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In today’s online edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), science writer M.J. Friedrich interviews several leading researchers studying inflammation’s role in the development of brain disorders and psychiatric illnesses.
“Psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders are being thought of more and more as systemic illnesses in which inflammation is involved,” says psychiatrist and autism researcher Eric Hollander, of New York City’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine. What causes inflammation in these conditions isn’t always clear, he adds, but has become a hot topic of investigation.
In the JAMA article, Dr. Hollander is among several investigators who discuss how immune-inflammatory mechanisms can go awry and contribute to the development of autism, depression and schizophrenia – and how insights are leading to new experimental approaches for treating these disorders. Read the full story here