Translational Neuroscience Program, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Neuroscience. 2013 Oct 22;251:90-107. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2012.04.044. Epub 2012 Apr 27.
Schizophrenia is a neurodevelopmental disorder whose clinical features include impairments in perception, cognition and motivation. These impairments reflect alterations in neuronal circuitry within and across multiple brain regions that are due, at least in part, to deficits in dendritic spines, the site of most excitatory synaptic connections. Dendritic spine alterations have been identified in multiple brain regions in schizophrenia, but are best characterized in layer 3 of the neocortex, where pyramidal cell spine density is lower. These spine deficits appear to arise during development, and thus are likely the result of disturbances in the molecular mechanisms that underlie spine formation, pruning, and/or maintenance. Each of these mechanisms may provide insight into novel therapeutic targets for preventing or repairing the alterations in neural circuitry that mediate the debilitating symptoms of schizophrenia.
精神分裂症是一种神经发育障碍，其临床特征包括感知、认知和动机方面的障碍。这些障碍反映了多个脑区内部和之间的神经元回路的改变，至少部分是由于树突棘的缺陷，树突棘是大多数兴奋性突触连接的部位。精神分裂症患者的多个脑区都发现了树突棘的改变，但在大脑皮层的 3 层中最为明显，那里的锥体神经元的棘突密度较低。这些棘突缺陷似乎是在发育过程中产生的，因此很可能是形成、修剪和/或维持棘突的分子机制紊乱的结果。这些机制中的每一个都可能为预防或修复介导精神分裂症致残症状的神经回路改变提供新的治疗靶点。
