Institution: | aMenninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, VA Medical Center, Building 109, Room 130, 2002 Holcombe Boulevard, Houston, TX 77030, USA bInstitute of Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing 100083, PR China cCenter for Biological Psychiatry, Beijing Hui-Long-Guan Hospital, Beijing 100096, PR China dNational Laboratory of Medical Molecular Biology, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) and Peking Union Medical College (PUMC), Beijing 100005, China |
Abstract: | Several lines of evidence suggest that central brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) modulates food intake, metabolism, and increases in body weight. Reports have also shown that serum BDNF is altered in schizophrenic patients treated with antipsychotics. This study aimed to determine if there was a relationship between BDNF and antipsychotic-induced weight gain in patients with chronic schizophrenia. Serum BDNF was measured in 124 schizophrenia patients chronically treated with clozapine (n = 57), risperidone (n = 23) or typical antipsychotics (n = 44) and 50 healthy control subjects. To further assess group differences in serum BDNF, additional analyses were performed in a subset of patients and controls individually matched for body mass index (BMI). BDNF levels were lower in patients with schizophrenia than normal controls. However, this difference was not present when controlling for current BMI. In the individually BMI-matched sample, no differences in serum BDNF levels were observed in schizophrenic patients compared to BMI-matched healthy controls. BDNF levels negatively correlated with BMI gain in female but not in male patients when gender was considered. Antipsychotic class exerted differential effects over BDNF levels and BMI gain. Our findings suggest that decreased BDNF levels may be associated with weight gain in female schizophrenic patients on long-term antipsychotic treatment. |