Psychiatric disorders articles within Nature

Featured

  • News |

    Researchers are making inroads in the daunting challenge of modelling mental illness, thanks to patients' cells.

    • Ewen Callaway

  • News & Views |

    Genome-wide association studies are often criticized for providing little insight of immediate physiological relevance. The finding of one such study, which implicates a signalling molecule in schizophrenia, is welcome news. See Letter p.499

    • Hugh D. Piggins

  • News & Views |

    Why do some people develop post-traumatic stress disorder, but others emerge from a horrific event relatively unscathed? A molecule involved in orchestrating the brain's response to stress may hold the key to this difference. See Article p.492

    • Murray B. Stein

  • Letter |

    Substantial risk for schizophrenia is conferred by large copy number variants at a number of genomic loci. Here, a significant association between duplications on chromosome 7 and schizophrenia is reported. Importantly, microduplication analysis narrowed down the region to a region just upstream of a gene encoding vasoactive intestinal peptide receptor (VIPR2). Increased expression of VIPR2 in patients with schizophrenia implicates VIP signalling as a molecular mechanism underlying schizophrenia.

    • Vladimir Vacic
    • , Shane McCarthy
    •  & Jonathan Sebat

  • Letter |

    It has recently been shown that neurons in the lateral habenula (LHb), a nucleus that projects to midbrain reward areas, can signal aversive outcomes and may be disrupted in depressive disorders. This study now shows that in rats exhibiting learned helplessness (a model of major depression) excitatory synapses onto LHb neurons are potentiated, and that this correlates with helplessness behaviour. Furthermore, depleting transmitter release by repeated electrical stimulation of LHb using a protocol similar to deep brain stimulation rescues both synaptic changes and learned helplessness behaviour.

    • Bo Li
    • , Joaquin Piriz
    •  & Roberto Malinow

  • Books & Arts |

    Autism's broad diagnosis has fuelled fears about vaccines despite no evidence for a link, finds Melvin Konner.

    • Melvin Konner

  • Editorial |

    Simple tools to diagnose mental illness should not be offered without sound supporting evidence.

  • News Feature |

    Japanese hospitals are using near-infrared imaging to help diagnose psychiatric disorders. But critics are not sure the technique is ready for the clinic.

    • David Cyranoski

  • Article |

    Impulsive behaviour characterizes several psychiatric diseases and violent behaviour but its origins are complex. Here, exon sequencing focused on fourteen serotonin- and dopamine-related genes identified a mutation in HTR2B, which was associated with psychiatric diseases marked by impulsivity in a Finnish population. The role of this serotonin receptor in impulsivity is further supported by the knockout mouse phenotype.

    • Laura Bevilacqua
    • , Stéphane Doly
    •  & David Goldman

  • News |

    Nobel laureate to test link between autism and infection.

    • Declan Butler

  • Editorial |

    Research has revealed daunting complexities in the psychiatric condition, but also new routes towards diagnosis and treatment.

  • Comment |

    The stigma of mental illness will be reduced only if region-specific awareness initiatives become a permanent fixture of health and social services, argues Norman Sartorius.

    • Norman Sartorius

  • Comment |

    More rigorous studies should be done on the effects of a therapy that seems to improve the everyday functioning of people with schizophrenia, says Til Wykes.

    • Til Wykes

  • News Feature |

    The biology is too complicated. Pharma companies are quitting. Where are schizophrenia drugs going to come from?

    • Alison Abbott

  • News Feature |

    Stymied in the search for genes underlying human neuropsychiatric diseases, some researchers are looking to dogs instead. David Cyranoski meets the geneticist's new best friend.

    • David Cyranoski

  • Letter |

    Anxious temperament in both humans and monkeys is an important early predictor of psychopathology and is known to be heritable. These authors characterize the neural circuitry associated with this trait and the extent to which its function is heritable. A scan of related monkeys after exposure to mild stress showed that activation in both the amygdala and hippocampus was predictive of anxious temperament, but that heritability of activity in hippocampus was greater than that in amygdala.

    • Jonathan A. Oler
    • , Andrew S. Fox
    •  & Ned H. Kalin

  • Article |

    Extended cocaine taking triggers several structural and functional changes in the brain that may lead to compulsive drug seeking, but the mechanisms that regulate the process are unclear. Here, a microRNA — miR-212 — is identified that is upregulated in the striatum of rats with a history of extended access to cocaine. The authors suggest that miR-212 protects against the development of compulsive drug taking, and that it may act through the CREB protein, a known regulator of the rewarding effects of cocaine.

    • Jonathan A. Hollander
    • , Heh-In Im
    •  & Paul J. Kenny

  • Letter |

    A deletion on human chromosome 22 (22q11.2) is one of the largest genetic risk factors for schizophrenia. Mice with a corresponding deletion have problems with working memory, one feature of schizophrenia. It is now found that these mice also show disruptions in synchronous firing between neurons of the prefrontal cortex and of the hippocampus, an electrophysiological phenomenon that has been linked to learning and memory and which is also thought to be disrupted in schizophrenia patients.

    • Torfi Sigurdsson
    • , Kimberly L. Stark
    •  & Joshua A. Gordon

  • Letter |

    Although several synaptic adhesion proteins have been identified as genetic risk factors in schizophrenia, it is unclear as to what role they play in disease progression. Here, it is shown that two such proteins — neuregulin 1 and its receptor ErbB4 — function to regulate the connectivity of specific cortical circuits. The study not only implicates these proteins in the wiring of inhibitory synapses, about which little is known, but also provides a new perspective on their involvement in schizophrenia.

    • Pietro Fazzari
    • , Ana V. Paternain
    •  & Beatriz Rico

  • Opinion |

    After five years, the World Health Organization's tobacco-control treaty is starting to have an effect, but we need to tackle the smoking epidemic in the developing world, say Jonathan M. Samet and Heather L. Wipfli.

    • Jonathan M. Samet
    •  & Heather L. Wipfli

  • Letter |

    Peptide hormones such as oxytocin and vasopressin influence social behaviour in several mammalian species. Here it is shown that a population of interneurons in the rat olfactory bulb releases vasopressin, and that vasopressin signalling is required in the olfactory system for proper social recognition in rats. Although vasopressin may not work in exactly the same way in humans, social recognition mediated by experience-dependent vasopressin release may be common.

    • Vicky A. Tobin
    • , Hirofumi Hashimoto
    •  & Mike Ludwig

  • News & Views |

    Chronic drug use can lead to addiction, which is initiated by specific brain circuits. The mystery of how one class of drugs, the benzodiazepines, affects activity in this circuitry has finally been solved.

    • Arthur C. Riegel
    •  & Peter W. Kalivas

  • Editorial |

    There are many ways in which the understanding and treatment of conditions such as schizophrenia are ripe for a revolution.

  • News & Views |

    Retrieving a memory initiates a window of vulnerability for that memory. Simple behavioural methods can modify distressing memories during this window, eliminating fear reactions to traumatic reminders.

    • Gregory J. Quirk
    •  & Mohammed R. Milad

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