The UPI (8/22) reports that "women pregnant in a war zone are more likely to give birth to a child who develops schizophrenia," according to a study published in the journal BMC Psychiatry. Researchers from the New York University School of Medicine found that "offspring of women who were in their second month of pregnancy during the height of the Arab-Israeli war in June of 1967...displayed a significantly higher incidence of schizophrenia over the following 21 to 33 years" in a "gender-specific" pattern, "affecting females more than males."

        "The second month of pregnancy seems to be the key period during which disruption of the brain's development can lead to schizophrenia in later life," New Scientist (8/21, Osborne) explained. When the investigators analyzed "medical records of over 88,000 people born in Jerusalem during the '60s and '70s," they found "that women whose mothers were in their second month of pregnancy during the war were 4.3 times more likely to develop schizophrenia later in life, and men 1.2 times more likely, than people born during more peaceful times." Speculating why "females seem more vulnerable," the authors theorized that "more male babies died as a result of the stress, so" they "never made it into the study in the first place."

        According to PsychCentral (8/21, Nauert), the study's lead author, Dolores Malaspina, M.D., M.Sc.P.H., pointed out that "pregnant women in general should not be alarmed about handling daily stressors during pregnancy. 'A developing fetus requires some exposure to maternal stress hormones as it normalizes their stress functioning,'" Dr. Malaspina noted. In its Health Highlights section, HealthDay (8/21) reprised the AFP's (8/20) coverage of the story.

        Researchers link abnormal pain perception in schizophrenia to abnormal excitatory endogenous modulation systems. MedWire (8/21, Davenport) reported that the "diminished pain sensitivity observed in schizophrenia patients appears to be due to abnormal activity in excitatory mechanisms rather than diffuse noxious inhibitory control (DNIC)," according to a study published in the Oct. issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research. For the study, researchers from Canada's University of Sherbrooke examined "23 patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorder, and 29 healthy age-, gender-, and ethnicity-matched controls." The investigators assessed the "patients' cognitive function," then determined "psychomotor speed." In addition, a "temporal summation test was...administered before and after activation of the DNIC" to "measure excitatory and inhibitory systems." By "comparing regression coefficients between time and pain ratings," the investigators found that "time was a positive and significant predictor of pain ratings in controls, but not in patients." The results also revealed "that slower speed processing was linked to lower pain ratings in schizophrenia patients." The authors concluded that their "observations link abnormal pain perception in schizophrenia to abnormal excitatory endogenous modulation systems."