Abstract
With increasing pressure to understand both acute and chronic diseases, renewed recognition of infectious causation is occurring. Epidemiological and neuropathological studies indicate that some cases of the neuropsychiatric disorder schizophrenia are associated with environmental factors, such as exposure to the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii. Reasons for this include, but are not exclusive to, T. gondii's ability to establish persistent infection within the central nervous system, to manipulate or alter host behavior, the occurrence of neurological and psychiatric symptoms in some infected individuals, and an association between infection with increased incidence of schizophrenia. Moreover, several of the medications used to treat schizophrenia have been demonstrated in vitro and in vivo to possess anti-T. gondii properties. We focus here on the potential role of T. gondii as an etiological agent and a model for some cases of schizophrenia and question what infection studies may elucidate in terms of the epidemiology, evolution, and clinical applications of these diseases.
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