Could schizophrenia be a treatable physical illness? That was the intriguing possibility raised by a study published in December, which tested 228 patients admitted to hospital from psychotic disorders, and found evidence that almost one in ten (9%) had an autoimmune disorder that may have caused antibodies in their blood to attack their brains. The researchers theorise that the antibodies
stick to cell receptors in the brain, causing the hallucinations, delusions and paranoia that go hand in hand with psychosis. This raises the hope that it might be possible in some cases to “cure” psychotic disorders with drugs that suppress the immune system. However, the findings were by no means conclusive: notably, researchers also found that 4% of healthy volunteers in a control group had the same antibodies; and their study did not establish that it was the immune disorder that caused the
psychosis. Even so, the team, from the University of Oxford, recommend that patients who present with symptoms of psychosis be tested for the antibodies, as part of their overall diagnosis.
