# Structural aging of human neurons is the opposite of the changes in schizophrenia

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.07024 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.07024/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 13 Nov 2022.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Murine AI excels at cats and cheese: Structural differences between human and mouse neurons and their implementation in generative AIs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.20735/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Human mentality develops with age and is altered in psychiatric disorders, though their underlying mechanism is unknown. In this study, we analyzed nanometer-scale three-dimensional structures of brain tissues of the anterior cingulate cortex from eight schizophrenia and eight control cases. The distribution profiles of neurite curvature of the control cases showed a trend depending on their age, resulting in an age-correlated decrease in the standard deviation of neurite curvature (Pearson's r = -0.80, p = 0.018). In contrast to the control cases, the schizophrenia cases deviate upward from this correlation, exhibiting a 60% higher neurite curvature compared with the controls (p = 7.8 x 10^(-4)). The neurite curvature also showed a correlation with a hallucination score (Pearson's r = 0.80, p = 1.8 x 10^(-4)), indicating that neurite structure is relevant to brain function. We suggest that neurite curvature plays a pivotal role in brain aging and can be used as a hallmark to exploit a novel treatment of schizophrenia. This nano-CT paper is the result of our decade-long analysis and is unprecedented in terms of number of cases.