Schizophrenia is a chronic psychiatric disorder marked by psychotic symptoms (i.e., hallucinations and delusions), behavioral changes (e.g., apathy, social withdrawal) and cognitive dysfunction (e.g., executive impairment) [1]. Affecting roughly 1% of the general population, schizophrenia exerts a significant socioeconomic burden due to its severity.
From an etiopathogenic perspective, schizophrenia can be conceptualized as the clinical outcome of a series of genetic and/or environmental factors impairing brain development. Accordingly, environmental factors influencing the early development of the CNS, such as maternal infection, maternal stress, nutritional deficiency, among others, would play a major role in schizophrenia development as indicated by epidemiological studies [2]. Interestingly, it has been proposed that a common link between maternal infection/stress and the late development of schizophrenia would be a pro-inflammatory immune response [3].
http://www.future-science.com/doi/full/10.4155/fsoa-2017-0009