Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental illness that is not easy for mental health professionals to diagnose. Only during an autopsy can physiological evidence be obtained to confirm the disease. Mental health professionals currently rely on a series of psychological evaluations as a way to diagnose patients.

In a joint effort, Dr. Noam Shomron and Prof. Ruth Navon of Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, PhD student Eyal Mor from Dr. Shomron's lab and Prof. Akira Sawa of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md., have found a new method to diagnose schizophrenia. The new method for physical diagnosis involves performing a simple biopsy to collect tissue samples from the nose.

Dr. Shomron said that this new method of collecting tissue samples from the nose and then sequencing neurons shows promise for a "more sure-fire" diagnosis. The new method will also help mental health professionals detect schizophrenia earlier, which will improve treatment.

Prior to this new method of testing for schizophrenia, biomarkers of the disease were only found in the brain's neuron cells, which cannot be collected if the person is alive. Mental health professionals must conduct interviews with the patient, family and friends for a diagnosis through evaluation.

Studying the mircoDNA molecules of olfactory neurons from the nasal cavity, Shomron and his fellow researchers were able to identify the disease.

"We were able to narrow down the microRNA to a differentially expressed set, and from there down to a specific microRNA which is elevated in individuals with the disease compared to healthy individuals," Dr. Noam Shomron said. Findings from the study were published in the journal Neurobiology of Disease.