Immune-neuroendocrine crosstalk in mood and psychotic disorders: A meta-analysis and systematic review.

Background: Bidirectional interactions between immune and neuroendocrine mechanisms are involved in mood and psychotic disorders, although individual studies report inconsistent and even contradictory findings on the nature of this crosstalk. Our objective was to perform an up to date systematic review and meta-analysis of the association between hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and immune system functioning in mood and psychotic disorders.

Methods: We searched the Pubmed, Web of Science and Embase databases for studies reporting correlations between one or more HPA- and immune markers (IM) in patients with mood or psychotic disorders.