Anti-Toxoplasma gondii IgM Antibodies in Acute Psychosis

A very brief post today to bring to your attention once again the paper by Joel Monroe and colleagues [1] which concluded that there was: "An increased seroprevalence of T. gondii [Toxoplasma gondii] IgM in patients with acute psychosis". I had touched upon this study in a previous post not-so-long-ago covering T. gondii infection and schizophrenia (see here) which also covered some of the various background research history on this topic.

Looks like his optometrist has a sense of humor.

What's more to say? Well, not much more aside from another choice quote from Monroe et al about how their meta-analysis: "complements and extends previous findings, suggesting that infections may be relevant to the etiopathophysiology of relapse in some patients with schizophrenia" as a function of those IgM antibodies. Indeed, the very interesting connection between infection, immune response to infection and psychiatric symptoms seems to be going further and faster than I'd ever envisaged [2].

Next stop: mechanisms of effect, and how about the paper from Parlog and colleagues [3] for starters, followed by a little more discussion about how we might reduce exposure to the bloody gondii [4]...

Spandau Ballet: Gold.

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[1] Monroe JM. et al. Meta-Analysis of Anti-Toxoplasma gondii IgM Antibodies in Acute Psychosis. Schizophr Bull. 2014 Nov 9. pii: sbu159.

[2] Krause DL. et al. Infectious Agents are Associated with Psychiatric Diseases. Ment Illn. 2012 Jul 11;4(1):e10.

[3] Parlog A. et al. Toxoplasma gondii induced neuronal alterations. Parasite Immunol. 2014 Nov 6. doi: 10.1111/pim.12157.

[4] Opsteegh M. et al. Intervention Strategies to Reduce Human Toxoplasma gondii Disease Burden. Clin Infect Dis. 2014 Sep 15. pii: ciu721.

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Monroe JM, Buckley PF, & Miller BJ (2014). Meta-Analysis of Anti-Toxoplasma gondii IgM Antibodies in Acute Psychosis. Schizophrenia bulletin PMID: 25385789