Toxoplasma gondii Infection by Serological and Molecular Methods in Schizophrenia Patients with and without Suicide Attempts: An Age-Sex-Matched Case-Control Study

Abstract

Introduction: The opinion that latent T. gondii infection is having a broadly asymptomatic projection has now been interrogated, in specific due to the echoed association between the latent infection and an elevated incidence of schizophrenia or even suicide attempts. Notwithstanding conducted studies aimed to understand this feasible link are restricted. Methods: In the present case-control study, we focused to illuminate the relationship between the serological and molecular presence of T. gondii and schizophrenia with or without the suicide attempts by comparing it with healthy individuals. A total of 237 participants (117 in schizophrenia; 120 in healthy control) were included in this study. Results: Overall, latent T. gondii infections were found statistically higher in 63 (53.8%) of the 117 patients with schizophrenia and in 33 (27.5%) of the 120 controls (p < 0.001). In schizophrenia patients, seroprevalence T. gondii was again found to be statistically higher in suicide attempters (59.6%), compared to no history of suicide attempts (48.3%) (p < 0.05). The molecular positivity rate of T. gondii DNA was higher in the schizophrenia group, compared to the healthy control group (p < 0.05), whereas the history of suicide attempts was not statistically associated (p = 0.831) with T. gondii DNA positivity by PCR. Conclusion: This case-control study enlightens additional demonstration to the belief that T. gondii infection would be an underlying component for the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Regardless of the clarity results of this study, this supposition warrants further endorsement.

Epigenetic Manipulation of Psychiatric Behavioral Disorders Induced by Toxoplasma gondii

“…The results showed that schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and addiction were significantly associated with the seropositivity of anti-toxoplasma IgG antibodies. A recent casecontrol study also consistent with the above observations found a higher seroprevalence among schizophrenia patients especially in suicide attempters, against the control groups, and patients with no history of suicide attempts (Akgul et al, 2021) by emotional irritation (Gohardehi et al, 2018;Sutterland et al, 2019). In addition, numerous studies demonstrated T. gondii as a replicated risk factor in human psychiatric disorders such as unknown temporal lobe epileptic seizure (Ngoungou et al, 2015;Uzorka and Arend, 2017;Sadeghi et al, 2019), Alzheimer's disease (Bayani et al, 2019), cognitive impairment in several cognitive domains including short-term verbal memory and processing speed (Gale et al, 2015;de Haan et al, 2021), depression (Kamal et al, 2020), autism (Flegr and Horacek, 2019;Nayeri et al, 2020;Al et al, 2021), suicide and suicidal behavior (Kamal et al, 2020;Soleymani et al, 2020;Postolache et al, 2021), and other neurological disorders (Desmettre, 2020;Nayeri et al, 2021).…”