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MDO - Scientists find link between nicotine, schizophrenia - 01/21/1997

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Scientists have located a gene that may increase the risk of inheriting schizophrenia -- a finding that, in an unusual twist, could also explain why many schizophrenics chain smoke.

Essentially, nicotine appears to briefly override a brain defect characteristic of the devastating mental illness, providing frenzied patients a few minutes of calm, researchers reported in today's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

'Schizophrenics are the most heavy smokers of any psychotic patients,' said Dr. Robert Freedman of the Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center. 'They had discovered this (effect) before we had, and it had been overlooked as a clue to the biology of schizophrenia.'

At issue is the inability of many schizophrenics to filter out unnecessary sights, sounds and other stimuli -- that tapping tree branch or the refrigerator hum that healthy people can ignore -- so they essentially suffer information overload.

Freedman and colleagues at the University of Colorado discovered that this trait is inherited. And they linked a gene that appears responsible for that to a brain receptor that helps filter information, a receptor that can be stimulated by nicotine.

That means schizophrenics who smoke get enough nicotine to switch on this receptor for brief relief, Freedman explained. 'All the patients report they feel great after a cigarette,' he said."
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