Breaking Barriers: Spatial Biology to Decode the Blood-Brain Barrier in Schizophrenia

Project summary

Glucose metabolism disturbances cause an energy deficit in the brains of schizophrenic patients. Combined with neuro-inflammation, this is thought to beget schizophrenia’s core symptoms. In a new hypothesis, the blood-brain-barrier (BBB) could underlie these findings as the gatekeeper of the brain. Prior neuropathological schizophrenia studies used ‘brain-in-a-blender’ gene-expression techniques, losing crucial metadata regarding cell type, location and interaction. We aim to uncover the role of the BBB in schizophrenia using a revolutionary spatial-biology technique enabling whole-transcriptome-analysis of the BBB while retaining these indispensable metadata. If successful, this will open a promising research avenue, including the possibility of therapeutic BBB restoration.