Israeli scientists have created a breakthrough treatment for schizophrenia that produced “immediate” improvements to brain function in a trial.
In the study, carried out at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, two monkeys were given hallucinogens and then stimulated with electrical impulses.
The recovery technique, known as Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), seeks to link up “disconnected” part of the brain, a key cause of schizophrenia.
Nir Asch, 44, a lead researcher in medical centre’s psychiatric department working under the guidance of DBS pioneer and 2024 Israel Prize laureate Professor Hagai Bergman, told Times of Israel: “The brain is a prediction machine. It tries to predict what will happen. It builds a model. It asks, ‘What is the situation? What is happening around me?’ Then it receives the evidence from the world through the senses.”
In a person with schizophrenia this process does not work and their brain’s internal model struggles to change even when the world outside changes.
“They are kind of stuck in their own model,” Asch said. “The input is there, but they don’t relate.”
The monkeys were given hallucinogens which caused their behaviour to become chaotic and dissociated – similar to that of a schizophrenia sufferer.
The monkeys were then given the DBS treatment via electrical impulses, and the results, the research team said, immediately eradicated the disconnect, allowing the monkeys to return to normal.
“The cognitive inflexibility was cured,” Asch said. “The monkeys returned to the levels of when they were healthy, and they were also much less chaotic.”
Since the successful study, the team is now looking to take the trial to the next stage – humans.
Asch said: “Because the study was successfully performed on non-human primates, whose brains are remarkably similar to those of humans, we’re already meeting to discuss the best way to move forward.”
As well as working in the lab, Asch works as a doctor. He said: “Seeing the patients and witnessing the burden on their families gives me a lot of motivation to take it to the next step.
“It can be very frustrating as a doctor when we don’t have great treatments. If we can add more tools that are effective and pave the way to recovery, then it would be so wonderful.”
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