4 ms·

I think the article is far more interesting than you make it out to be. There is pretty clear evidence that some subset of schizophrenic diagnosis are due to a

by shkkmo 1y ago

I think the article is far more interesting than you make it out to be. There is pretty clear evidence that some subset of schizophrenic diagnosis are due to autoimmune issues. If we can use antibodies in the spinal fluid to detect when autoimmune treatments can be effective in treating schizophrenia, that alone will be huge. However, the even bigger insight to be drawn from all of this is the potential for other psychological problems that psychiatry has struggled to treat, to also have autoimmune causes. When you try to treat something that has multiple, quite different causes, with a single treatment, it makes sense that it would be hard to find that treatment that works reliably (as is the case for many psychiatric medicines.) I predict we may eventually see immune antibody tests (or some functional successor) become a standard part of all mental health care.

quantumwoke 1y ago
Immune antibody tests are already a standard part of a lot of mental health care, particularly psychosis. My wife tells me depending on the centre it may be mandated for all new diagnoses of psychosis. It is called an "organic screen".
- shkkmo 1y ago
  I'm guessing that "organic screen" doesn't currently usually include antibody testing of CSF from a lumbar puncture since the article implies that only a limited number places do that screening currently. > To find psychiatric patients who might benefit from immunotherapy, researchers have set up centers, roughly similar to the one at Columbia, at Baylor University Medical Center, in Texas; King’s College London; Uppsala University, in Sweden; and the University of Freiburg, in Germany, among other places. Some of the best research into the phenomenon has been conducted in Germany, where it’s more common for patients in a first episode of psychosis to have lumbar punctures to access their spinal fluid, which can reveal the presence of antibodies.
intuitionist 1y ago
For my money Rachel Aviv is the best and most interesting writer currently on the New Yorker staff (give or take a David Grann, who is pretty much just writing books these days it seems). I go out of my way to read whatever has her byline.

by shkkmo 1y ago

quantumwoke 1y ago

Immune antibody tests are already a standard part of a lot of mental health care, particularly psychosis. My wife tells me depending on the centre it may be mandated for all new diagnoses of psychosis. It is called an "organic screen".

shkkmo 1y ago
I'm guessing that "organic screen" doesn't currently usually include antibody testing of CSF from a lumbar puncture since the article implies that only a limited number places do that screening currently. > To find psychiatric patients who might benefit from immunotherapy, researchers have set up centers, roughly similar to the one at Columbia, at Baylor University Medical Center, in Texas; King’s College London; Uppsala University, in Sweden; and the University of Freiburg, in Germany, among other places. Some of the best research into the phenomenon has been conducted in Germany, where it’s more common for patients in a first episode of psychosis to have lumbar punctures to access their spinal fluid, which can reveal the presence of antibodies.

intuitionist 1y ago

For my money Rachel Aviv is the best and most interesting writer currently on the New Yorker staff (give or take a David Grann, who is pretty much just writing books these days it seems). I go out of my way to read whatever has her byline.