Schizophrenia has been linked to synaptic dysfunction, redox imbalance, altered neural oscillations, and disturbed sleep, yet these findings are rarely organized within a single mechanistic framework. This work proposes a convergence model in which inherited mitochondrial vulnerability reduces circuit-level bioenergetic reserve across prefrontal excitation–inhibition microcircuits. The framework is formalized using a minimal dimensionless reserve parameter R, defined as the ratio of ATP supply to ATP demand. Gamma synchrony is predicted to degrade nonlinearly near a critical threshold Rc, defining a near-threshold regime of circuit instability. A time-dependent extension R(t) incorporates sleep-state modulation. This manuscript has been submitted to the journal Schizophrenia (Nature Portfolio) and is currently under editorial consideration.
Yakov Mandel (Wed,) studied this question.