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agents as possible causes of schizophrneia and bipolar disorder

(manic-depressive illness), the Stanley Laboraratory for Developmental

Neurovirology is also researching how such infectious agents could theoretically

be transmitted to humans.  Cats are being investigated as one possible

reservoir for infections.  It should be stressed that at this time we

behavior toward cats.  We are merely exploring the possibility as one

line of research with the goal of developing new methods for disease prevention

infectious agents which are known to be transmitted  to humans.  The

best known of these are rabies, the bacteria which causes cat scratch disease,

and toxoplasmosis. Some pediatric cancer specialists also suspect that some

childhood leukemias may be associated with a virus carried by cats but this has

cats are very common (e.g. Ireland, Scandinavia) have a comparatively high

prevalence of schizophrenia and areas in which cats are not common (e.g. Papua

housepets is a comparatively recent phenomena, starting in the early-mid 19th

century in England and North America.  The increased prevalence of cats as

housepets coincides temporally with the increased prevalence of schizophrenia

and bipolar disorder according to one analysis (see E.F. Torrey and J. Miller, The

Invisible Plague: Rising Mental Illness from 1750 to the Present,

individuals with schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness, compared to

individuals who do not have these disorders, have had greater exposure to cats

that individuals with first-onset schizophrenia have an increase in antibodies

literature of psychiatric and behavioral abnormalities in some individuals with

for the treatment of schizophrenia have the ability to inhibit toxoplasma in