Recent quotes:

Infections (or Dr-philia?) correlate with mental disturbances

The study showed that children who had been hospitalised with an infection had an 84 per cent increased risk of suffering a mental disorder and a 42 per cent increased risk of being prescribed medicine to treat mental disorders. Furthermore, the risk for a range of specific mental disorders was also higher, including psychotic disorders, OCD, tics, personality disorders, autism and ADHD.

Treatable Immune System Disorder Could Be Mistaken For Schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder - Neuroscience News

The study was inspired by the 2007 discovery of anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, a disease that causes symptoms similar to schizophrenia or bipolar disorder but can be treated with existing immunotherapy medications. “We suspect that a significant number of people believed to have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder actually have an immune system disorder that affects the brain’s receptors,” said Joseph Masdeu, M.D., Ph.D., the study’s principal investigator and a neurologist with the Houston Methodist Neurological Institute. “If true, those people have diseases that are completely reversible – they just need a proper diagnosis and treatment to help them return to normal lives.”

Flu may impact brain health -- ScienceDaily

Although influenza is considered to be a respiratory disease, it has been associated with neurological symptoms in some cases. However, the long-term effects of flu on the brain have not been studied. Martin Korte and colleagues investigated three different flu strains (H1N1, H3N2, H7N7) in mice. Two of these strains, H3N2 and H7N7, caused memory impairments that were associated with structural changes to neurons in the hippocampus. The infections also activated the brain's immune cells in this region for an extended period and altered the expression of genes implicated in disorders including depression, autism and schizophrenia. These findings suggest that some strains of the flu may pose a threat to healthy brain function.

First multiplex test for tick-borne diseases: Promising to revolutionize diagnosis, a single blood test can now accurately detect if someone is infected with Lyme and/or one of seven other tick-borne diseases -- ScienceDaily

The TBD Serochip can simultaneously test for the presence of antibodies in blood to more than 170,000 individual protein fragments. Version 1.0 can identify exposure to eight tick-borne pathogens present in the U.S., including Anaplasma phagocytophilum (agent of human granulocytic anaplasmosis), Babesia microti (babesiosis), Borrelia burgdorferi (Lyme disease), Borrelia miyamotoi, Ehrlichia chaffeensis (human monocytic ehrlichiosis), Rickettsia rickettsii (Rocky Mountain spotted fever), Heartland virus and Powassan virus. The researchers also included Long Island tick rhabdovirus, a novel virus they recently discovered in Amblyomma americanum ticks. As new tick-borne infectious agents are discovered, the TBD-Serochip will be modified to target them -- a process the researchers say can be done in less than four weeks.

Cunningham

Within a few days, P’s agitation lessened and he became happier, more affectionate, and more engaged in his schoolwork. Upon antibiotic discontinuance, his irritability returned, and resumption of treatment helped him regain control. After 6 weeks of treatment, repeat ASO was 791 with an anti-DNAase B titer of 1,090, i.e., basically unchanged. A Cunningham panel to check for evidence of immune dysfunction and antineural antibodies was unremarkable