Emerging Therapeutic Targets in Schizophrenia

September 8 - 16

Coordinator: Carol A. Tamminga

University of Texas Medical Center, Dallas, USA

Faculties:

Michael G. Kaplitt, Cornell University, New York, USA

Robert Schwarcz, University of Maryland, Baltimore, USA

Christoph U. Correll, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, USA

Alice Medalia, Columbia University, New York, USA

Bruce Cuthbert, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, USA

James van Os, Maastricht University, NL

P. Jeffrey Conn, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, USA

Philip D. Harvey, University of Miami, USA

Schizophrenia is a chronic psychotic illness that has resisted mechanistic understanding and targeted treatment development until now. Current treatments, while effective for psychosis in schizophrenia, are limited to this symptom domain; moreover, they often provide only partial relief and carry a high side effect burden. Frequently current dimensional formulations of schizophrenia pursue the concept that the diagnosis of schizophrenia is syndromal and that the syndrome includes multiple distinct disease entities which have psychosis as a common phenotype. This, among other, emerging approaches to disease understanding will be explored in order to promote a cellular and molecular understanding of schizophrenia, as well as of the other serious mental illnesses, to focus disease definition and target drug discovery. This course will focus on defining what are the best cutting edge, mechanistic formulations for the neural pathophysiology of schizophrenia (the schizophrenias), which cerebral systems are involved in symptom manifestations and what is known of the primary gene and environmental risk factors, by domain, all in order to define emerging therapeutic targets. There will be discussion of novel and evolving treatment targets for psychosis, cognitive dysfunction and negative symptoms. Current novel and evolving treatments will be discussed as well as novel treatment targets and drug development directions. Cognitive remediation and approaches for social restoration will be included. Biomarkers of schizophrenia, analyzing treatment response and minimizing side effects will be covered. Finally, future oriented treatments for brain diseases will be discussed as applied to psychosis and cognition, including entirely novel approaches like the use of iPS cells, iNS cells and viral treatments as well as neuro-stimulation.