Narvaez Samantha, Ma Yizhou, Chiappelli Joshua, Sampath Hemalatha, Warner Alia, Kochunov Peter, Scaini Giselli, Pillai Anilkumar, Elliot Hong L
Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Tx, USA.
Brain Behav Immun Health. 2025 Jul 4;48:101055. doi: 10.1016/j.bbih.2025.101055. eCollection 2025 Oct.
Patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) have higher risks for early and adult life traumatic events and suffer from a heightened body response to stress and increased inflammatory activities. We hypothesize that in SSD, the effect of stress is associated with prolonged activation of the inflammatory system and causes elevation in immune markers. We examined the effects of childhood trauma and adult stressful life events on a C-reactive protein (CRP) and their combined contribution to cortical thickness thinning in 49 SSD patients and 26 healthy controls. Participants with SSD reported higher levels of childhood trauma (p = 0.015) and lifetime stressful experiences as measured by a Major Life Event scale (p = 0.00005). Participants with SSD had significantly lower cortical thickness in multiple brain regions but showed no significant elevation in the CRP levels. Only childhood trauma appears to have consistent and significant impacts on multiple cortical regions after accounting for age, sex, CRP and disease effects. These findings may point to the disproportional role of childhood stress in impeding early cortical development.
精神分裂症谱系障碍（SSD）患者在童年及成年期遭受创伤性事件的风险更高，且身体对应激的反应增强，炎症活动增加。我们推测，在SSD中，应激效应与炎症系统的长期激活有关，并导致免疫标志物升高。我们研究了童年创伤和成年期应激性生活事件对49例SSD患者和26名健康对照者C反应蛋白（CRP）的影响，以及它们对皮质厚度变薄的综合作用。SSD患者报告的童年创伤水平更高（p = 0.015），通过重大生活事件量表测量的终生应激经历也更多（p = 0.00005）。SSD患者多个脑区的皮质厚度显著降低，但CRP水平无显著升高。在考虑年龄、性别、CRP和疾病影响后，只有童年创伤似乎对多个皮质区域有一致且显著的影响。这些发现可能表明童年应激在阻碍早期皮质发育中起不成比例的作用。
