1. TOXOPLASMA GONDII AS A POTENTIAL RISK FACTOR FOR
PARANOID, DISORGANIZED AND CATATONIC
SCHIZOPHRENIA
TAYLOR SMITH

2. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
 Connection between gut microbes and the brain
 Possible link between Toxoplasma gondii and the development of schizophrenia
 Hamidinejat et al. and Yolken et al. determined a correlation
 Saraei-Sahnesarael et al. and Conejero-Goldberg et al. did not determine a correlation
 Alvarado-Esquivel et al. determined a significant difference between antibodies in simple schizophrenic
patients vs. paranoid schizophrenics

3. TOXOPLASMA GONDII (T. GONDII)
 Strong affinity for brain tissue
 Causes infection in humans and other warm-
blooded animals
 Consuming undercooked meat, contaminated
water or fruits/vegetables, congenitally
 Detrimental effects on developing fetus
 Changes its behavior to increase transmission
 Infection leads to neurological/psychiatric
symptoms

4. SCHIZOPHRENIA
 Disorder of abnormal brain connectivity leading to increased functional activity
 Affects the way someone thinks, feels and acts
 Hard time telling real from imaginary
 Variety of symptoms depending on classification
 Affective flattening: immobile/unresponsive face
 Alogia: poverty of speech
 Avolition: inability to start/continue participating in organized activities
 Three most common classifications are paranoid, disorganized and catatonic

5. PARANOID, DISORGANIZED AND CATATONIC SCHIZOPHRENIA
 Paranoid: feelings of suspicion, persecution or a combination of emotions associated with paranoia,
great hallucinations (auditory), more stable symptoms over time
 Disorganized: incoherent speech, thought, don’t always have delusions, impaired speech, persistent
symptoms with no stability over time
 Catatonic: negative and withdrawn, decrease in reactivity to everyday things, risk to themselves and
sometimes others, mimicry, high and low emotions

6. THE GAP IN THE KNOWLEDGE
 What we already know: there is a link between T. gondii and schizophrenia
 What’s the gap?
 Is there a link between T. gondii and the different classifications of schizophrenia, as opposed to schizophrenia in
general?

7. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
 500 patients and 500 controls
 Gender noted (Khademvatan et al. 2014)
 250 female and 250 male
 Residence, marital status, level of education and ethnicity not noted (Khademvatan et al. 2014)
 Blindy tested samples
 Conducted in China-approximately 6-12 million people diagnosed
 DSM
 ELISA method
 Fischer’s exact test for finding statistical significance

8. DEMOGRAPHIC PATIENT INFORMATION AND PATIENT DIAGNOSIS
Feature Paranoid Disorganized Catatonic Control Total
T.gondii
Positive 63 55 71 138 327
Negative 113 96 102 362 673
Gender
Male 82 83 85 250 500
Female 85 82 83 250 500
Age
<20 51 53 43 54 201
20-29 54 43 51 49 197
30-39 49 54 49 53 205
40-49 53 51 53 51 208
>50 43 49 54 43 189
Table 1 Patient Demographics

9. RESULTS
Gender Paranoid Disorganized Catatonic Control Significance
Male 27/82 31/83 25/85 66/250 0.3
Female 42/85 44/82 39/83 72/250 0.001
Table 2 Anti-T. gondii Antibodies in Patients with Schizophrenia and Control Group

10. RESULTS CONTINUED
Paranoid Male Paranoid Female
Disorganized
Male
Disorganized
Female Catatonic Male Catatonic Female Significance
IgG-
positive 27/82 42/85 31/83 44/82 25/85 39/83 0.009
Table 3 Latent Toxoplasmosis in Patients with Schizophrenia

11. RESULTS CONTINUED
Age Paranoid Disorganized Catatonic Control Significance
<20 0 0 0 19/54
20-29 27/54 20/43 25/51 14/49 0.001
30-39 16/49 18/54 16/49 19/53 0.7
40-49 18/53 16/51 19/53 16/51 0.7
>50 13/43 14/49 19/54 13/43 0.7
Table 4 Latent Toxoplasmosis According to Age in Patients with Schizophrenia and Control Group

12. POTENTIAL OUTCOMES
 Significance for 20-29 age group
 Significance among women participants (Khademvatan et al. 2014)
 May or may not prove that there is significance found among one classification of schizophrenia

13. BENEFITS OF RESEARCH
 Common infection among humans
 Parasite known to be associated with a variety of neurological issues
 Psychiatrists, psychologists, patients, family, caregivers
 Burden of care (Awad et al. 2008)
 Better treatment/prevention plan

14. INTERDISCIPLINARY ADVANTAGES
 Suicide rates
 Cost to society
 Safety within society

15. DRAWBACKS AND COMPLICATIONS
 Schizophrenia is thought to be linked to a variety of different risk factors
 Very common parasite
 Not ethical to infect patients with T. gondii
 Sample size- limited sample

16. FUTURE DIRECTIONS
 Different genotypes of T. gondii
 Different neurological disorders
 Bipolar disorder (Koenders et al. 2015) and its classifications
 Causal relationship vs. increased risk
 Incubation period of T. gondii
 Exposure to cats
 Complement 3 gene

17. CONCLUSION

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