Researcher points to new antipsychotic therapy class

A research team at the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology, VIB, and University of Leuven have found that a fault in the neuregulin protein plays a key role in the development of schizophrenia--an insight likely to spur new development programs for the disease. The team concluded that a faulty "cleavage" of the nrg-1 protein--normally done by a pair of molecular scissors--is at the basis of schizophrenia. And the scientists speculated that a new therapy that did the work of the scissors could be on the cutting edge of a new class of antipsychotic therapies.

"As this is fundamental research, there are no immediate implications for diagnosis and treatment, but our results strengthen the case for an involvement of abnormal neuregulin signaling in schizophrenia and are bound to increase the interest in the clinical testing of drugs that modulate neuregulin signaling," said the scientists.

- read the report in the Telegraph

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