In breakthrough, Israeli scientists use deep-brain stimulation to counter schizophrenia |
In a breakthrough study, Israeli scientists say they have developed a novel deep brain stimulation approach for patients with schizophrenia. This therapy for the severe chronic mental disorder could restore functions that control movement, learning and decision-making.
“The study proposes a new therapeutic direction, which may in the future expand the treatment options for patients with schizophrenia who do not respond sufficiently to existing treatments,” said Dr. Nir Asch, a doctor and researcher in the psychiatric department of Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa.
Asch led the peer-reviewed research, which leveraged computational modeling, data analysis and machine learning, and appeared in the scientific journal Nature Communications. The work was conducted under the guidance of 2024 Israel Prize laureate Prof. Hagai Bergman, a neuroscientist from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a pioneer of deep brain stimulation, which is also known by its acronym, DBS, for Parkinson’s disease.
“A problem we have with many psychiatric diseases is that we define them by the symptoms,” Asch, 44, told The Times of Israel. “In our paper, we provide a clear theory about what is happening on a mechanical level in the brain, and also a way to solve it.”
According to Ozma, an Israeli mental health organization, there are about 70,000 people with schizophrenia in Israel — or roughly one in 143 people.
“Why should we care about schizophrenia?” Asch asked out loud and then answered his own question.
“The World Health Organization says that 21 million people around the world have schizophrenia,” he said. “One-third of these are what we call treatment resistant. This is a big burden. So, I think that we should care.”
Schizophrenia’s distressing impact
Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that usually starts when people are in their early 20s and most often becomes a lifelong condition.
Symptoms can include hallucinations, such as hearing and seeing things that are not there, and persistent delusions, in which people insist on something that is not true, or claim that their thoughts and actions are being controlled by outside forces.
Other symptoms include disorganized thinking and speech, bizarre behavior and social withdrawal. It causes........