Infectious Behavior: Brain-Immune Connections in Autism, Schizophrenia, and Depression (MIT Press)
Paul H. Patterson
Language: English
Pages: 176
ISBN: 0262525348
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In Infectious Behavior, neurobiologist Paul Patterson examines the involvement of the immune system in autism, schizophrenia, and major depressive disorder. Although genetic approaches to these diseases have garnered the lion's share of publicity and funding, scientists are uncovering evidence of the important avenues of communication between the brain and the immune system and their involvement in mental illness. Patterson focuses on this brain-immune crosstalk, exploring the possibility that it may help us understand the causes of these common, but still mysterious, diseases. The heart of this engaging book, accessible to nonscientists, concerns the involvement of the immune systems of the pregnant woman and her fetus, and a consideration of maternal infection as a risk factor for schizophrenia and autism. Patterson reports on research that may shed light on today's autism epidemic. He also outlines the risks and benefits of both maternal and postnatal vaccinations.
In the course of his discussion, Patterson offers a short history of immune manipulation in treating mental illness (recounting some frightening but fascinating early experiments) and explains how the immune system influences behavior and how the brain regulates the immune system, looking in particular at stress and depression. He examines the prenatal origins of adult disease and evidence for immune involvement in autism, schizophrenia, and depression. Finally, he describes the promise shown by recent animal experiments that have led to early clinical trials of postnatal and adult treatments for patients with autism and related disorders.
exhibited the most stress? The variability in the third setting caused those mothers to show signs of stress, which included mother-infant conflict. The infants, in turn, also exhibited signs of stress, becoming more timid and fearful than the infants in the other groups. Also telling is the observation that the offspring in the third group showed signs of depression, including elevated levels of the peptide CRF in the cerebral spinal fluid, as is seen in human depression. As adolescents, the
that maternal urinary tract infection nearly doubles the risk of schizophrenia in people with a family history of psychosis compared to people with a family history but no such infection. Thus, the combination of presumed genetic susceptibility coupled with maternal infection significantly increases risk. How does infection during pregnancy alter fetal brain development such that the offspring are at risk for mental illness? That question is considered in the next chapter. 6 Animal Models
(measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine. The authors further claimed to have detected the presence of measles virus in the gastrointestinal (GI) tracts of autistic children but not in children without autism. The autistic children had GI inflammatory symptoms as well. A third and very important factor was that Wakefield’s press conference coincident with the publication stimulated the British press to take up this issue in a major way. In the United States too, this story and the stories of vocal and
found that massage therapy accelerates brain development in healthy preterm infants, as evaluated by electroencephalography measurements and tests of visual function. Moreover, blood levels of IGF-1 are elevated by massage therapy! Figure 9.3 An example of an enriched environment for a human. (From P. H. Patterson) It does seem likely that the results with EE also have implications for human subjects; however, the typical human environment is not as impoverished as the standard housing
(2010) Behavioral phenotyping assays for mouse models of autism. Nature Rev Neurosci 11:490–502. Smith SEP, Li J, Garbett K, Mirnics K, Patterson PH (2007) Maternal immune activation alters fetal brain development through interleukin-6. J Neurosci 27: 10695–702. 7 Immune Involvement in Autism, Schizophrenia, and Depression Atladótiir HO, Pedersen MG, Thorsen P, Mortensen PB, Deleuran B, Eaton WW, Parner ET (2010) Association of family history of autoimmune diseases and autism spectrum