Psychoneuroimmunology and Allostatic Load in Schizophrenia: Insights from Social and Biomedical Perspectives

SchizophreniaSchizophrenia and psychotic disorders are severe conditions that impact social integration, quality of lifeQuality of life, and imparts a severe societal burden. These disorders have several risk factors identified to explain their emergence and course. These dimensions can be broadly divided in two categories being social (e.g., childhood adversity) and biological (e.g., genetic). Advances in psychoneuroimmunology have identified significant immune abnormalities in persons diagnosed with these disorders, underlying the role of immune processes. These differences are heterogeneous and do not yet allow the identification of new treatmentTreatment avenues. Furthermore, these advances do not systematically include various factors that can greatly influence immune function such as lifestyle (e.g., tobaccoTobacco use), social condition, or sex and sociocultural gender. Sex and gender majorly influence schizophreniaSchizophrenia’s onset, course, and severity of symptoms. Likewise, social conditions can be major stressors. Allostatic loadAllostatic load, the ‘wear and tear’ of various physiological systems when exposed to chronic stressors measures the various influences in psychiatric disorders and offers a comprehensive framework to understand pathophysiological mechanisms in schizophreniaSchizophrenia and psychotic disorders. In this chapter, we attempt to offer a broad picture of the factors influencing schizophreniaSchizophrenia and psychotic disorders’ emergence and course. Through a presentation of the various social influences and immune processes, we offer an integrative framework that could help better understand these complex disorders and offer new treatmentTreatment pathways.