One of the symptoms of schizophrenia is difficulty incorporating new information about the world. This can lead people with schizophrenia to struggle with making decisions and, eventually, to lose touch with reality. MIT neuroscientists have now identified a gene mutation that appears to give rise to this type of difficulty. In a study of mice, the researchers found that the mutated gene impairs the function of a brain circuit that is responsible for updating beliefs based on new input. This mutation, in a gene called grin2a, was originally identified in a large-scale screen of patients with schizophrenia. The new study suggests that drugs targeting this brain circuit could help with some of the cognitive impairments seen in people with schizophrenia. 'If this circuit doesn't work well, you cannot quickly integrate information,' says Guoping Feng, the James W. and Patricia T. Poitras Professor in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, a member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and...
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