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Synaptic Pruning in Schizophrenia: Does Minocycline Modulate Psychosocial Brain Development?
Author(s) -
Jones Michael C.,
Koh Jin Ming,
Cheong Kang Hao
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
bioessays
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.175
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1521-1878
pISSN - 0265-9247
DOI - 10.1002/bies.202000046
Subject(s) - minocycline , synaptic pruning , neuroscience , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , psychosocial , psychology , cognition , disease , psychosis , microglia , medicine , biology , psychiatry , genetics , inflammation , antibiotics , pathology
Abstract Recent studies suggest that the tetracycline antibiotic minocycline, or its cousins, hold therapeutic potential for affective and psychotic disorders. This is proposed on the basis of a direct effect on microglia‐mediated frontocortical synaptic pruning (FSP) during adolescence, perhaps in genetically susceptible individuals harboring risk alleles in the complement component cascade that is involved in this normal process of CNS circuit refinement. In reviewing this field, it is argued that minocycline is actually probing and modulating a deeply evolved and intricate system wherein psychosocial stimuli sculpt the circuitry of the “social brain” underlying adult behavior and personality. Furthermore, this system can generate psychiatric morbidity that is not dependent on genetic variation. This view has important ramifications for understanding “pathologies” of human social behavior and cognition as well as providing long‐sought potential mechanistic links between social experience and susceptibility to mental and physical disease.