Schizophrenia Diagnosed with Nasal Neurons
July 30, 2013 | Terry Sharrer
What does a nematode have to do with schizophrenia in humans? Nothing directly, but in 1993 the first micro RNA was discovered in C. elegans and biologists came to understand how micro RNAs govern gene expression by working with messenger RNA. Now, a research group at Tel Aviv University has found that schizophrenia patients have a higher level of a particular micro RNA (miR-382) expressed in their olfactory neurons in the nose. This discovery offers a diagnosis for the disease in a living person, which otherwise can only be determined at autopsy. MORE