The association between allostatic load and brain: A systematic review
• Elevated allostatic load (AL) might be related to brain alterations in adulthood.
• In schizophrenia, AL correlates with larger choroid plexus and fornix alterations.
• Reduced hippocampal volume is related to higher AL in schizophrenia and late life.
• AL is related to cortical thinning in overweight/obesity.
Also, due to the specificity of research methodology in the included studies, and the concept of AL itself, it is difficult to differentiate between the consequences of prolonged stress and physical health morbidity.
Thank you for sharing this was really thought provoking as a biological link between trauma and psychosis. Still I confounded a lot with obesity since they track secondary biomarkers linked to physical health. It is interesting also to think that poor physical health can affect your brain.
What I can draw away from this is that it probably a good idea to focus on physical health and reduce the markers of AL in schizophernia
It also caught my eye because an altered function of the choroid plexus, for instance, in mitochondrial disorders, is thought to promote the development of cerebral folate deficiency, by hampering the transport of folate into the brain. And cerebral folate deficiency is suspected to play a part in the development of autism in some kids, although the jury is still out on this and further studies are required. Thus, CFD might make it harder for the brain to function.
Maybe this “larger choroid plexus” might indicate some functional derangement that nugdes the brain to pathology by hampering the transport of molecules into the brain and maybe out of the brain too. Not necessarily of folate (5-MTHF), since there are numerous cargoes that need to be shipped here and there.
As an aside both Omega-3 and inositol are used as adjunctives in bipolar. One of the proposed mechanisms of action being increased membrane fluidity which would more generally help the transport of cargos into and out of brain cells. Inositol doesn’t have evidence in schizophrenia but it could be possible that, at a mechanistically disruptions in dopamine levels are caused by erroneous cell transport. Which is actually quite interesting as an idea 