In the past couple of weeks I've posted about the debate over Lyme disease as a trigger for violence. Can microbes and immune reactions to them actually contribute to cognitive decline, degenerative neurological disease, developmental disabilities, mental illness, personality changes and, at the most extreme, even violent and criminal behavior?
Here to weigh in with some evidence is psychiatrist Robert Bransfield, an expert on the psychiatric manifestions of Lyme disease and founder of the mailing list, Microbes and Mental Illness, where the discussions on such topics are held.
"There are several thousand peer-reviewed references demonstrating the association between infections and mental symptoms and at least 65 different microbes have been recognized as causing mental symptoms," Bransfield writes. "Over two hundred peer-reviewed articles describe the causal association between Lyme/tick-borne diseases and mental symptoms, pathophysiology, morbidity and mortality. Attempted suicide and completed suicide associated with neuropsychiatric manifestations of Lyme disease and other tick-borne disease has been observed and reported by many other clinicians and myself."
Bransfield's work has focussed, in part, on infection and aggresion. "Although most patients with Lyme/tick-borne disease do not become violent, a small percent of patients who become infected develop a type of neurological dysfunction that can increase their risk of aggressiveness. In working with a number of patients with Lyme/tick-borne diseases it is apparent to many clinicians these conditions can cause reduced frustration tolerance, irritability, depression, cognitive impairments and mood swings, but more significantly, in a few patients, suicidal and aggressive tendencies."
For the doubters on the issue, Bransfield refers to his own website, Mental Health and Illness, and has provided peer-reviewed publications that offer not just theory but also nuance, complexity, and proof. With his permission, I list some of those, below.-- Pamela Weintraub (author of Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic and senior editor at Discover Magazine.)
Microbes and mental illness: The evidence in black and white
Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis [letter] AUTHORS: Fallon BA, Nields JA.
SOURCE: J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 1998 Summer;10(3):366-7
Acute and chronic neuroborreliosis with and without CNS involvement: a clinical, MRI, and HLA study of 27 cases. AUTHORS: Krüger H, Heim E, Schuknecht B, Scholz S. SOURCE: J Neurol. 1991 Aug;238(5):271-80.
Altered mental status, an unusual manifestation of early disseminated Lyme disease: A case report. AUTHORS: Chabria SB, Lawrason J. SOURCE: J Med Case Reports. 2007 Aug 9;1:62.
The association between tick-borne infections, Lyme borreliosis and autism spectrum disorders AUTHORS: Bransfield RC, Wulfman JS, Harvey WT, Usman AI.
SOURCE: Medical Hypotheses. 5 Nov 2007
Alzheimer's disease Braak Stage progressions: reexamined and redefined as Borrelia infection transmission through neural circuits. AUTHOR: MacDonald AB. SOURCE: Med Hypotheses. 2007;68(5):1059-64. Epub 2006 Nov 17.
Alzheimer's neuroborreliosis with trans-synaptic spread of infection and neurofibrillary tangles derived from intraneuronal spirochetes. AUTHOR: MacDonald AB. SOURCE: Med Hypotheses. 2007;68(4):822-5. Epub 2006 Oct 20.
Antibodies against OspA epitopes of Borrelia burgdorferi cross-react with neural tissue. AUTHORS: Alaedini A, Latov N. SOURCE: J Neuroimmunol. 2005 Feb;159(1-2):192-5. Epub 2004 Nov 26.
Audiologic manifestations of patients with post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome AUTHORS: Shotland LI, Mastrioanni MA, Choo DL, Szymko-Bennett YM, Dally LG, Pikus AT, Sledjeski K, Marques A SOURCE: Ear Hear. 2003 Dec;24(6):508-17
Bartonella sp. Bacteremia in Patients with Neurological and Neurocognitive Dysfunction. AUTHORS: Journal of Clinical Midrobiology. 46(9):2856–2861 SOURCE: Breitschwerdt EB. Maggi RG, Nicholson WL, Cherry NA, Woods CW.
The basic syndromes of neurological disorders in Lyme borreliosis: AUTHORS: Dekonenko EP, Umanskii KG, Virich IE, Kupriianova LV, Rudometov, IuP, Bagrov FI: SOURCE: Ter Arkh 1995; 67 (11) : 52-53
Beta-amyloid deposition and Alzheimer's type changes induced by Borrelia spirochetes. AUTHORS: Miklossy J, Kis A, Radenovic A, Miller L, Forro L, Martins R, Reiss K, Darbinian N, Darekar P, Mihaly L, Khalili K. SOURCE: Neurobiol Aging. 2006 Feb;27(2):228-36.
Bell’s Palsy of the Gut and other Manifestations of Lyme and Associated Diseases AUTHOR: Sherr VT SOURCE: Practical Gastroenterology April 2006
Bilateral dorsolateral thalamic lesions disrupts conscious recollection. AUTHORS: Edelstyn NM, Hunter B, Ellis SJ. SOURCE: Neuropsychologia. 2006;44(6):931-8. Epub 2005 Oct 25.
Borrelia burgdorferi in the central nervous system: experimental and clinical evidence for early invasion. AUTHORS: Garcia-Monco JC, Villar BF, Alen JC, Benach JL. SOURCE: J Infect Dis. 1990 Jun;161(6):1187-93.
Borrelia burgdorferi central nervous system infection presenting as an organic schizophrenialike disorder. AUTHORS: Hess A, Buchmann J, Zettl UK, Henschel S, Schlaefke D, Grau G, Benecke R. SOURCE: Biol Psychiatry 1999 Mar 15;45(6):795
