8/8 This project, including data collection, hypotheses, and statistical analyses, was transparently pre-registered on aspredicted.org (#67610, aspredicted.org/285rn.pdf)

7/8 Our findings reinforce microglia's role in schizophrenia pathophysiology, providing insight into regional brain heterogeneity. It also supports the use of blood samples as potential neurobiological biomarkers, reinforcing the idea of schizophrenia as a whole-body disorder

6/8 Additionally, we identified differential expression of microglia genes, also expressed by peripheral macrophages, in the whole blood of individuals with SZ

5/8 Our findings reveal widespread transcriptional downregulation of microglia genes in 4 different brain regions (cerebellum, associative striatum, hippocampus, and parietal cortex)

4/8 Using 9 independent transcriptional datasets from Gene Expression Omnibus database, we examined the expression of genes from a core human microglia signature. We included 8 brain regions and 3 peripheral tissues (cumulating 267 individuals with SZ and 237 healthy controls)

3/8 Moreover, there is a dire need for readily accessible SZ biomarkers. In this regard, peripheral tissues are a promising method to probe the transcriptome in a minimally invasive way and allow for the identification of biomarkers of altered inflammatory processes in SZ

2/8 Emerging evidence involves microglia alterations in schizophrenia (SZ) pathophysiology and previous research reported abnormal expression of microglia genes. However, the regional specificity of these brain transcriptional abnormalities remains unclear

C'est noté pour une prochaine soumission ;)