Investigation of cortical abnormalities in schizophrenia patients
In collaboration with the Szent Borbála Hospital in Tatabánya, we investigate brain samples of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia post mortem, which we compare with control subjects without neurological disease. The samples are fixed shortly after death and are therefore suitable for the detection of subtle structural abnormalities.
Our previous study has shown that the giant pyramidal cells (Betz cells) of the primary motor cortex are altered in the right hemisphere of the schizophrenic subjects studied, the number of cells is reduced and their inhibitory innervations are impaired. Similar studies are planned in different populations of neuronal cells and their connections in other cortical regions (e.g., cingulate cortex). We will also investigate microglial cells, as several previous studies and clinical data suggest the role of immune processes in schizophrenia.