Inflammation, Psychosis, and the Brain

When the solution to a clinical or scientific puzzle eludes us for more than a century, as with schizophrenia, we need new methods to examine the pathology. If we want to make an impact on the disease we must shift research paradigms and focus on the early detection, early intervention, and new avenues of treatment that address different symptoms of schizophrenia. Immunological and blood-brain barrier (BBB) abnormalities in patients with psychosis have been repeatedly noted. Hundreds of studies of schizophrenic illness in adults have documented immunological abnormalities in these patients, and an increasing number of studies have shown a link between S100b, a marker of BBB function, and schizophrenic illness (Table).1-3