Yale University researchers say they have found a relation between smoking and schizophrenia. According to the study, nicotine receptor levels were lower in the brains of people with schizophrenia.
Health experts say that schizophrenia is caused by several factors such as genes and altered brain chemistry and structure. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, treatment might help alleviate certain symptoms of schizophrenia. However, most people with the disorder cope with symptoms throughout their lives.
The researchers of the current study stated that smoking - a known factor responsible for increasing the levels of receptors for nicotine in the brain - had this effect in both groups, although it was blunted in schizophrenia.
Researchers found that in the schizophrenia group, increased nicotine receptors levels due to smoking was linked with lower levels of social withdrawal, blunted emotional and motivational responses as well as better cognitive function.
Nicotine imitates the actions of a natural chemical messenger, acetylcholine, which stimulates the receptors for nicotine in the brain. "We found that lower nicotinic-acetylcholine receptor availability in smokers with schizophrenia is associated with worse negative symptoms and worse performance on tests of executive function," Irina Esterlis, an assistant professor at Yale University, said in a press release.
The research team explained that the study findings might be relevant to the high rates of smoking in schizophrenia. "The data seem to suggest that smoking might produce some clinical benefits for some patients by increasing the availability of receptor targets for nicotine in the brain," noted John Krystal, editor of the journal Biological Psychiatry that published the study.
"These findings suggest that nicotinic-acetycholine receptors may be a target for developing treatments for negative symptoms and cognitive deficits associated with schizophrenia, for which no effective treatments exist," Krystal concluded.
The study comes amid another research on schizophrenia that states it is not a single disease but 8 different disorders. Researchers at the Washington University in St. Louis said that the findings might improve the diagnosis and treatment for schizophrenia.
