Elsevier

Medical Hypotheses

Volume 12, Issue 1, September 1983, Pages 85-93
Medical Hypotheses

Is schizophrenia an immunologic receptor disorder?

https://doi.org/10.1016/0306-9877(83)90037-3Get rights and content

Abstract

A model is proposed for an autoimmune etiology for schizophrenia. We propose that schizophrenia is a syndrome (not a disease). We suggest that autoantibodies (and/or cell-mediated immunity) directed against autologous neurotransmitter receptors are responsible for the ebb and flow of psychotic symptomatology. The hypothesis is predicated on autoimmune models in other known receptor diseases as well as on the newly emerging recognition that general immune dysfunction exists in certain schizophreniform psychoses.

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    Publication no. 555 from the Department of Basic and Clinical Immunology and Microbiology, Medical University of South Carolina. The research was supported in part by U.S. Public Health Service Grant CA-25746 and the Immunohematology Research Foundation.

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