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Mitochondrial Abnormalities in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

Mitochondrial DNA structural variation is one proposed indicator of mitochondrial dysfunction. The large common deletion of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) increases with aging across multiple brain regions. We found other large deletions of mtDNA in brain at levels comparable to the common deletion (PMID: 30869147). Since mtDNA molecules replicate independently of nuclear division, the mtDNA copy number is a measure of mitochondrial health; levels are negatively correlated with age and all-cause morbidity. Complex I activity is another functional measure of mitochondria. We previously published a subset of this data from DLPFC (PMID: 29594135) for three indicators (common deletion, mtDNA copy number, Complex I activity). For this study, four indicators (common deletion, large deletions, mtDNA copy number, Complex I activity) were measured in four brain regions from subjects with schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) and compared to controls. The four brain regions were: the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, superior temporal gyrus, primary visual cortex (V1), and nucleus accumbens.