Schizophrenia can be detected early in infants' brain'

In a finding that could lead to early detection and prevention of schizophrenia, scientists have identified abnormalities that they believe may be the early signs of the mental disorder in the brains of newborns.

Schizophrenia, which affects one in 100 people worldwide, is characterised by disordered thinking and hallucinations. Children of people with the severe mental illness are at greater risk of developing the condition.

But for the first time, researchers at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill and Columbia University found brain abnormalities in infants which could be an indication of the illness in future.

For their study, the scientists used ultrasound and MRI to examine brain development in 26 babies born to mothers with schizophrenia and found that having a first-degree relative with the disease raised a person's risk of schizophrenia to one in 10.

The findings, the researchers said, could lead to early identification and prevention of the disease, symptoms of which usually begin as a teenager or young adult, and the problems are difficult to treat.

By identifying brain markers in high-risk infants, treatment and interventions can begin at an earlier age, they hoped.

"It allows us to start thinking about how we can identify kids at risk for schizophrenia very early and whether there things that we can do very early on to lessen the risk," said lead author John H. Gilmore, professor of psychiatry and director of the UNC Schizophrenia Research Centre.

The scientists said they plan to track the youngsters as they grow to see if the different brain structures correlate to disease development.

The findings are published online in the American Journal of Psychiatry.