Douglas researchers identify first gene involved in adolescent brain development that may play a role in mental health vulnerability. It is known that during this teenaged phase of brain development, adolescents are particularly vulnerable to psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, depression and drug addiction. Researchers at the Douglas Institute Research Centre, affiliated with McGill University, have isolated a gene, DCC, which is responsible for dopamine connectivity in the medial prefrontal cortex during adolescence. Working with mice models, they have shown that dysfunction of this gene during adolescence has behavioral consequences which carry into adulthood. The breakthrough provides the first clues towards a fuller understanding of this important phase of brain development. Even subtle variations in DCC during adolescence produce significant alterations in prefrontal cortex function later on. To determine whether the findings of such basic research can translate to human subjects, researchers examined DCC expression in postmortem brains of people who had committed suicide. Remarkably, these brains showed higher levels of DCC expression – some 48 per cent higher when compared to control subjects
