Bacterial Infection Linked to Psychiatric Symptoms and Skin Lesions

Bartonella infection mimics a spectrum of chronic illnesses - including mental illness - and dermatological symptoms may accompany infection.

In humans with Bartonella infection who exhibited neuropsychiatric symptoms, a subset of the population also had skin lesions, stated a new study by North Carolina State University researchers.

Bartonella bacteria

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‘Bartonella infection mimics a spectrum of chronic illnesses - including mental illness - and dermatological symptoms may accompany infection.’

Bartonella henselae is a member of the genus Bartonella, one of the most common types of bacteria globally.

Bartonella bacteria are increasingly recognized as an emerging infectious disease threat. The bacteria cause several diseases in humans.

The most common is cat scratch disease. There are at least 30 different known Bartonella species, of which 13 have been found to infect humans.

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In 2019, Dr. Edward Breitschwerdt, Melanie S. Steele Distinguished Professor of Internal Medicine at NC State, published a case study involving an adolescent boy diagnosed with rapid onset schizophrenia, who had accompanying skin lesions. After Breitschwerdt's research group documented Bartonella henselae infection, the patient received antimicrobial therapy and all neuropsychiatric symptoms resolved. The new study is a follow-up to the 2019 work and is published in the journal Pathogens.

Study Details

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33 participants suffering from neuropsychiatric symptoms ranging from sleep disorders and migraines to depression and anxiety were enrolled in the study.
29 of 33 participants were found to have Bartonella infections.
24 of the 29 Bartonella-positive participants (83%) had skin lesions during their illness.
Skin lesions ranged from cutaneous eruptions to red, irregular linear lesions randomly located on various parts of the patient's body.

"This research, a follow-up to our initial case report of Pediatric Acute-Onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome (PANS), was initiated to further investigate a possible association between neuropsychiatric illness, skin lesions and a bacterial infection of emerging biomedical importance,"

Breitschwerdt says. "We hope that this research will enable physicians to suspect connections between disparate symptoms involving the nervous system and skin that could be associated with an underlying bacterial cause."

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Source-Medindia