A University of Kentucky scientist has found two markers that can be collected through a cheek swab and indicate the presence of schizophrenia.
Bonnie L. Firestein, a professor and chair in the Department of Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, published her findings in early March in Science Advances after about a decade working on the concept.
She hopes to expand her research in the coming years with the hope of having an easy-to-use test available to patients within a decade.
Diagnosing schizophrenia now includes multiple steps — physical and mental health exams, tests and screens and potentially blood work to test which medication is best for that person, according to the Mayo Clinic.
People who have schizophrenia may experience “delusions (false beliefs), hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that don’t exist), unusual physical behavior, and disorganized thinking and speech,” according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Antipsychotic medications and therapy can help manage these symptoms.
About 1% of the U.S. population is on the schizophrenia spectrum, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Firestein believes having a test like the one she is working toward would make for objective testing and help decrease stigma around the mental health condition.
“I think that it’s getting better. People are recognizing that mental illness is exactly that: It’s an illness. It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Firestein said. “It’s like having cancer. I think that if we can show that there is a biological basis, people are much more accepting.”
The study For her study, Firestein had 27 patients with diagnosed schizophrenia who had no other neurological or psychiatric disorder and 27 control patients who had no diagnoses of neurological or psychiatric disorders. All participants were between 18-65 years old.
Resources
There are resources available for Kentuckians who have a schizophrenia diagnosis. They include:
- For urgent help, call or text the 988 Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
- The Medicaid program RISE offers home and community-based services. For more information, visit this site.
- The iHope program through New Vista helps people with the diagnosis and their families understand schizophrenia and access resources. The program has a 24-hour helpline, which is 1-800-928-8000.
- Find therapists by specialty and location here.
The participants who had diagnosed schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder took their medicines during the study and though most had at least one previous hospitalization for psychosis, none were in an inpatient program during the study.
The research revealed two markers, Sp4 mRNA and the HSP60 protein, can be collected through a cheek swab in one minute and indicate the person has schizophrenia.
It’s a long way from working independent of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Firestein said. These two biomarkers are a great start, she said, but “I don’t think two biomarkers is enough” to definitively diagnose at this point.
She wants to expand the research to a larger population, study any differences in patients based on their race or gender and study patients in their first episode, which “refers to when a person first shows signs of losing contact with reality,” according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, or NAMI.
“We have to figure out how many biomarkers would be definitive,” she explained. “I’d say, at the beginning, in the early stages, you’d use the DSM with this to confirm.”
UK is licensing the technology from this research, “ensuring that future research and clinical expansion will continue in Lexington,” the university said in a March release about the study.
“The more research we do in this area, the better we’ll be able to home in on exactly what type of disorder patients have,” Firestein said, “and also what the underlying mechanism is.”
This story was originally published by the Kentucky Lantern.
