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may lie in a deep freeze at the Stanley Research Foundation in Maryland.  Stored here

are pieces of brain, sliced paper thin to let researchers see what’s inside.  And

what they believe they are seeing are viruses that trigger mental illness.

    “In very concrete terms, we are actually thinking that you have a

chronic infection in the brain,” explains Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, executive director of

the foundation.  You have viruses in the brain cells that have changed the chemistry

of the cells.”

    For 25 years, Torrey has been on a quest to find the viruses he

believes trigger schizophrenia and manic depression.

    The theory is simple: Common viruses can sleep harmlessly in the brain,

but can awaken when we are stressed or have a drop in our immune system.  When this

happens, a virus can begin to inflame brain cells.

    Scientists are not sure why this happens, but they say some people are

more genetically susceptible to the process.

    “When I started it,” Torrey says, “it seemed fairly

outrageous to most of my colleagues. But I must admit, it’s almost respectable now.”

    So respectable that within a year a trial study will begin to add

antiviral drugs to the medications for a small number of patients with schizophrenia and

manic depression.

    “Our eventual goal,” says Dr. Robert Yolken of the Johns Hopkins

Medical School,”would really be to see if we could prevent or treat these

diseases–particularly schizophrenia–by using one of these anti-viral agents.”

    Yolken has joined Torrey to prove the theory, and if they are right,

bring relief for a devastating disease.