Enhanced cognition in schizophrenics treated with ziprasidone might rely on migration of adult neural stem cells

Disturbed adult neurogenesis (AN) has been suggested to be involved in the etiopathology of psychiatric disorders, especially decreased neural stem cell proliferation in the DG has been demonstrated in post mortem human brain of schizophrenic patients (Reif et al. 2006).Still, to our knowledge no study on AN or ANSC (adult neural stem cell) migration comparing the impact of different antipsychotics has been undertaken so far. Haloperidol together with ziprasidone, a second generation antipsychotic agent (SGA), was selected for this study. It is becoming more and more evident that migration, i.e. stem cell recruitment, represents a stem cell characteristic, which is as important as proliferation or differentiation (Yan et al. 2006), since targeting of appropriate numbers of stem cells to where they are needed in the brain is essential for establishment, maintenance and modification of neural circuitry (Ghashghaei et al. 2007). This phenomenon may be clinically involved in benefits in memory function and cognition in general. In this context, we surveyed stem cell migration by means of blind well or Boyden chambers (Palumbo et al. 2004). Our data suggest that ANSC display a sustained migratory activity in response to ziprasione but not to haloperidol.Taken together our data propose a role of ziprasidone in maintaining migration of ANSC in vitro. This may account for improved cognition in patients treated by ziprasidone compared to patients under haloperidol, which hampered AN.

This study was supported by Pfizer