Neuroimmunological aberrations and cerebral asymmetry abnormalities in schizophrenia: select perspectives on pathogenesis

Abstract

Within the wide-ranging gamut of factors that comprise gene-environment interactions postulated to underlie schizophrenia, the crosstalk between environmental factors and feto-maternal immune components has been put forth as one of the important mechanisms that increase the risk towards schizophrenia in the offspring. Interestingly, immune factors have been shown to critically modulate the brain development during the prenatal stages. Moreover the past many decades, influential theoretical propositions and evidence base (albeit not unequivocally) have compellingly linked prenatal sex hormonal status to critically provoke long lasting immunological changes and subsequently affect developmental programming of cerebral asymmetry in schizophrenia. In this review, we summarize the select perspectives emphasizing the role of neuroimmunoendocrine pathways in anomalous cerebral asymmetry in contemporary understanding of schizophrenia pathogenesis.

Keywords: Cerebral asymmetry; Estrogens; Immune abnormalities; Neurodevelopment; Schizophrenia.