Journal
NEUROIMMUNOMODULATION IN HEALTH AND DISEASE II
Volume 1262, Issue -, Pages 56-66Publisher
BLACKWELL SCIENCE PUBL
DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2012.06638.x
Keywords
schizophrenia; autoimmune disease; infection; inflammation; epidemiology
Categories
Funding
- Stanley Medical Research Institute
- NIMH [R01 MH53188]
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Immunological hypotheses have become increasingly prominent when studying the etiology of schizophrenia. Autoimmune diseases, and especially the number of infections requiring hospitalization, have been identified as significant risk factors for schizophrenia in a dose-response relationship, which seem compatible with an immunological hypothesis for subgroups of patients with schizophrenia. Inflammation and infections may affect the brain through many different pathways that are not necessarily mutually exclusive and can possibly increase the risk of schizophrenia in vulnerable individuals. However, the findings could also be an epiphenomenon and not causal, due to, for instance, common genetic vulnerability, which could be supported by the observations of an increased prevalence of autoimmune diseases and infections in parents of patients with schizophrenia. Nevertheless, autoimmune diseases and infections should be considered in the treatment of individuals with schizophrenia symptoms, and further research is needed of the immune system's possible contributing pathogenic factors in the etiology of schizophrenia.
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