Antiphospholipid antibodies as biomarkers for schizophrenia

Abstract

Background: Schizophrenia is a neurodegenerative psychiatric disorder causing substantial personal and societal burden, characterized by positive, negative and disorganized symptoms and it is also associated with cognitive impairment. Complex interactions of genetic and environmental factors have been implicated in etiology of schizophrenia. Diagnosis is a challenging problem due to the heterogeneity of this mental disorder and lack of specific effective biomarkers. The antiphospholipid antibodies may have a causal role in the development of some neuropsychiatric conditions such as psychosis, depression and dementia.Aims: To study the relationship between antiphospholipid antibodies and schizophrenia. In addition, the relationship between the level of these antibodies and psychopathological symptoms were evaluated.Patients and Methods: Thirty schizophrenic patients compared with 30 healthy people were included in this study. Psychiatric symptoms severity, global cognitive functions and serum levels of antiphospholipid antibodies were evaluated twice in schizophrenic patients with interval one and half month under treatment and compared to the healthy control results.Results: There were statistically significant differences between case and control groups regarding the studied cognitive domains and antiphospholipid IGM. In the case group, there were a direct correlation between antiphospholipid IGM and positive schizophrenic symptoms, and inverse correlation between cognitive scales and negative symptoms.Conclusion: The increased levels of antiphospholipid IGM antibodies were correlated with positive schizophrenic symptoms while negative symptoms were correlated with cognitive scales among case group. These results may give an important implication for the usefulness of antiphospholipid antibodies screening in treating schizophrenia in the future.