Association between exposure to toxoplasmosis and major psychiatric disorders: a systematic review

To assess the association between exposure to toxoplasmosis and major psychiatric disorders through a systematic review of the literature.

The literature review was performed in the MEDLINE, SciELO, and PsycINFO databases. To evaluate the quality of the studies included in the review, the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale was used.

Thirty-one studies were included, and the majority found an association between exposure to toxoplasmosis and schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (58.3 and 54.5% of the included papers, respectively), but not major depressive disorder. We found no significant difference in mean quality scores between studies that corroborated and contradicted the association hypothesis for either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. All included papers were considered at least satisfactory according to the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (total scores ≥ 6 out of 9).

Although there was no association between exposure to toxoplasmosis and major depressive disorder, the results indicate an association with both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, despite their heterogeneity. Further studies should be performed with more specific variables so that the nature of these relationships can be elucidated.