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Query: UMLS:C0036341 (schizophrenia)
 60,220 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of 84 adolescents admitted to the psychiatric unit of a teaching hospital in Nigeria were studied. Their ages ranged from 12-20 years (mean 17). The pattern of psychiatric disorders in this population reflected the pattern in the adult population. Major psychoses comprising schizophrenia (44%), organic brain syndrome (23%), and affective disorders (16%) predominated. Infections and drug abuse are preventable causes of organic brain syndrome. Male adolescents were as likely to be hospitalized for a major psychiatric disorder as female adolescents. The peak period for psychopathology is late adolescence. The contributions of such factors as rural-urban migration, birth order, family size, polygamy and genetics to the etiology of major mental disorders in this population require further investigations. Understanding the prevalence and pattern of presentation of mental disorders in all age groups is essential for effective mental health planning.
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PMID:Inpatient adolescent psychiatry in a teaching hospital in Nigeria. 261 86

In a retrospective study, 16 of 80 mothers of chronic DSM III-R schizophrenics reported having had a serious infectious disease during pregnancy. Eleven of the infections had occurred during the second trimester. Influenza and the common cold with fever were frequent. Ten of 80 female controls also recalled having had an infectious illness during pregnancy. Compared to the controls, mothers of schizophrenics reported more infectious illness during pregnancy, particularly during the fifth month of gestation (p < 0.05). Mothers of familial and of sporadic DSM III-R schizophrenics reported equal frequencies of infections in pregnancy. In contrast, when Leonhard's classification of psychoses was applied, significant differences appeared. Infections during pregnancy were scarcely found in unsystematic schizophrenics (mainly genetically determined according to Leonhard). In systematic schizophrenics (mainly exogenously determined according to Leonhard), a significantly higher frequency of infectious diseases was reported for the second trimester as compred both to controls (p < 0.01) and to unsystematic schizophrenics (p < 0.001). Infections during the fifth month of gestation were exclusively reported in systematic schizophrenics. Thus, in the systematic forms of schizophrenia infections during the second trimester and particularly during the fifth month of gestation seem to play an important role in the etiology and seem to be of causal importance for the various cytoarchitectural abnormalities detected in the central nervous system of schizophrenics.
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PMID:[Pregnancy infections in mothers of chronic schizophrenic patients. The significance of differential nosology]. 817 58

Causes and pathogenesis of psychiatric disorders is poorly understood. Infections by viruses or other agents may disturb neurotransmitters and elicit behavioral abnormalities, and induce long lasting immune reactions, referred to as mild encephalitis (ME). New findings (pathology, biochemistry, imaging) in schizophrenia and bipolar psychoses are compatible with ME hypothesis. In Chorea Sydenham and PANDAS syndrome autoimmune ME seems to explain anxiety-compulsive-hyperactivity symptoms. Add-on-therapy with Cox-II-blockers or valacyclovir improved acute schizophrenia, CSF filtration some cases of therapy resistant psychoses.
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PMID:[The mild encephalitis-hypothesis--new findings and studies]. 1557 Apr 97

Schizophrenia is perhaps the most enigmatic and tragic psychotic disorder with remarkable mortality and morbidity. Schizophrenia is complex and clinically a heterogeneous disorder. The etiological basis of schizophrenia ranges from autoimmune to neurodevelopmental hypothesis in one hand and involvement of different major gene segment with susceptibility loci on the other. Recently, neurodevelopmental hypothesis gained much impetus over the other domain. To support the neurodevelopmental basis, a number of investigations have shown that maternal infections during pregnancy increases the risk of the offspring developing schizophrenia and other neurodevelopmental disorders. The pathological mechanisms underlying this phenomenon is largely unknown. Many have suggested the involvement of different immune markers and shown that cytokines generated in response to maternal infection alter early brain development through their inflammatory activity. However, these findings have escaped discussion on various important issues related to cytokine homeostasis which depends on a large number of immune parameters including non-classical HLA-G molecules. Infections during early stages of pregnancy may alter cytokine regulation by disturbing the whole uterine immune milieu. To elucidate this issue, authors have tried to correlate the possible relationships between maternal infections and aberration of immune networking at the feto-maternal interface and their subsequent influence on the structural and functional abnormalities of the developing brain. The authors hypothesize that there exists a counter regulatory interaction among proinflammatory cytokines like TNF-alpha, HLA-G molecules and different immune cells like NK cells. We emphasize that HLA-G molecules are the novel immune players which maintain the immune homeostasis during early pregnancy in a manner that it can protect developing fetus from maternal immune attack. However, maternal infections may lead to the disturbance of HLA-G expression which in turn may fail to maintain its otherwise inhibitory potential to down regulate the detrimental inflammatory cytokines. Investigation on such interaction may unravel novel molecular mechanisms of neurodevelopmental basis of schizophrenia. Testing of our proposed hypothesis on animal models and on in vitro derived extravillous trophoblast cell lines holds promise of great insights to usher a new dimension of schizophrenia research and for developing new therapeutic strategies for better treatment and to adopt genetic prediction in schizophrenia management paradigm.
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PMID:The role of HLA-G in cytokine homeostasis during early pregnancy complicated with maternal infections: a novel etiopathological approach to the neurodevelopmental understanding of schizophrenia. 1618 9

Infections of unknown origin and an altered immune response have been hypothesized to play a role in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. We have previously identified two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the IL-10 receptor 1 (IL-10R1) causing a substitution of glycine 330 to arginine (G330R) and of serine 138 to glycine (S138G). A possible association between these IL-10R1 variants and schizophrenia has been investigated in the present study. DNA of 101 unrelated Austrian patients with a DSM-III-R (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) consensus diagnosis of schizophrenia (n = 70) or schizoaffective disorder (n = 31) and DNA of 121 German schizophrenic patients (DSM-III-R) was analyzed for the presence of S138G and G330R by allele-specific multiplex PCRs. Data from patients were compared with 250 unrelated, psychiatric healthy controls. No difference in allele frequency was detected between patients and controls (G330R: 34.0% vs. 30.0%, P = 0.208; S138G: 19.7% vs. 16.6%, P = 0.235; by Fisher's exact test). However, there was a significant difference in genotype distribution (wt/wt, wt/mut, mut/mut) for G330R between patients (46.8%, 38.3%, 14.9%) and controls (47.6%, 44.8%, 7.6%; Fisher's test P = 0.032). No such difference was seen for S138G. Our results suggest that homozygosity of the IL-10R1 G330R allele is associated with schizophrenia and may contribute to the expression of disease phenotype in susceptible individuals.
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PMID:Homozygosity of the interleukin-10 receptor 1 G330R allele is associated with schizophrenia. 1706 77

Previous studies have documented that serologic evidence of infection with the neurotropic human herpesvirus Herpes Simplex Virus type 1 (HSV-1) is associated with increased levels of cognitive dysfunction in individuals with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The catechol-o-methyl transferase (COMT) Val158Met polymorphism has also been associated with cognitive dysfunction in individuals with psychiatric disorders as well as in some control populations. We examined whether these factors are independently associated with cognitive functioning in adults without a history of a psychiatric disorder. A total of 240 individuals were evaluated with the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). We measured IgG antibodies to HSV-1 by enzyme immunoassay and employed real time PCR to measure COMT Val158Met genotypes. Serological evidence of HSV-1 was significantly associated with a lower RBANS total score independent of demographic factors and the COMT Val158Met genotype. The strongest association between cognitive functioning and serological evidence of HSV-1 infection was with the domain of delayed memory. Serological evidence of HSV-1 infection was associated with an 18-fold increased odds of having a severe impairment in this domain. The Val/Val genotype of the COMT Val158Met polymorphism was also significantly associated with the RBANS total score and with a moderate decrease in the domain of attention. Infections with HSV-1 and the COMT Val158Val genotype are risk factors for cognitive deficits in non-elderly persons without a psychiatric disorder.
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PMID:Association between cognitive functioning, exposure to Herpes Simplex Virus type 1, and the COMT Val158Met genetic polymorphism in adults without a psychiatric disorder. 1857 72

Infections and inflammatory conditions during pregnancy can dysregulate neural development and increase the risk for developing autism and schizophrenia. The following research utilized a nonhuman primate model to investigate the potential impact of a mild endotoxemia during pregnancy on brain maturation and behavioral reactivity as well as the infants' hormone and immune physiology. Nine pregnant female rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) were administered nanogram concentrations of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on two consecutive days, 6 weeks before term, and their offspring were compared to nine control animals. When tested under arousing challenge conditions, infants from the LPS pregnancies were more behaviorally disturbed, including a failure to show a normal attenuation of startle responses on tests of prepulse inhibition. Examination of their brains at 1 year of age with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed the unexpected finding of a significant 8.8% increase in global white matter volume distributed across many cortical regions compared to controls. More selective changes in regional gray matter volume and cortical thickness were noted in parietal, medial temporal, and frontal areas. While inhibited neural growth has been described previously after prenatal infection and LPS administration at higher doses in rodents, this low dose endotoxemia in the monkey is the first paradigm to produce a neural phenotype associated with augmented gray and white matter growth.
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PMID:Brain enlargement and increased behavioral and cytokine reactivity in infant monkeys following acute prenatal endotoxemia. 2119 86

Infections have been suggested to play a role in the etiology of schizophrenia, but the evidence for this has been inconsistent. Schizophrenia patients have an increased risk of infections as a result of hospitalizations or life style factors. Therefore a study on early subclinical manifestations of psychosis in relation to virus infections is warranted. We examined whether serum antibodies against human Herpes viruses and Toxoplasma gondii were associated with subclinical symptoms of psychosis in adolescents. Data were collected as part of the TRacking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS) cohort, a large prospective cohort of Dutch adolescents. A total of 1176 participants with an available Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE) and an available blood sample were included in this analysis. Solid-enzyme immunoassay methods were used to measure the presence of immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies in serum to the Herpes virus family and to T. gondii. There was no significant association between serologic evidence of infection with human Herpes viruses or T. gondii and the risk of subclinical positive experience of psychosis. Subjects with a positive serological reaction to Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) had higher scores on the positive dimension of psychosis measured by CAPE (b=0.03, P=0.02). This significant association was observed in males, but not in females. The current study suggests that there is no significant association between serological evidence of infection to human Herpes viruses and positive subclinical experience of psychosis, whereas there was an association between EBV infection and subclinical psychotic symptoms in boys.
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PMID:Antibodies to infectious agents and the positive symptom dimension of subclinical psychosis: The TRAILS study. 2145 36

Maternal immune activation (MIA) is a risk factor for the development of schizophrenia and autism. Infections during pregnancy activate the mother's immune system and alter the fetal environment, with consequential effects on CNS function and behavior in the offspring, but the cellular and molecular links between infection-induced altered fetal development and risk for neuropsychiatric disorders are unknown. We investigated the immunological, molecular, and behavioral effects of MIA in the offspring of pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats given an intraperitoneal (0.25 mg/kg) injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on gestational day 15. LPS significantly elevated pro-inflammatory cytokine levels in maternal serum, amniotic fluid, and fetal brain at 4 h, and levels decreased but remained elevated at 24 h. Offspring born to LPS-treated dams exhibited reduced social preference and exploration behaviors as juveniles and young adults. Whole genome microarray analysis of the fetal brain at 4 h post maternal LPS was performed to elucidate the possible molecular mechanisms by which MIA affects the fetal brain. We observed dysregulation of 3285 genes in restricted functional categories, with increased mRNA expression of cellular stress and cell death genes and reduced expression of developmentally-regulated and brain-specific genes, specifically those that regulate neuronal migration of GABAergic interneurons, including the Distal-less (Dlx) family of transcription factors required for tangential migration from progenitor pools within the ganglionic eminences into the cerebral cortex. Our results provide a novel mechanism by which MIA induces the widespread down-regulation of critical neurodevelopmental genes, including those previously associated with autism.
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PMID:Maternal immune activation by LPS selectively alters specific gene expression profiles of interneuron migration and oxidative stress in the fetus without triggering a fetal immune response. 2231 Sep 21

Infections during pregnancy can adversely affect the development of the fetal brain. This may contribute to disease processes such as schizophrenia in later life. Changes in the (cyto-) architecture of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), particularly in GABA-ergic interneurons, play a role in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. We hypothesized that exposure to infection during pregnancy could result in cyto-architectural changes in the fetal ACC, similar to the pathogenesis seen in schizophrenia. Fetal sheep of 110 days GA (term=150 days GA) received an intravenous injection of 100 ng or 500 ng lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or saline as control. After delivery at 113 days GA, the cyto-architecture of the cingulate cortex (CC) was examined by immunohistochemistry. High dose LPS exposure resulted in a decreased density of GFAP-, calbindin D-28K- and parvalbumin-immunoreactive cells in the CC. In addition, these cells and calretinin-immunoreactive cells showed a changed morphology with reduced cell processes. This study provides further evidence that intra-uterine endotoxemia can induce changes in the fetal brain which correspond with changes seen in schizophrenia.
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PMID:Effects of in utero endotoxemia on the ovine fetal brain: a model for schizophrenia? 2265 83


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