Research Forum 10.13: Substance Abuse, Reflexes, and Neurodevelopment

ABSTRACT:

Psychosis and substance use disorders are two diagnostic categories whose association has been studied for decades. In addition, both psychosis spectrum disorders and drug abuse have recently been linked to multiple pro-inflammatory changes in the central nervous system. We have carried out a narrative literature review through a holistic approach. We used PubMed as our search engine. We included in the review all relevant studies looking at pro-inflammatory changes in psychotic disorders and substance use disorders. We found that multiple studies relate various pro-inflammatory lipids and proteins with psychosis and substance use disorders, with an overlap between the two. The main findings involve inflammatory mediators such as cytokines, chemokines, endocannabinoids, eicosanoids, lysophospholipids, and/or bacterial products. Many of these findings are present in different phases of psychosis and in substance use disorders such as cannabis, cocaine, methamphetamines, alcohol, and nicotine. Psychosis and substance use disorders may have a common origin in an abnormal neurodevelopment caused, among other factors, by a neuroinflammatory process. A possible convergent pathway is that which interrelates the transcriptional factors NFB and PPAR. This may have future clinical implications.