Comparison of post-mortem tissue from brain BA10 region between schizophrenic and control patients.

Analysis of gene expression in two large schizophrenia cohorts identifies multiple changes associated with nerve terminal function. Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder with a world-wide prevalence of 1%. The pathophysiology of the illness is not understood, but is thought to have a strong genetic component with some environmental influences on aetiology. To gain further insight into disease mechanism, we used microarray technology to determine the expression of over 30 000 mRNA transcripts in post-mortem tissue from a brain region associated with the pathophysiology of the disease (Brodmann area 10: anterior prefrontal cortex) in 28 schizophrenic and 23 control patients. Post-mortem derived BA10 tissue from 28 schizophrenic and 23 control patients were compared. Age, gender, post-mortem delay and pH of brain lysates data were also captured.