460 likes | 606 Vues
E N D
1. Variations in the incidence of schizophrenia: where to next?John McGrath
2. Outline of talk
3. Beliefs about schizophrenia There is little or no variation in the incidence of schizophrenia
WHO 10 nation study
eight sites (seven nations).
Narrow 7 to 14 per 100,000 (Aarhus, Denmark to Nottingham, UK, respectively.
Broad 16 to 42 per 100,000 (Honolulu, Hawaii to the urban Chandigarh, India, respectively).
The results provide strong support for the notion that schizophrenic illnesses occur with comparable frequency in different populations.
4. Beliefs about schizophrenia Men and women are equally affected
7. Methods Electronic data search
Medline
PsychoInfo
Embase
LILAC
1965-2001 inclusive
(schizo* OR psycho*) AND
incidence OR prevalence)
Review article bibliography
Writing to authors
8. Results Electronic search = 834 potential papers
Manual checking = 249 potential papers
Letters from 52 authors, who provided an additional 41 references
Of potentially relevant papers, 74% were identified from electronic sources
98 studies in Languages Other Than English (LOTE) after translation 10 were included in the study.
9. Results 1,458 rates.
Rates based on 176,056 potentially overlapping incident cases
Data from 33 countries
Types of studies
Core studies = 100
Migrant studies = 24
Cohort studies = 23
Other special groups = 14
14. Urban rural differences
15. Other gradients Increased paternal age
Season of birth
Latitude
Urban birth/residence
Prenatal famine
Prenatal infection
Obstetric complications
Cannabis use
16. The epidemiological landscape of schizophrenia is rich and informative
17.
18. A systematic review of mortality in schizophrenia
19. Results 37 studies = 561 SMRs for different causes of death
SMRs based on 22,296 discrete deaths
From 25 countries
20. All-cause SMRs
21. The differential mortality gap is worsening 2-3 fold increased risk
The gap is getting wider!
1970s = 1.8 fold risk
1980s = 2.9 fold risk
1990s = 3.2 fold risk
22. Where to next? What type of epidemiology should we do now?
How can we leverage variation?
How can we differentiate risk indicators versus risk modifiers?
Confounding and the imprecision of epidemiology
23. Can we model incidence, mortality, recovery, and prevalence estimates?
26. The profound heterogeneity of schizophrenia Clinical features
Neurobiological correlates
Course of illness
Heritable susceptibility factors
Exposures that influence susceptibility
28. Sources of variation The prevalence of candidate susceptibility genes vary between groups sorted by distant geographical origin
29. Understanding how evolution builds robust systems Emergent properties of complex systems
30. Building a brain over evolutionary time Important process are buffered by complex regulatory control
Key features of brain development are often frozen accidents
Behavioural phenotypes are emergent properties of complex systems.
31. What happens when recently evolved brain systems fail? The brain has a complex web of back-up systems
When one system falters, other systems will try to take over
If the reserve functions fail, then symptoms break through
System crash versus graceful degradation
Last in first to break
32.
33. What needs to be done now? Use epidemiology and genetics to provide clues to pathways
Establish tight linkages with neuroscience in order to explore candidates
34. The ataxia of schizophrenia epidemiology Circular epidemiology season of birth
Will the interesting new clues be wasted?
Migrant status
Urban birth
35. Why epidemiology needs neuroscience and vice versa The curse of observation epidemiology
In the absence of RCTs, how else can we interrogate clues from epidemiology?
37. Why epidemiology needs neuroscience and vice versa Links to clinical neuroscience
Post-mortem studies
Genetics
Neuroimaging
Animal models
Biological plausibility
Can help rank order candidates
Experimental efficiencies
38. Why neuroscience benefits from epidemiology Epidemiologically-derived clues can help
Uncover previously unsuspected pathways
Focus biological research on pathways related to human diseases
Vitamin A, folate
Different animals can provide different clues
Rodents, flies, bees, zebra fish
39. The vitamin D hypothesis Low prenatal vitamin D impacts adversely on brain development, leaving the affected offspring at increased risk of schizophrenia.
40. Rat experiments
41. Future directions Measuring 25 OH vitamin D3 in neonatal dried blood spots.
Nested case-control study
42. Animal models to examine potential mechanisms linking paternal age and schizophrenia
43. Integrated research programs
44. Linking epidemiology and neuroscience
45. One should not be afraid to try new things, such as moving from one field to another or working at the boundaries of different disciplines, for it is at the borders that some of the most interesting problems reside Eric Kandel
46. Variations in schizophrenia epidemiology are here to stay.
We cant afford to waste these clues
Avoid circular epidemiology
Link psychiatric epidemiology with neuroscience
47. Acknowledgements