Could immunotherapy treat schizophrenia?

An opinion piece in the New York Times describes a patient with treatment-resistant schizophrenia who developed acute myeloid leukemia — and how, after a bone marrow transplant, his delusions and hallucinations completely disappeared. In other words, an immune system reboot may have actually helped mitigate a patient's symptoms of mental illness.

The idea here is a compelling one: that the immune system may be playing a larger role in our brain chemistry than we realize; the literature, after all, suggests that it’s likely involved in conditions ranging from depression to schizophrenia to bipolar disorder.

The Times piece describes one other case: one in which a leukemia patient received a bone marrow transplant from a brother who had schizophrenia. The patient "beat the cancer" but developed schizophrenia as well.