Immunopsychiatry – Innovative Technology to Characterize Disease Activity in Autoantibody-Associated Psychiatric Diseases

Abstract

Background Anti-neural autoantibody-associated psychiatric disease is a novel field in immunopsychiatry that has been attracting attention thanks to its potentially positive therapeutic outcome and distinct prognosis compared with non-organic psychiatric disease. This review aims to describe recent novel technological developments for improving diagnostics in the field of autoantibody-related psychiatric disease.MethodsWe screened for relevant articles in PubMed for this narrative article. We focused on research methods such as neuroimaging, immune cells and inflammation markers, and molecular biomarkers in human biofluids like serum and cerebrospinal fluid and plasma proteomics.ResultsWe introduce several novel methods for investigating autoinflammation with the aim of optimizing therapies for autoantibody-associated psychiatric disease. We describe measuring the translocator protein 18kDa in activated microglia via positron emission tomography imaging, brain volumetric assessment, flow cell cytometry of cerebrospinal fluid and blood, and blood biological probes as well as psychopathological cues to help us gain insights into diagnosing inflammation and brain damage better in psychiatric patients presenting a suspected autoimmune etiology.ConclusionOur short methodological review provides an overview of recent developments in the field of autoantibody-related immunopsychiatry. More research is needed to prove their usefulness in diagnosing and treating autoantibody-associated psychiatric disease and its subtypes.

Involvement of inflammatory responses in the brain to the onset of major depressive disorder due to stress exposure

“…Considering the relationship between the neuronal plasticity (or synaptic function) and the pathology of MDD, a thorough understanding of the response to inflammation in the brain is important. Several recent studies have suggested that among many environmental factors, inflammation and immune abnormalities in the brain and peripheral tissues are associated with the onset of neuropsychiatric disorders, and inflammation during brain development has been shown to strongly increase the risk of MDD [Goldsmith et al, 2016;Pape et al, 2019;Abdoli et al, 2020;World Health Organization (WHO), 2020;Hansen, 2022;Wang et al, 2022]. In addition, synaptic pruning is induced by increased reactive microglia in the brain of patients with MDD, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) perform assistant functions in enhancing the therapeutic effects in patients with senile depression (Wohleb et al, 2016;Yuan et al, 2020;Hang et al, 2021;Dawood et al, 2022;Strekalova et al, 2022).…”