The dendritic spine as the microendophenotype of psychiatric disorders

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project Area: Unraveling micro-endophenotypes of psychiatric disorders at the molecular, cellular and circuit levels.
• Project/Area Number: 24116003
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (Research in a proposed research area)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Review Section: Biological Sciences
• Research Institution: Gunma University (2015-2016); The University of Tokyo (2012-2014)
• Principal Investigator: Hayashi-Takagi Akiko (高木朗子) 群馬大学, 生体調節研究所, 教授 (60415271)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): Kasai Haruo 東京大学, 大学院医学系研究科, 教授 (60224375)
• Research Collaborator: Nakamura Mayumi ; Shirai Fukutoshi
• Project Period (FY): 2012-06-28 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 樹状突起スパイン / 2光子イメージング / 統合失調症 / シナプス光遺伝学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Drug discovery in psychiatry has been limited to chemical modifications of compounds originally discovered serendipitously. Therefore, more mechanism-oriented strategies of drug discovery for mental disorders are awaited, and the dendritic spine is one of the strong candidate of the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Thus, we performed the longitudinal in vivo spine imaging of schizophrenia model mice and found out that the marked reduction in the spine density in the model mice. We also developed a novel synaptic optoprobe that specifically manipulates the spine and demonstrated the higher brain functions such as the learning and memory is dependent on the spine. Taken together, our results warranted the importance of the spine as the microendophenotype of schizophrenia.

Free Research Field

精神医学