Autoimmunity has been shown to be the basis of an ever-increasing number of human diseases. Schizophrenia shares a number of genetic features with these autoimmune diseases and therefore could be an autoimmune disease itself. Several lines of evidence suggest that overactivity of dopaminergic pathways in some areas of the brain are involved in schizophrenia, but the apparent absence of an increase in dopamine turnover suggests that this hyperactivity could be mediated by a dopamine agonist rather than by dopamine itself. Schizophrenia is reviewed in the light of precedents from the field of autoimmune diseases in which autoantibodies have been shown to be able to interact with, and sometimes stimulate hormone receptors, thereby causing disease.
For me, I have an autoimmune disease that can become a psychotic disorder. The NIH imaged my brain due to this fact and said my brain has shrunk similar ro Alzheimer’s but I was screened for dementia by Mayo and it’s not Alzheimer’s or frontal lobe dementia. The NIH said that my EHR should say I suffered a psychosis, which I have, but I don’t have Sz, the disease with negative symptoms as well as positive. The psychologist and psychiatrist who evaluated me at the NIH research studies told me this.
I highly recommend going to participate in the NIH research studies, I learned a lot about my health.