Cerebellar telomere length and psychiatric disorders.

ABSTRACT: We tested whether telomere length is altered in the brains of patients diagnosed with major depression (MD), bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenia (SZ) by measuring mean telomere length (mTL) with real-time PCR. The samples are cerebellar gray matter from 46 SZ, 46 BP, and 15 MD patients, and 48 healthy controls. We found no difference in mTL between SZ and controls, BD and controls, MD and controls, or all cases and controls; no correlation between mTL and age was observed, either. This suggests that brain gray matter is unlikely to be related to the telomere length shortening reported in blood of psychiatric patients. White matter deserves further investigation as it has been reported to have a different mTL dynamic from gray matter. Since mTL has been reported to be a heritable quanti

SUBMITTER: Zhang D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3053383 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature