Schizophrenia is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder, most commonly diagnosed in late teens/early 20s, that affects around 1% of the population. The disorder places a major burden on sufferers, carers and health services with high suicide rates in sufferers (approximately 7%) and consuming roughly 30% of NHS spending on adult mental health. In England alone, the economic cost of schizophrenia is estimated at £12 billion per year. Psychotherapy is not an effective treatment on its own, and although there are some effective medications, those that are licenced are often poorly tolerated. There is therefore a large unmet need to identify new treatments.
The five-year project, led by Professor Jack Mellor from Bristol’s School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience in the Faculty of Life Sciences, will use new data from large genetic studies of schizophrenia to identify common biological causes for cognitive changes. These genetic studies point towards changes at synapses, the connections between nerves, and their adaptability – a process that underlies learning and memory.
The project forms a multi-disciplinary and cross-institutional partnership between research teams led by Professor Mellor with Dr Mike Ashby, Professor Jon Hanley and Professor Emma Robinson at Bristol, Professor Jeremy Hall at the University of Cardiff and Professor Dimitri Kullmann at University College London, along with clinical research teams led by Dr Mike Carter and Dr Kasia Sieradzan in Bristol.
The five-year, MRC-funded study, entitled ‘Impairment of neural plasticity and adaptive representations by genetic risk factors for schizophrenia’, will begin on 1 October 2023.