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Format: audio
Producer: Professor Christos Pantelis
Series: Dean's lecture series 2008
Synopsis:
Schizophrenia and related psychotic illnesses account for over a quarter of the total burden of disease, costing the Australian public over $1.4 billion pa. The illness affects adolescents and young adults, often resulting in recurrent illness and cognitive and social problems throughout life, or contributing to an early death. Professor Christos Pantelis’ team of researchers at the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre have pioneered the use of brain imaging techniques leading to new insights into the understanding of how psychotic illness, including chizophrenia, develops. Working collaboratively with the ORYGEN Research Centre, he and his group have used sophisticated brain MRI techniques to follow young people from a pre-psychotic state through the early stages and progression of psychosis, identifying structural and functional changes in the brain during development of the disease. This work provides hope for improved treatments, with the team now demonstrating that novel interventions, including lithium and ethyl-eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), can protect the brain to ameliorate these changes. While a great deal more work is needed, such novel approaches to treatment may help to delay or even prevent illness.
Understanding the brain changes in schizophrenia: a brain maturational perspective by Professor Christos Pantelis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at the Knowledge Transfer Group.
Context: General page, None, Neurosciences and behavioural sciences, Psychiatry, Department of,