Abstract
Unexpectedly high levels of retroviral RNA have been detected in the cerebrospinal fluid of people suffering from schizophrenia, according to a recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Robert Yolken and colleagues (John Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA) also detected the viral RNA in samples taken from post-mortem brains of schizophrenic patients. Control samples from normal individuals contained no trace of the pathogen. The RNA detected was produced by HERV-W, an endogenous retrovirus. The authors speculate that re-activation of these latent components of the human genome might contribute to the pathology of schizophrenia. If this theory is proven, it could lead to new strategies for the treatment of this neurological condition. PoN
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