SynthesisTranslational psychiatry2017
Immune involvement in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia: a meta-analysis on postmortem brain studies.
Synthesis in Translational psychiatry, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 192 papers, 8 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
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.
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Who cites it
192 citing papers in PubMed, 8 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Multimodal microglial and kynurenine pathway alterations across the affective-psychosis spectrum: a systematic review of patterns, heterogeneity, and dimensional implications.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Chemokine Dysregulation and Neuroinflammation in Schizophrenia: A Systematic Review.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Pooled it
- Immune System Abnormalities in Schizophrenia: An Integrative View and Translational Perspectives.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Peripheral Blood-Based Gene Expression Studies in Schizophrenia: A Systematic Review.Frontiers in genetics · 2021Pooled it
- Neuroinflammation in schizophrenia: meta-analysis ofPsychological medicine · 2019Pooled it
- Oxidative Stress and Inflammation in First-Episode Psychosis: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2019Pooled it
- Positron Emission Tomography Studies of the Glial Cell Marker Translocator Protein in Patients With Psychosis: A Meta-analysis Using Individual Participant Data.Biological psychiatry · 2018Pooled it
- Simvastatin Augmentation for Patients With Early-Phase Schizophrenia-Spectrum Disorders: A Double-Blind, Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2021Trial
- A 16-week randomized placebo-controlled trial investigating the effects of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid treatment on white matter microstructure in recent-onset psychosis patients concurrently treated with risperidone.Psychiatry research. Neuroimaging · 2021Trial
- Genetically Proxied Associations Among 473 Gut Microbial Taxa, 1,400 Circulating Metabolites, and Mental and Behavioral Disorders: A Mendelian Randomization Study.Journal of molecular neuroscience : MN · 2026Article
- Functional genomic profiling of schizophrenia-associated genes reveals key microglial regulators.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- From peripheral blood neutrophils and monocytes to microglia in the brain: Converging evidence for innate immune activation in schizophrenia and major depression.Dusunen adam : Bakirkoy Ruh ve Sinir Hastaliklari Hastanesi yayin organi · 2026Article
- Neuroinflammation: an unfortunate term to describe schizophrenia.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- High prevalence of CNS-directed autoantibodies in patients with schizophrenia.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- From neuroinflammation to neural inference: computational psychiatry meets precision medicine.Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2026Review
- Aging in Schizophrenia: Perspectives on Molecular Mechanisms and a Mini-review.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2026Review
- Control of retrotransposon-driven activation of the interferon response by the double-stranded RNA binding protein DGCR8.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Markers of neuroinflammation in the CSF of patients with difficult to treat psychiatric disease.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Elucidating the Complex Etiology of Schizophrenia: Comprehensive Insights into the Therapeutic Roles of Natural Compounds and Pharmacological Interventions.Current pharmaceutical design · 2026Review
132 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Although the precise pathogenesis of schizophrenia is unknown, genetic, biomarker and imaging studies suggest involvement of the immune system. In this study, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies investigating factors related to the immune system in postmortem brains of schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. Forty-one studies were included, reporting on 783 patients and 762 controls. We divided these studies into those investigating histological alterations of cellular composition and those assessing molecular parameters; meta-analyses were performed on both categories. Our pooled estimate on cellular level showed a significant increase in the density of microglia (P=0.0028) in the brains of schizophrenia patients compared with controls, albeit with substantial heterogeneity between studies. Meta-regression on brain regions demonstrated this increase was most consistently observed in the temporal cortex. Densities of macroglia (astrocytes and oligodendrocytes) did not differ significantly between schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. The results of postmortem histology are paralleled on the molecular level, where we observed an overall increase in expression of proinflammatory genes on transcript and protein level (P=0.0052) in patients, while anti-inflammatory gene expression levels were not different between schizophrenia and controls. The results of this meta-analysis strengthen the hypothesis that components of the immune system are involved in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia.
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