Family With Schizophrenia Shows Link to ‘Mad Cow’ Disease Protein
From Times staff and wire reports
Brazilian researchers have identified a family with a history of schizophrenia that appears to be caused by prions, the deformed proteins that are the cause of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease and “mad cow” disease. Dr. Ricardo R. Brentani and his colleagues at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Sao Paulo report in today’s issue of the journal Nature that most family members with the mental disorder carry a defective gene that is the blueprint for the protein.
The family’s illness was in the form of a schizophrenic disorder in which the patients suffered from delusions, auditory hallucinations and severe depression. They did not, however, have the movement disorders and dementia characteristic of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease.
