In Nature a group of researchers from Denmark and Iceland report the results of their studies of mutation rates of Icelandic parent-child groups. They found that the level of new mutations, called a “de novo mutations,” in their samples when father’s average age was 29.7 was 1.20?X?10?8 per nucleotide per generation, but that number increases by two every year. In round numbers one might estimate that at about 20 years of age a father’s single sperm cell could carry 25 new spontaneous mutations, but at 40 years of age it might carry more than 65.
Continue reading ‘Nature: De novo mutations, autism, and schizophrenia, redux’
Tag Archive for 'Schizophrenia'
Teachers who are concerned about helping students understand mental health issues have at least one sensible places where they can go for teaching resources: Breaking the Silence, a Web resource offered by a local National Alliance on Mental Illness group. BTS, as it calls itself, provides a combination of neighborhood (NY, US) and widely available services (including a downloadable teacher’s “toolkit” with lesson plans, posters, and more).
The BTS folks make the case for teaching about mental health in this way:
Continue reading ‘Teaching about mental health’
Writing in the American Journal of Psychiatry, John Gilmore and colleages reported that the size and structure of the brains of newborn boys—but not girls—who are at risk for developing schizophrenia differ from those of their peers. Using multiple scanning methods at different times during gestation and infancy, the researchers compared the brains of offspring of mothers who have schizophrenia to the offspring of mothers who do not have schizophrenia; they found that high-risk boys had larger brains and larger lateral ventricles than baby boys whose mothers did not have psychiatric illness.
Because the risk of developing schizophrenia is much greater for close relatives of schizophrenics, the differences between the groups provides a strong indicator of later potential development of disease. Professor Gilmore wondered “Could it be that enlargement is an early marker of a brain that’s going to be different?”
Continue reading ‘Brain features associated with neonatal risk for schizophrenia’
In “Hushing the intruders in her brain,” Shari Roan continued her account of childhood-onset schizophrenia as experieinced by January (‘Jani’) Schofield. In the current story, Ms. Roan provided an update about Jani’s and her family’s life and progress. The coverage includes content about changes in Jani’s therapy and medications, the family’s living situation, and other aspects of life with childhood schizophrenia. As previously, there are accompanying multimedia features to the story, including this video by Don Kelsen.
EBD Blog Comments