Search for evidence of herpes simplex virus, type 1, or varicella‐zoster virus infection in postmortem brain tissue from schizophrenic patients

Abstract

The highly sensitive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to search for herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-I) or varicella-zoster virus (VZV) in the DNA extracted from postmortem temporal cortex samples of 8 schizophrenic subjects, 8 nonschizophrenic suicide victims and 8 normal controls. HSV-I or VZV-specific DNA amplification was not detected in any of the samples studied.