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Aberrant immune function has been linked to schizophrenia risk in adults. To examine whether neonatal immune factors might also be associated with increased schizophrenia risk, investigators used data from a Swedish registry-based birth cohort to examine nine acute phase proteins (APPs) in archived neonatal blood spots. Because APPs do not cross the placenta, they are a measure of neonatal — and not maternal transplacental — immune factors.
The study, conducted 9 to 28 years after birth, involved 196 of 656 eligible people with nonaffective psychosis and 502 of 1467 eligible matched controls who consented and had analyzable dried blood samples. Analyses controlled for multiple variables associated with poor neurodevelopmental outcomes (e.g.,…