Is schizophrenia an infectious disease?
The role of genetic predisposition in schizophrenia is undoubted but some of the data on family concordance cannot be explained on the basis of genes alone: for instance, the concordance rate is higher in same-sex than in different-sex dizygotic-twin and sibling pairs and in same-sex dizygotic twins than in same-sex sibling pairs. The findings can be understood if disease expression is also a function of physical proximity to an affected individual, as is suggested by the fact that the anomalous findings occur within primary but not secondary family relationships. There is some familial and epidemiological evidence to support the hypothesis of transmission from affected to nonaffected individuals. Schizophrenia could be due to a virus which is transmitted predominantly from schizophrenic patients to genetically-predisposed individuals, perhaps in some cases with a latency of approximately six months.
D004200:Diseases in Twins; D005260:Female; D005796:Genes; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D011247:Pregnancy; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000209:etiology* / Q000235:genetics; D012621:Seasons; D012737:Sex Factors; D012897:Slow Virus Diseases; D014429:Twins, Dizygotic; D014430:Twins, Monozygotic