New study finds antibodies that may be the cause of schizophrenia in some patients

News
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One of twelve people with a first episode of psychosis have an antibody in their blood that may be responsible for their illness. And best of all, this may be curable.

My doctor told me about this new field of science, immuno-psychiatry he called it, were they were seeing that some patients with psychosis (not schizophrenia) had antibodies (newly described in science) in their blood that caused the psychosis and an quick and easy immunotherapy would give them their lives back. I am not sure what these antibodies were called, so if anybody has any information regarding psychosis and antibodies, please post!

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I feel like inflammation might have some connection for me. Whenever i become psychotic my face tends to swell up.

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I read this study too. You can imagine that as someone who doesnt have schizophrenia but has had psychosis numerous times I was very excited. But then I read that it only applies to people who are early on in their illness course. Im 15 years into mine, and I wonder, why didnā€™t they catch this then when I was in the hospital last winter?

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Great news, I think

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It seems that testing for this is commercial available. Hereā€™s from the Wikipedia article on

Diagnosis
Antibody test in serum and CSF
Voltage-gated potassium channel antibodies (VGKCā€Abs)
GluRepsilon2 (NR2B)
Glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD)
Anti-NMDAR Ab[26][38] most common in children unrelated to tumor.

Does anyone have a suggestion as to which labs can do this? I could get my GP to take a battery of tests, but that would require that Iā€™d pay for it myself. Paying is no problem, but I am not sure where to look to find labs. Admin, do you have an idea of where to look?

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I donā€™t know if this is exactly what you are looking for, but I have it bookmarked and I thought Iā€™d share.

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Could it be a link with gluten /wheat?

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That means many other causes for sz

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Anti-bodies not Anti-minds ??

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Hereā€™s from the Wikipedia article on this:

The N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (also known as the NMDA receptor or NMDAR), is a glutamate receptor and ion channel protein found in nerve cells. It is activated when glutamate and glycine (or D-serine) bind to it, and when activated it allows positively charged ions to flow through the cell membrane.

NMDAR is, as stated, found in 8.8 %, which is quite a lot if there turns out to be a causality link. Plasma exchange, to remove the antibodies, is one of the treatment methods. This radio program has some info on it http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07pj2pw

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Any news on this? Did you find somewhere to get tested?

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I havenā€™t got around to get tested yet, but Iā€™ve found this list of laboratories. If you know someone who got sick before the year 2000, and havenā€™t been to a new round of testing after that, you can be sure they havenā€™t tested for this, because itā€™s not that many years since it was discovered.

This is also something a specialist at a public hospital should be able to test for.

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Could it be that patients who get better when taking sarcosine or glycine are more likely to have NMDA-R autoantibodies at the root of their disease?

I am quoting from this site. Emphasis added by me.

ā€œSarcosine (N-methylglycine) is an amino acid made in the body from choline (a type of B vitamin). Sarcosine occurs naturally in the body when choline is changed to glycine (another amino acid). Sarcosine prevents glycine from being taken back into the brain cells from which it was released. This action changes the activity of its receptors by keeping more of the ā€œhelperā€ molecule glycine ready to help stimulate other brain cells via their NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) receptors that can, among other roles, modulate memory.ā€

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This was fascinating. Here they actually found that ten percent of healthy people and people with schizophrenia was positive for NMDAR antibodies, but what sets people apart could be whether their blood brain barrier is intact.

"In 2007, a multifaceted syndrome, associated with anti-NMDA receptor autoantibodies (NMDAR-AB) of immunoglobulin-G isotype, has been described, which variably consists of psychosis, epilepsy, cognitive decline and extrapyramidal symptoms.

Prevalence and significance of NMDAR-AB in complex neuropsychiatric disease versus health, however, have remained unclear. We tested sera of 2817 subjects (1325 healthy, 1081 schizophrenic, 263 Parkinson and 148 affective-disorder subjects) for presence of NMDAR-AB, conducted a genome-wide genetic association study, comparing AB carriers versus non-carriers, and assessed their influenza AB status.

For mechanistic insight and documentation of AB functionality, in vivo experiments involving mice with deficient bloodā€“brain barrier (ApoEāˆ’/āˆ’) and in vitro endocytosis assays in primary cortical neurons were performed. In 10.5% of subjects, NMDAR-AB (NR1 subunit) of any immunoglobulin isotype were detected, with no difference in seroprevalence, titer or in vitro functionality between patients and healthy controls.

Administration of extracted human serum to mice influenced basal and MK-801-induced activity in the open field only in ApoEāˆ’/āˆ’ mice injected with NMDAR-AB-positive serum but not in respective controls. Seropositive schizophrenic patients with a history of neurotrauma or birth complications, indicating an at least temporarily compromised bloodā€“brain barrier, had more neurological abnormalities than seronegative patients with comparable history.

A common genetic variant (rs524991, P=6.15Eāˆ’08) as well as past influenza A (P=0.024) or B (P=0.006) infection were identified as predisposing factors for NMDAR-AB seropositivity. The >10% overall seroprevalence of NMDAR-AB of both healthy individuals and patients is unexpectedly high. Clinical significance, however, apparently depends on association with past or present perturbations of bloodā€“brain barrier function."

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Iā€™ve been tested now, and it came back negative.

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What was the name of the test you had done?

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Interested as well.

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Hereā€™s the test
http://www.ouh.nhs.uk/immunology/diagnostic-tests/tests-catalogue/nmda-antibodies.aspx

If you come out positive, the treatment is intravenous drugs to bring down the inflammation in the brain, and IVIG to neutralize the NMDAR auto-antibodies. Sometimes they use plasmapheresis instead of IVIG, and thatā€™s simply put a machine that filters out the antibodies from the blood.

For those who test positive, the prognosis is good.

Thereā€™s a movie on Netflix about this, called Brain on Fire.

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ah thats ashame man, atleast you know now thats not the problem.

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A friend of mine had scizophrenia-like symptoms like vivid hallucinations and paranoia for years until they discovered she had an auto-immune disease. Once treatment took effect, the symptoms started disappearing instead of increasing.

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