Molecular biology in psychiatric research: Alzheimer’s disease as a paradigm.

Abstract

As illustration of the integration of molecular biological studies into psychiatric research, use of molecular techniques in the study of Alzheimer's disease is described, and the resultant observation of otherwise undetectable pathological changes is noted. Using postmortem Alzheimer brain messenger RNA, recombinant DNA studies led to the ability to clone and characterize the expressed genetic transcript for amyloid. Application of this methodology is discussed in terms of establishing cellular and animal models for a neuropsychiatric disease.