Immune system changes linked to schizophrenia: Study

New Delhi:  A team of Singaporean researchers have identified that changes in the immune system are linked to schizophrenia, and potential resistance to treatments.

The reasons behind schizophrenia — a psychotic disorder affecting around 24 million people worldwide and 1 in 116 individuals in Singapore – continue to be unknown.

The study, published in the journal Brain, Behaviour and Immunity, adds to a growing body of research suggesting that immune system dysregulation may be behind the development of the mental disorder.

Moreover, not all patients with schizophrenia respond to standard antipsychotic drugs. Around one in three individuals worldwide diagnosed with schizophrenia are treatment-resistant.

This means they do not achieve remission of symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions, despite treatment.

Using changes in immune cell populations the team from Singapore’s National Healthcare Group (NHG) and Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A*STAR) predicted potential treatment resistance to help initiate the most appropriate treatment sooner.

“Our goal was to identify immune cell changes that could potentially be used to predict treatment resistance, allowing for earlier and more targeted interventions such as initiating clozapine treatment sooner for better clinical outcomes,” said Dr. Li Yanhui, lead author, NHG Psychiatry Resident at NHG. Clozapine is currently the only psychiatric medicine indicated for treating treatment-resistant schizophrenia.

For the study, the team analysed blood samples of 196 healthy participants and individuals with schizophrenia with varying degrees of treatment resistance.

They identified and compared 66 immune cell populations in the blood of 147 people with schizophrenia and 49 healthy individuals to explore the immune cell populations associated with the disorder and treatment resistance.

The results showed significant differences in certain immune cell populations between healthy individuals and people with schizophrenia.

Further, those changes in immune cell populations also correlate with how resistant a patient with schizophrenia might be to treatment.

The findings offer hope for early identification of patients likely to be treatment-resistant. It will also enable clinicians to select more effective treatment strategies to achieve better outcomes.

–IANS