The etiology of many psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and psychosis remains to be fully understood. Consequently, the development of more efficient and precise diagnoses and therapies remains an important challenge. A growing body of evidence suggests inflammation is a key player in the etiology and pathomechanisms of psychiatric disorders, with peripheral immune cells that include T and B cells, and their circulatory effector molecules such as cytokines, infiltrating and affecting central nervous system (CNS) function. While in healthy conditions a crosstalk between the peripheral system and the CNS ensures a coordinated maintenance of CNS homeostasis, under pathological conditions a compromised blood-brain barrier and/or blood-CSF barrier, can lead to altered CNS functions, with deleterious outcomes on behaviour and cognition associated with psychiatric disorders.

The goal of this Research Topic is to better describe the association between peripheral immune cells and neuropsychiatric disorders. It is crucial to elucidate whether the peripheral immune response is a cause or consequence of neuropsychiatric disorders, and whether targeting the peripheral immune cells could serve as a disease-modifying therapy. The comparison of peripheral and CSF immune cells in same patients especially would be of great interest herein. In addition, there is a need for early diagnostic tools that allow for a specific diagnosis and accurate classification of neuropsychiatric diseases. It is also critical that potential biomarkers are validated clinically and proven to be reproducible, sensitive, and specific.

We particularly welcome submission of Original Research, Review, Mini-Review, Hypothesis and Theory, Perspective, Clinical Trial, Case Report and Opinion article focusing on, but not limited to the following subtopics:

• Relation between blood immune cells and CSF immune cells

• Blood immune cells in psychiatric and neurological disorders

• CSF cells in neurological and in psychiatric disorders

• Relation of blood cytokines levels and blood immune cells

• Roles of the peripheral immune system in psychiatric disorders

• Omics approaches (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics) to study peripheral immune cells and their mediators in neuropsychiatric disorders

• Interactions with central non-neuronal cells (e.g., microglia)

• Underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms

• Outcomes of treatments acting on peripheral cells

• Influence of the environment and context (e.g., stage of life)

• Sex differences in these outcomes and mechanisms

The first volume of this Research Topic can be found here:

• The roles of peripheral immune cells and their circulatory effector molecules in neuropsychiatric disorders

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Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience

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