Some schizophrenia patients become less prone to violence when taking medication, but those with a history of childhood conduct problems continue to pose a higher risk even with treatment, according to a new study by researchers at Duke University Medical Center.

New findings from research supported by NARSAD, the world’s leading charity dedicated to mental health research, and conducted by Harvard-affiliated scientists are providing important clues into how genes work to impair various aspects of attention, memory and perception -- the behaviors associated with many psychiatric illnesses, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression.

Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have illuminated a window into how abnormalities in microRNAs, a family of molecules that regulate expression of numerous genes, may contribute to the behavioral and neuronal deficits associated with schizophrenia and possibly other brain disorders.

The COMT gene – known already for its role in schizophrenia – has been found to play a role in preeclampsia, according to a report in today’s advance on-line issue of Nature.

Neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins have discovered that mice lacking an enzyme that contributes to Alzheimer disease exhibit a number of schizophrenia-like behaviors. The finding raises the possibility that this enzyme may participate in the development of schizophrenia and related psychiatric disorders and therefore may provide a new target for developing therapies.

A study of patients with psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia suggests an alternative explanation for why many sufferers lack motivation. The research is described today BioMed Central’s journal BMC Psychiatry.

Data presented today on Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s (NASDAQ: VNDA) investigational drug candidate, iloperidone, included its 4-week, short-term Phase III trial, as well as a pooled analysis of three long-term, 52-week trials, studying the efficacy and safety of iloperidone.

Schizophrenia is a complex type of psychotic mental illness characterized by thoughts that are uncoupled from reality. Huge gains in the effective treatment of individuals with the disease began in the 1950s with the development of the first generation of antipsychotic drugs.

Policies requiring authorization before physicians can prescribe newer medications to schizophrenic patients may be counter-productive. According to a new study, patients in Maine’s Medicaid program who found themselves in this situation were 29% more likely to stop or disrupt medication use than patients not subject to the policy.

Using an important new method that can be applied in the study of other psychiatric illnesses, scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Washington (UW) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), have identified multiple, individually rare gene mutations in people with schizophrenia that may help explain how that devastating illness is caused.

Researchers from University of Washington, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and the National Institutes of Health conducted a study to trace the connection of schizophrenia and genetic mutations.

The enduring memory problems that people with schizophrenia experience may be related to differences in how their brains process information, new research has found.