RESEARCH WEEKLY: Schizophrenia Research More Relevant Now Than Ever
By Elizabeth Hancq
As the country is preparing for a tumultuous fall, with the novel coronavirus continuing to spread throughout the United States, Americans are trying to adapt to countless, oncoming challenges in their lives. Schools from kindergartens to higher education institutions are grappling with how to educate students while maintaining safety for students, teachers and staff, while the full implications of COVID-19 on the economy are still not fully realized.
With everything going on in the world, some might question the relevance of research that does not directly bear upon treating the coronavirus pandemic or improving the economy. However, two letters-to-the-editor published earlier this year provide compelling arguments for the increased need for research into severe mental illness during these difficult times.
Schizophrenia research and COVID-19
Researchers throughout the world are grappling with the relevance of their research, especially as it relates to the perception of wasteful government spending during a national crisis, Henry Cowan, a research psychologist at Northwestern University, writes in a letter published in Schizophrenia Research.
However, research into schizophrenia is even more relevant now than ever before, Cowan argues. This is because of the COVID-19 pandemic, not despite it, due to the relationship between viral infections and psychiatric illnesses. “As schizophrenia researchers, we focus on a debilitating condition which remains largely invisible despite costing the world economy hundreds of billions of dollars per year,” Cowan writes. “We all have a role to play in preventing it from becoming more invisible during this pandemic.”
Coronaviruses can invade nerve cells and have been found in brain tissue postmortem. In addition, various research studies have linked viral infections to psychiatric illness, including those funded by the Stanley Medical Research Institute (SMRI), which supports the Treatment Advocacy Center, and Treatment Advocacy Center Founder Dr. E. Fuller Torrey.
For example, a research study funded by SMRI and published in Schizophrenia Bulletin in 2011, found that patients with recent onset psychotic symptoms were more likely to have an immune system response to four different types of coronaviruses, compared to the control group of individuals without psychotic symptoms. The authors conclude that “coronavirus exposure may be a comorbid risk factor in individuals with serious mental disorders,” and that “more investigation is needed to determine if respiratory infection and subsequent neuroinvasion could explain the association of increased coronavirus seroprevalence and the recent onset of psychotic symptoms.”
COVID-19 and schizophrenia prevalence
Because of the known risk of viral infections in the development of psychotic disorders, even if that risk is low, the large population exposure to COVID-19 may have drastic implications for the prevalence of psychiatric diseases in the future.
Another letter-to-the-editor, published in Psychiatry Research from Dr. Atefeh Zandifar, makes a similar argument on the increased relevance of schizophrenia research due to COVID-19. She argues that although there may be controversy around the causal relationships between viral infection and risk of psychosis, the ability of coronaviruses to infect the brain coupled with the increasing spread of COVID-19 throughout the world strongly supports the need for robust epidemiological analysis of COVID-19 and psychiatric illness.
“Health policy makers, while seeking more epidemiological information and identifying different aspects of the activity of the virus, should pay attention to the different aspects of the psychiatric status of those infected,” according to Dr. Zandifar.
So yes, as we look to the future of our society, research into severe mental illness is still relevant and very important to our understanding of the development and treatments of these disorders and reducing suffering for those inflicted.
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