Brain “Rebuilds” Itself to Combat Schizophrenia

Approximately 3.5 million people in the United States are diagnosed with schizophrenia according to SARDAA (Schizophrenia and Related Disorders Alliance of America), and while there currently is no medication capable of curing or reversing the onset of schizophrenia, a new study that recently appeared in Psychological Medicine  shows that the human brain has the ability to remodel itself in an attempt to overcome the condition. 

This study indicates that when immune cells of the central nervous system attack the connections between neurons (also know as “synaptic pruning”) the brain attempts to compensate for this shrinkae by increasing the volume of gray matter in other regions, according to IFLScience.com.

Researchers conducted a number of imaging test on schizophrenic and healthy volunteers and found that the brains of people who had been suffering from schizophrenia for less than two years were easy to tell apart from the brains of non-sufferers, due to decreases in gray matter. After his “two-year threshold,” the schizophrenic brain appears to begin to “rebuild” itself, making it more difficult to distinguish between the affected and healthy brains. 

The team of researchers hope “to one day be able to make use of the brain’s inherent ability to make ‘compensatory changes’ to its own structure in order to overcome schizophrenia.”