Schizophrenia, Working Memory, and Mis-folded Proteins

Schizophrenia is a disease characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech and behavior, and withdrawal from the world. In addition to these symptoms, there is also reduced cognition and a handicap to working memory. Dr. Molly Erickson sheds light on this through her research on affected individuals suffering from psychosis and visual working memory impairment. Her research specifically looks at alpha desynchronization in people affected with psychosis and those who are not.

In her research, Dr. Erickson took scans of people with and without schizophrenia while encoding specific shapes on a screen. It was found that those not affected by schizophrenia were able to encode and remember more of the squares than those with schizophrenia. Along with this, Dr. Erickson found that alpha/beta suppression was very reduced in those who suffered from schizophrenia. Through this research, Erickson found a strong correlation between reduced working memory and weak alpha/beta suppression in people with schizophrenia.

In an article Physical evidence in the brain for types of schizophrenia, Dr. Frederick Nucifora Jr. found that in patients with schizophrenia, there have been abnormalities in protein folding. Dr. Nucifora Jr. opened cells from brain tissues in patients suffering from schizophrenia. He found that healthy cells could be dissolved, while abnormal cells could not be fully dissolved. In these abnormal cells mis-folded proteins were found. These mis-folded proteins are supposed to be used during the development of the nervous system, more specifically in the generation of new neurons.

After hearing Dr. Erickson’s seminar and reading about the findings of Dr Nucifora Jr. I am curious if these mis-folded proteins have anything to do with impairment of alpha/beta suppression? More specifically, if the lack of neuron formation from the mis-folded proteins doesn’t allow for the working memory to encode, similarly to how people with schizophrenia are affected.

Erickson, M.A, Albrecht, M.A., Robinson, B., Luck, S.J., & Gold, J.M. (2017). Impaired Suppression of Delay-Period Alpha and Beta is Associated with Impaired Working Memory in Schizophrenia. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, 2(3), 272-279. doi: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2016.09.003

Leslie G. Nucifora, Matthew L. MacDonald, Brian J. Lee, Matthew E. Peters, Alexis L. Norris, Benjamin C. Orsburn, Kun Yang, Kelly Gleason, Russell L. Margolis, Jonathan Pevsner, Carol A. Tamminga, Robert A. Sweet, Christopher A. Ross, Akira Sawa, Frederick C. Nucifora. Increased Protein Insolubility in Brains From a Subset of Patients With Schizophrenia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2019; appi.ajp.2019.1 DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.18070864

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190624111556.htm