Sofia Sigra Stein

About Sofia Sigra Stein

Sofia Sigra Stein is a resident in clinical pharmacology at the University Hospital in Örebro and a PhD student at the School of Medical Sciences at Örebro University.

During med school, Sofia started her research on child- and adolescent psychiatric disorders characterized by acute-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), tics or eating disorder. These disorders are called PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcal infections) and PANS (Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome) and the underlying cause is assumed to lay within the immune system.

During the last decades, the theory about a connection between the immune system and some psychiatric disorders has emerged. There is evidence that an immunological vulnerability contributes to development of psychiatric disorders, such as depression, schizophrenia and OCD.

In turn, this leads to the question if treatments aimed at altering the function of the immune system could have an effect on these disorders. If this would be the case, it could potentially lead to new treatment options for this severely ill patient group.

Sofia does her research in immunopsychiatry and her PhD project evaluates the effect of immunomodulatory treatment on severe schizophrenia and OCD, where other therapies have failed. She also investigates potential biomarkers for these disorders.