Schizophrenia Samples

Bay Biosciences provides high quality, clinical grade, bio-specimens and matched cryogenically preserved sera (serum), plasma and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) biofluid samples from patients diagnosed with schizophrenia.

The sera (serum), plasma and PBMC biofluid specimens are processed from schizophrenia patient’s peripheral whole-blood using customized collection and processing protocols. The schizophrenia biofluid samples are collected from unique patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and are provided to a valued pharmaceutical customer for research, diagnostics, discovery and drug development.

Detailed clinical data, patients history, symptoms, complete blood count (CBC), serology, MRI, CT scan, histopathology information, elevated biomarker levels, genetic and metabolic information associated with schizophrenia specimens is provided to a valued customer for research, development and drug discovery.

The schizophrenia sera (serum), plasma and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) biofluids are processed from patients peripheral whole-blood using customized collection and processing protocols.

Schizophrenia Overview

Schizophrenia is a chronic serious mental illness that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves. Patients with schizophrenia may seem like they have lost touch with reality, which causes significant distress for the individual, their family members, and friends. Schizophrenia patients often have problems doing well in society, at work, at school, and in relationships. They might feel frightened and withdrawn, and could appear to have lost touch with reality. This lifelong disease can’t be cured but can be controlled with proper treatment. If left untreated, the symptoms of schizophrenia can be persistent and disabling. Though schizophrenia isn’t as common as other major mental illnesses, it can be the most chronic and disabling.

Contrary to popular belief, schizophrenia is not a split or multiple personality. Schizophrenia involves a psychosis, a type of mental illness in which a patient can’t tell what’s real from what’s imagined. At times, patients with psychotic disorders lose touch with reality. The world may seem like a jumble of confusing thoughts, images, and sounds. Their behavior may be very strange and even shocking. A sudden change in personality and behavior, which happens when people who have it lose touch with reality, is called a psychotic episode.

How severe schizophrenia is varies from person to person. Some people have only one psychotic episode, while others have many episodes during a lifetime but lead relatively normal lives in between. Still others may have more trouble functioning over time, with little improvement between full-blown psychotic episodes. Schizophrenia symptoms seem to worsen and improve in cycles known as relapses and remissions.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe mental disorder affecting 20 million people worldwide. Patients with schizophrenia are 2-3 times more likely to die early than the general population. This is often due to preventable physical diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease and infections.

Signs and Symptoms of Schizophrenia

The period when symptoms first start and before full psychosis is called the prodromal period. It can last days, weeks, or even years. It can be hard to spot because there’s usually no specific trigger. Schizophrenia usually shows its first signs in men in their late teens and early 20s. Schizophrenia mostly affects women in their early 20s and 30s. 

Following are the common signs and symptoms Schizophrenia:

Early symptoms include:

• Social withdrawal
• Trouble concentrating
• isolating 
• changing friends or social groups
• a change in focus and concentration
• Difficulty sleeping
• Irritability and agitation
• Difficulties with school, work, or poor academic performance

Positive Symptoms of Schizophrenia

Positive symptoms of schizophrenia are behaviors that aren’t typical in otherwise normal healthy individuals. In this case, the word positive doesn’t mean good. It refers to added thoughts or actions that aren’t based in reality. They’re sometimes called psychotic symptoms and can include:

• Delusions: Delusions are false beliefs, and are sometimes strange and mixed beliefs that are not based on reality and that the schizophrenia patient refuses to give up, even when shown the facts. For example, a patients with delusions may believe that people can hear their thoughts, that they are God or the devil, or that people are putting thoughts into their head or somehow negatively plotting against them and are trying to harm them.
• Hallucinations: Hallucinations are feelings that are imaginary and are not real. Hearing strange voices are the most common hallucination feelings in patients with schizophrenia. These voices may comment on the person’s behavior, insult them, or give them commands. Less common types of hallucinations include seeing weird things that are not real, smelling strange odors, having a funny taste in the mouth, and feeling sensations on the skin.
• Catatonia: Catatonia is a serious condition, in this condition the patient may stop talking and stop moving, and their body may be fixed in a single position for a very long time.

Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia

Negative symptoms interrupt schizophrenia patient’s typical ability, behavior and  emotions. Negative symptoms doesn’t mean bad. It notes the absence of normal behaviors in patients with schizophrenia. Following are the negative symptoms of schizophrenia:

• Lack of emotion or a limited range of emotions
• Bad hygiene and poor grooming
• Low energy
• Withdrawal from social activities, family and friends
• Less talkative
• No motivation
• Loss of interest in life or pleasurable activities

Disorganized Symptoms of Schizophrenia

Disorganized symptoms of schizophrenia patients show that the patient is unable to think clearly or respond as normally expected. Following are some of the symptoms:

• Forgetting and loosing things
• Slow movements
• Speaking words and sentences that don’t make any sense, difficulty in communications and holding conversation
• Unable to focus, quickly shifting from one thought to another
• Indecisive
• Doing things excessively without any meaning
• Repetitive gestures and movements, doing things over and over again
• Difficulty making sense of everyday feelings, sights and sounds

Cognitive Symptoms of Schizophrenia

Cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia are sometimes subtle and may be difficult to detect, however, the disorder can affect memory and thinking. These signs and symptoms include:

• Understanding information and using it to make decisions (a doctor might call this poor executive functioning)
• Difficulty focusing or paying attention
• Difficulty understanding and learning information and unable to use this information immediately after learning it (this is called working memory)
• Lack of understanding and not aware of having their symptoms

Causes of Schizophrenia

Exact causes of schizophrenia are not known. Just like cancer and diabetes which are very serious diseases, schizophrenia is also a very serious illness with a biological basis. Researchers have suggested that imaging tests completed on people with schizophrenia may show abnormalities in certain brain structures. Researchers also believe that low levels of certain brain chemicals can affect emotions and behavior and may contribute to schizophrenia. Researchers have uncovered some of the following factors that appear to contribute to developing schizophrenia:

• Genetics (heredity): Schizophrenia runs in families, which means that there is a greater chance of schizophrenia to be passed on from parents to their children.
• Brain chemistry and circuits: Patients with schizophrenia may not be able to regulate brain chemicals called neurotransmitters that control certain pathways, or “circuits,” of nerve cells that affect thinking and behavior.
• Brain abnormality: Research has found abnormal brain structure in people with schizophrenia. But this doesn’t apply to all people with schizophrenia. It can affect people without the disease.
• Environment: Things like viral infections, exposure to toxins like marijuana, or highly stressful situations may trigger schizophrenia in people whose genes make them more likely to get the disease. Schizophrenia more often surfaces when the body is having hormonal and physical changes, like those that happen during the teen and young adult years.

Diagnosis of Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia patients would need to see a psychiatrist or a mental health professionals who are trained to diagnose and treat mental illnesses.  to diagnose the disease. There is no single test to diagnose schizophrenia, a complete psychiatric exam, blood tests, brain imaging scans such as MRI or CT scan can help doctors make a diagnosis. These tests are performed to rule out any other physical illness or intoxication (substance-induced psychosis) as the cause of the symptoms.  Psychiatrists and psychologists use specially designed interviews and assessment tools to evaluate a person for a psychotic disorder. The therapist bases their diagnosis on the person’s and family’s report of symptoms and their observation of the person’s attitude and behavior.

A patient is diagnosed with schizophrenia if they have at least two of the following symptoms present for least past six months:

• Hallucinations
• Disorganized speech
• Catatonic symptoms
• Delusions
• Negative symptoms

One of the symptoms has to be

• Delusions
• Hallucinations
• Disorganized speech

During the past six months, the schizophrenia patient must have a month of active symptoms. Symptoms should negatively affect the patients socially or at school or work, and cannot be caused by any other disease.