SCHIZOPHRENIA AND AUTOIMMUNITY - A POSSIBLE ETIOLOGIC MECHANISM

Schizophrenia is a chronic disease which begins during early adulthood and persists throughout life. It may appear in two main clinical patt erns: chronic progressive and relapsing-remitting. The diagnosis is ba sed entirely on clinical data, as no auxiliary laboratory tests are av ailable. Schizophrenia has a heterogeneous clinical expression which m ay reflect different etiological factors, such as genetic susceptibili ty, dysfunction of different neurotransmitter systems or environmental , stressogenic and interfamilial influences. Recently, an autoimmune h ypothesis has gained-acceptance, which proposes that schizophrenia is one of a spectrum of neuropsychiatric diseases in which an autoimmune attack on the brain occurs. It is also possible, however, that the imm unological changes seen in schizophrenic patients are secondary to the disease itself. The main evidence supporting an autoimmune hypothesis is the presence of immunological alterations in schizophrenia that al so occur in other autoimmune diseases, e.g. an elevation in serum immu noglobulin levels, a decrease in mitogen responses, morphologically ab normal lymphocytes, an increase in antibrain antibodies, an increase i n antibodies to nuclear factor, and a decrease in CD4+ T cells. An aut oimmune etiology, if proven correct in the pathogenesis of schizophren ia, would have potential implications for the direction of future psyc hopharmacological therapies.