One of the ten most attenuate diseases affecting human-beings as pinpointed by World Health Organization is the neuropsychiatric disorder, Schizophrenia. One out of hundred Americans are being affected due to this and the reason for disability among the people of Canada and U.S aging between 15 to 44 is due to mental disorder that costs the country to spend atleast $193 billion annually as per the study conducted in 2008 funded by National Institute of Mental Health. The above organization along with National Institutes of Health has offered an amount of $1.4 million over four years to Charles Nichols, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at LSU Health Sciences Center, New Orleans for discovering and describing the novel genes involved in schizophrenia and psychosis since his approaches are always originative.To understand how psychosis and schizophrenia develop Dr. Nichols joins discovery studies with functional and behavioral studies in two alternate models and developed a new rodent model of psychosis.

"We believe that changes in gene function, influenced by abnormal activity in specific regions of the brain regulated by the neurotransmitter serotonin, contribute to neuropsychiatric disorders. The effects of LSD can be very similar to aspects of psychosis in people, but no one really understands how LSD works other than it changes how serotonin functions in the brain, and our results may lead to new avenues for therapeutics to treat such devastating diseases as schizophrenia and psychosis " notes Dr. Nichols.

Read More about Schizophrenia
Read more about Psychosis

Labels: lth Organization, mental disorder, neuropsychiatric disorders, Psychology, psychosis, schizophrenia, World Health Organization