ArticleMolecular psychiatry2012
Absence of evidence for bornavirus infection in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder.
Article in Molecular psychiatry, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 84 citations in OpenAlex.
- Meta-analysis of infectious agents and depression.Scientific reports · 2014Pooled it
- Antiviral treatment perspective against Borna disease virus 1 infection in major depression: a double-blind placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial.BMC pharmacology & toxicology · 2020Trial
- Detectability of Pathogenic RNA Virus Families in Different Body Sites: A Scoping Review.Viruses · 2026Article
- Unravelling the Viral Hypothesis of Schizophrenia: A Comprehensive Review of Mechanisms and Evidence.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Review
- Involvement of virus infections and antiviral agents in schizophrenia.Psychological medicine · 2025Review
- Article
- Magnetic resonance imaging of human variegated squirrel bornavirus 1 (VSBV-1) encephalitis reveals diagnostic pattern indistinguishable from Borna disease virus 1 (BoDV-1) encephalitis but typical for bornaviruses.Emerging microbes & infections · 2023Article
- BoDV-1 Infection in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Pediatric reports · 2023Review
- Article
- Review
- Avian Bornavirus Research-A Comprehensive Review.Viruses · 2022Review
- Alterations in the Plasma Lipidome of Adult Women With Bipolar Disorder: A Mass Spectrometry-Based Lipidomics Research.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- Active Case Finding of Current Bornavirus Infections in Human Encephalitis Cases of Unknown Etiology, Germany, 2018-2020.Emerging infectious diseases · 2021Article
- Avian Bornaviral Ganglioneuritis: Current Debates and Unanswered Questions.Veterinary medicine international · 2020Review
- Review
- Human bornavirus research: Back on track!PLoS pathogens · 2019Article
- Article
- Analysis of exotic squirrel trade and detection of human infections with variegated squirrel bornavirus 1, Germany, 2005 to 2018.Euro surveillance : bulletin Europeen sur les maladies transmissibles = European communicable disease bulletin · 2019Article
- Divergent bornaviruses from Australian carpet pythons with neurological disease date the origin of extant Bornaviridae prior to the end-Cretaceous extinction.PLoS pathogens · 2018Article
- Peptide Sharing Between Viruses and DLX Proteins: A Potential Cross-Reactivity Pathway to Neuropsychiatric Disorders.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2018Article
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Authors and funding
15 authors at 8 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
In 1983, reports of antibodies in subjects with major depressive disorder (MDD) to an as-yet uncharacterized infectious agent associated with meningoencephalitis in horses and sheep led to molecular cloning of the genome of a novel, negative-stranded neurotropic virus, Borna disease virus (BDV). This advance has enabled the development of new diagnostic assays, including in situ hybridization, PCR and serology based on recombinant proteins. Since these assays were first implemented in 1990, more than 80 studies have reported an association between BDV and a wide range of human illnesses that include MDD, bipolar disorder (BD), schizophrenia (SZ), anxiety disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, dementia and glioblastoma multiforme. However, to date there has been no blinded case-control study of the epidemiology of BDV infection. Here, in a United States-based, multi-center, yoked case-control study with standardized methods for clinical assessment and blinded serological and molecular analysis, we report the absence of association of psychiatric illness with antibodies to BDV or with BDV nucleic acids in serially collected serum and white blood cell samples from 396 subjects, a study population comprised of 198 matched pairs of patients and healthy controls (52 SZ/control pairs, 66 BD/control pairs and 80 MDD/control pairs). Our results argue strongly against a role for BDV in the pathogenesis of these psychiatric disorders.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.