nd the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Under a separate five-year, $650,000 grant from the Stanley Medical Research Institute, Hemby and colleagues will compare the effect of six-month administration of two antipsychotic drugs used commonly in the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder – clozapine (Clozaril) and haloperidol (Haldol) – in monkeys. B The purpose of the monkey studies will be to: 1. Better understand the effects of the two drugs on gene and protein expression in the monkey brain. The plan includes assessing changes in brain structure using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) after 5? months of treatment.
2. Compare the monkey data with human post-mortem tissue taken from people who were diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar illness in which antipsychotic dugs were used as treatment.

Hemby said the goal of these studies is to differentiate changes in the brain due to schizophrenia or bipolar disorder from those changes caused by the administration of antipsychotic medication. Since nearly all humans with schizophrenia have been treated with antipsychotic drugs, changes observed in the human post-mortem brain could be due to either the disease, the treatment, or both.

"The scientific approach of comparing human post-mortem tissue from individuals suffering from schizophrenia and bipolar illness with tissue from monkeys treated with antipsychotic medications will provide a unique opportunity to delineate disease from drug effects – allowing a clearer understanding of disease-related changes."

To complete the picture of the neurobiological basis of schizophrenia, the scientists need to pin down the molecular evidence specific to the illness. In the analysis, they will be using genomic and proteomic techniques that were not available even a few years ago.

"The precision of these techniques will provide new information on how the complex neural circuitry of these regions and cel
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