopkins say they have identified the mechanisms rooted in two anatomical brain abnormalities that may explain the onset of schizophrenia and the reason symptoms don't develop until young adulthood...

Schizophrenia is an incredibly complex and profoundly debilitating disorder that typically manifests in early adulthood but is thought to arise, at least in part, from pathological disturbances occurring during very early brain development...

A genetic link between schizophrenia and autism is enabling researchers to study the effectiveness of drugs used to treat both illnesses. Dr Steve Clapcote from the University of Leeds's Faculty of Biological Sciences will be analysing behaviour displayed by mice with a genetic mutation linked to schizophrenia and autism and seeing how antipsychotic drugs affect their behavioural abnormalities...

Johns Hopkins Children's Center neurovirologist Robert Yolken, M.D., and collaborators from the Stanley Medical Research Institute have developed a large repository of brain and tissue samples to advance the understanding and treatment of bipolar disorder, major depression and schizophrenia...

Alkermes, Inc. (NASDAQ: ALKS) announced that it has developed a novel, proprietary LinkeRx™ technology platform to enable the creation of injectable extended-release versions of antipsychotics and other central nervous system (CNS) therapies...

Today Merz Pharma entered the Irish Healthcare market with Denzapine, the first generic form of clozapine available in Ireland. Denzapine is an atypical antipsychotic agent used in treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS) which has been available to prescribe in the UK since February 2004...

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder affect tens of millions of individuals around the world. These disorders have a typical onset in the early twenties and in most cases have a chronic or recurring course. Neither disorder has an objective biological marker than can be used to make diagnoses or to guide treatment...

A new study suggests that people at very high risk of developing psychotic disorders appear less likely to to do so after taking fish oil for three months...

Between 1997 and 2006, 38% of out-of-clinic suicides by mental health patients were carried out by people absent without leave from the hospital. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Psychiatry suggest that measures to improve the ward environment or prevent patients from leaving psychiatric wards without staff agreement could avoid up to 50 suicide deaths every year...

A new study from UC Davis Health System identifies for the first time a brain protein called SynDIG1 that plays a critical role in creating and sustaining synapses, the complex chemical signaling system responsible for communication between neurons. The research, published in the Jan...

The onset of schizophrenia is not easy to predict. Although it is associated with as many as 14 genes in the human genome, the prior presence of schizophrenia in the family is not enough to determine whether one will succumb to the mind-altering condition. The disease also has a significant environmental link. According to Prof...

The International Serious Adverse Events Consortium (SAEC) has announced that it will collaborate with Duke University's Center for Human Genome Variation to research the genetics of Clozapine-induced agranulocytosis (CIA), with the goal of identifying potential rare genetic variants predictive of this serious drug induced adverse event...

People being treated for schizophrenia are more likely than the general population to have encounters with the criminal justice system in the US...

Years before adults develop schizophrenia, there is a pattern of cognitive difficulties they experience as children, including problems with verbal reasoning, working memory, attention and processing speed...

A blood test for diagnosing schizophrenia - the most serious form of mental illness - could be available this year, according to an article in the current issue of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS' weekly newsmagazine. The disorder, with symptoms that can include hallucinations and delusional thoughts, affects more than two million people in the United States and millions more worldwide...

An international consortium of scientists, led by H. Lundbeck A/S and King's College London, has launched one of the largest ever research academic-industry collaboration projects to find new methods for the development of drugs for schizophrenia and depression...

Understanding the causes of autism and schizophrenia could be a step closer for researchers from the Queensland Brain Institute at The University of Queensland after they unravelled the secret world of the wasp genome. The neuroscientists were part of an international consortium that has spent four years sequencing the genome of three parasitic wasp species...