脳神経科学を社会へ還流する教育研究拠点　東北大脳科学グローバルCOE

日時 　2008年 3月21日（金）13:00〜14:30

会場 　星陵キャンパス・5号館２階201セミナー室

演者 Andrew Allen Pieper　博士
　　　(Assistant Professor of Department of Psychiatry,
　　　　　 University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center)

演題 Neuronal PAS Domain Protein 3 and
　　　Hippocampal Neurogenesis in Schizophrenia
　

Schizophrenia is a devastating mental illness with inadequate treatment options that afflicts 1% -2% of people worldwide and typically follows a lifelong debilitating course with high morbidity and mortality. Neuronal PAS Domain Protein 3 (NPAS3), a brain specific transcription factor that controls postnatal hippocampal neurogenesis, is disrupted in some patients with schizophrenia. Abnormal hippocampal functioning is a core component of schizophrenia that may be related to faulty postnatal hippocampal neurogenesis and the development of cognitive symptoms in patients. These symptoms comprise some of the most severe and difficult to treat aspects of schizophrenia, and we are conducting an in vivo screen to discover small, drug-like molecules with hippocampal neurogenic efficacy. Our hope is that these efforts will lead to the development of new drugs to treat cognitive symptoms in patients with schizophreniagenerate a novel striatal model of Huntington’s disease in which cells bearing D1 receptors are progressively ablated in the post-natal brain. The application of such models and the challenges they present will be described.