Resilience to psychosocial stress and epigenetic aging in schizophrenia: findings from a pilot study

• Published in: Journal of Neural Transmission 2024-11
• Main Authors: Nader, George, Qureshi, Muneefah, Ducharme, Matisse, Fischer, Corinne, Gerretsen, Philip, Graff, Ariel, Blumberger, Daniel, Zomorrodi, Reza, Borlido, Carol, Remington, Gary, De Luca, Vincenzo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0300-9564; 1435-1463; 1435-1463
• DOI: 10.1007/s00702-024-02854-3

Exposure to stress is known to affect biological aging as well as individuals' susceptibility to a wide variety of mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia. There is an established relationship between the onset of schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) and biological aging. On the other hand, epigenetic modifications, such as DNA methylation (DNAm), are used as biomarkers for biological aging and were previously proven to be altered in schizophrenia. However, previous research did not consider the effect of psychosocial resilience to stress and its effect on aging in schizophrenia, which is what our study aims to address. For our pilot study, 65 schizophrenia patients were recruited and stress exposure and perception levels were assessed using the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) and Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), respectively. Moreover, DNA was extracted from venous blood samples and 850,000 CpG loci were assessed for DNA methylation analysis. Average age of participants was 43.15 ± 13.32 years (55.4% male, 44.6% female). Linear regression plots showed significant correlation between SRRS and PSS scores as well as between biological and chronological ages (p