engleski

Low BDNF concentrations in schizophrenia may be caused by non-linearity of BDNF correlation with age caused by its interaction with sex

Considerable inconsistencies exist between results of the studies on brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) peripheral concentrations and schizophrenia (SCH). The objective of our study was to check whether these inconsistencies may be explained by confounding effects of age and sex. In this cross-sectional study performed during 2017 at Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital Center Sestre milosrdnice, Zagreb, Croatia, we included a sample of 41 patients diagnosed with SCH. The main outcome was BDNF serum concentrations. We have detected a significant cross-over interaction of sex and age on BDNF concentration (p=0.017). In male patients BNDF concentrations significantly increase with age. In female patients the correlation between age and BDNF was not significant. On this particular sample level, it was negative: aging was associated with the decrease of BDNF concentrations in female patients. BDNF concentrations were significantly different between female and male patients under the age of 22 years (total of 7% of patients), and above the age of 65 (total of 10% of patients). BDNF may be a promising schizophrenia biomarker, but different norms should be proposed for the patients of different age and sex.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) ; Schizophrenia ; Biomarker ; Age ; Sex

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