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MINI REVIEW article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Psychopathology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1522128
This article is part of the Research Topic Immunity and Inflammation in Neuropsychiatric Disorders View all 8 articles
Influence of antipsychotic drugs on microglia-mediated neuroinflammation in schizophrenia -perspectives in an astrocytemicroglia co-culture model Mini Review
Provisionally accepted- 1 Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Düsseldorf, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
- 2 Department of Neuroanatomy and Molecular Brain Research, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
- 3 Department of Neurology, Klinikum Vest, Academic Teaching Hospital of the Ruhr University Bochum, Recklinghausen, Germany, Department of Neuroanatomy and Molecular Brain Research, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder with a strong lifetime impact on patients' health and wellbeing. Usually, symptomatic treatment includes typical or atypical antipsychotics. Study findings show an involvement of low-grade inflammation (blood, brain parenchyma, cerebrospinal fluid) in schizophrenia. Moreover, experimental and neuropathological evidence suggests that reactive microglia, which are the main resident immune cells of the central nervous system (CNS), have a negative impact on differentiation and function of oligodendrocytes, glial progenitor cells and astrocytes which results in disruption of neuronal networks and dysregulated synaptic transmission, contributing to the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Here, the role of neuroinflammation regarding microglial cells has been discussed to be essential. This review aims to summarize the evidence for the influence of antipsychotics on microglial inflammatory mechanisms in schizophrenia. Further, we propose an established astrocyte-microglia co-culture model for testing regulatory mechanisms and effects of antipsychotics on glia-mediated neuroinflammation. This would lead to a better understanding of how typical and atypical antipsychotics can be used regarding positive and negative symptoms in schizophrenia and co-morbidities like inflammatory diseases or a status of low-grade inflammation.
Keywords: antipsychotic drugs, glia, Neuroinflammation, Astrocyte-microglia co-culture model, Psychotic Disorders, Schizophrenia
Received: 04 Nov 2024; Accepted: 12 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 FAUSTMANN, Corvace, Faustmann and Ismail. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Timo Jendrik FAUSTMANN, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Düsseldorf, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
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