(Nov. 29, 2016) It’s been 50 years since the link between cats and the parasite Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii or Toxo, for short) was established. With that came the warning for pregnant women to avoid cats’ litter boxes because of potentially devastating neurological damage to the fetus if the mother became infected with toxoplasmosis.
The further theory that Toxo could be a cause schizophrenia emerged in the 1990s. Only in recent years, has it received mainstream scientific attention and begun to reach the public in articles like The Atlantic’s “How your cat is making you crazy.”
Where SMRI Fits In
At the forefront of the shift is the Stanley Medical Research Institute (SMRI), long the largest funder of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder research outside the US government. The first SMRI-funded study suggesting a link between Toxo and psychiatric disease was published in 1995; others have followed. Since its inception in 1989, the nonprofit has provided more than $550 million for serious mental illness (SMI) research in more than 30 countries.
This week, researchers conducting treatment trials under SMRI grants gather in Baltimore to share their progress on discovering unconventional approaches to the causes and treatments of the two most disabling psychiatric diseases. Our Office of Research and Public Affairs will be at the meeting, live tweeting reports of general interest during the conference and reporting on them in Research Weekly through December.
E. Fuller Torrey, MD, who founded and directed SMRI for most of its history and continues to serve as its senior research associate, is largely responsible for the institute’s focus on “outside-the-box” approaches to understanding and treating SMI. With the pharmaceutical industry shrinking its research and development of new medications, Torrey says such approaches are increasingly critical to progress in improving the lives of the millions of individuals with the most serious psychiatric diseases.
With this as its mission, SMRI funds treatment trials of biological interventions that may improve psychiatric symptoms of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder and provides a list of repurposed drugs approved for other medical conditions that may have therapeutic benefits for patients who have not responded to traditional psychiatric medication.
SMRI-Funded Findings
Investigations and findings supported by SMRI include the following:
- A 2015 Johns Hopkins University report on the “overwhelming” evidence for a link between exposure to cats and the risk of being diagnosed with schizophrenia later in life
- Original and replication studies of the preventative effects of omega-3 fish oil in reducing the risk of early psychotic symptoms progressing to schizophrenia
- More than 25 current treatment trials testing anti-infective or anti-inflammatory agents in the treatment of schizophrenia. An example is Valacyclovir, an antiviral widely used against herpes family viruses.
SMRI additionally operates a “brain bank” that provides post-mortem tissue samples from individuals with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression and unaffected controls to researchers worldwide at no cost to the scientists. The tissue repository also makes thousands of data sets from multiple brain regions publicly available for data mining; more than 350 peer-reviewed papers have been published from the data.
SMRI is a supporting organization of the Treatment Advocacy Center, whose mission includes supporting the development of innovative treatments for and research into the causes of severe and persistent psychiatric illness. SMRI directly funded the research for and our publication of Clozapine for treating schizophrenia: A comparison of the states, released by the Office of Research and Public Affairs in November 2015.
The Treatment Advocacy Center, which accepts no funding from pharmaceutical companies, also was founded by Dr. Torrey,
To follow proceedings at the SMRI meeting in Baltimore and receive other research news and summaries from our Office of Research and Public Affairs, follow us @TACResearch.
Doris A. Fuller
Chief of Research and Public Affairs
References:
- McAuliffe, K. (March 2012). How your cat is making you crazy. The Atlantic.
- Torrey, E.F. et al. (June 2015). Is childhood cat ownership a risk factor for schizophrenia later in life? Schizophrenia Research.
- Amminger, G.P. et al. (26 November 2014). Longer-term outcome in the prevention of psychotic disorders by the Vienna omega-3 study. Nature Communications.
- Research Weekly. The growing focus on inflammation in psychiatric research. Treatment Advocacy Center.
- Torrey, E.F. et al. (November 2015). Clozapine for treating schizophrenia: A comparison of the states. Treatment Advocacy Center.
Next Week: Progress Update on SMRI-funded Treatment Trials
Research Weekly is a summary published as a public service of the Treatment Advocacy Center and does not necessarily reflect the findings or positions of the organization or its staff. Full access to research summarized may require a fee or paid subscription to the publications.
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