Balu Darrick T, Coyle Joseph T
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Laboratory for Psychiatric and Molecular Neuroscience, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA 02478, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Laboratory for Psychiatric and Molecular Neuroscience, McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA 02478, USA.
Curr Opin Pharmacol. 2015 Feb;20:109-15. doi: 10.1016/j.coph.2014.12.004. Epub 2014 Dec 23.
Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric illness that is characterized by reduced cortical connectivity, for which the underlying biological and genetic causes are not well understood. Although the currently approved antipsychotic drug treatments, which primarily modulate dopaminergic function, are effective at reducing positive symptoms (i.e. delusions and hallucinations), they do little to improve the disabling cognitive and negative (i.e. anhedonia) symptoms of patients with schizophrenia. This review details the recent genetic and neurobiological findings that link N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) hypofunction to the etiology of schizophrenia. It also highlights potential treatment strategies that augment NMDA receptor function to treat the synaptic deficits and cognitive impairments.
精神分裂症是一种严重的精神疾病,其特征是皮质连接性降低,目前对其潜在的生物学和遗传原因尚不清楚。尽管目前批准的主要调节多巴胺能功能的抗精神病药物治疗在减轻阳性症状(即妄想和幻觉)方面有效,但对改善精神分裂症患者致残的认知和阴性(即快感缺乏)症状作用甚微。本综述详细介绍了最近将N-甲基-D-天冬氨酸受体(NMDAR)功能低下与精神分裂症病因联系起来的遗传学和神经生物学研究结果。它还强调了增强NMDA受体功能以治疗突触缺陷和认知障碍的潜在治疗策略。