Can Influenza “Cause” Schizophrenia?
Although Menninger considered many avenues by which the Spanish Influenza of 1918 could lead to the development of dementia praecox, neither he nor any of his contemporary investigators raised the possibility that the influence of influenza on the etiology of schizophrenia could occur in utero. Although this idea has been debated in the scientific literature, many studies have documented that schizophrenia occurs more frequently in children born in winter and early spring when viral infections are more prevalent.12
Among 25 investigations of the incidence of schizophrenia in the offspring of women who were thought to have contracted influenza during pregnancy, approximately 50% reported positive associations.13 Reliably documenting maternal influenza exposure in these studies has been challenging because viral exposure has been generally based on participants' self-reports of infection or on occurrences of influenza epidemics contemporaneous with their pregnancies. To counter this problem, Brown et al assayed for influenza antibodies in sera drawn from pregnant women whose children later developed schizophrenia, and compared these samples with ones from a matched control group of women whose children did not develop schizophrenia.14
> The study population was derived from 170 cases judged to have schizophrenia or “schizophrenia spectrum disease” from a cohort of 12 094 live births enrolled in the California Child Health and Development Study.15 The results of the study by Brown et al14 revealed a dramatic 7-fold increase in the risk of schizophrenia among the offspring of women who were exposed to influenza during their first trimester of pregnancy. Further analysis suggested a 3-fold increase of risk in women who were exposed to influenza from the midpoints of their first and second trimesters.14
The finding that exposure to influenza during pregnancy may be an etiologic factor for schizophrenia may lead to new understanding of the pathogenesis, treatment, and prevention of this devastating condition.
> For example, vaccinating women of childbearing age against influenza might help prevent some forms of schizophrenia. In carrying to fruition this remarkable line of research, the 90 years of progress in improving psychiatric diagnosis and classification since the original Menninger study2 have been as important as the advances in modern laboratory techniques used to assay the influenza antigens in the sera of the cohorts. It certainly seems reasonable to speculate that Kraepelin, Bleuler, and Karl Menninger would be excited by this progress and pleased with their seminal roles in the evolution of the diagnosis and classification of psychiatric disorders...
Continued with footnotes on interesting studies, and a reference to COVID-19:
Full Article, https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/183226
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- NCBI, Front Psychiatry. 2020; 11: 72. Published online 2020 Feb 26. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00072
Schizophrenia and Influenza at the Centenary of the 1918-1919 Spanish Influenza Pandemic: Mechanisms of Psychosis Risk
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7054463/#:~:text=Converging%20evidence%20demonstrates%20that%20infection,or%20acute%20psychoses%20in%20adulthood.
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