Pegging Pathology on Mitochondrial Dysfunction
Studies strengthen suspicions about brain-disorder pathophysiology
By A. Nicola Schweitzer

The mitochondrion, powerhouse of the eukaryotic cell, sits at the center of
converging lines of brain-disorder research. Researchers have implicated the
organelle in the pathophysiology of distinct conditions such as
schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The motif of convergence extends to
results obtained by disparate approaches ranging from molecular and
biochemical to clinical, and from empirical to hypothetical. In the brain,
energy produced through oxidative phosphorylation in the mitochondrion not
only sustains the excitability of the neurons, but also controls
intracellular calcium concentration that in turn regulates synaptic
transmission, signal transduction, and cellular resilience.

Indications of metabolic-enzyme abnormalities in subjects with brain
disorders date back at least to the 1960s for schizophrenia, says Frank
Middleton, at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University,
who has contributed to this literature. In 2000, Tadafumi Kato, currently at
the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Tokyo, proposed that mitochondrial
dysregulation and consequent effects on energy metabolism and calcium uptake
could comprehensively account for the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder.1
But progress in the field has been limited by technological constraints.

Read the rest at TheScientist.com
http://www.the-scientist.com/yr2004/may/research2_040524.html

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