New Clues to Schizophrenia

For years, some physicians have suspected that schizophrenia is associated with a biochemical imbalance in the brain, but the nature of the imbalance eluded them. Last week, at the Boston psychiatry meeting, two researchers reported on recent studies that may provide new clues to some of the substances involved in the bizarre symptoms of the disease.

Dr. Jacques Gottlieb, of Detroit's Lafayette Clinic, told a tale of three laboratories: Lafayette, the Massachusetts' Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, and the Soviet Academy of Sciences' Institute of Psychiatry. Independently, each had discovered increased amounts of a component of the alpha-2-globulin fraction in the blood of schizophrenia victims. Alpha-2-globulin is a normal part of blood plasma, containing many proteins. In the blood of 60% of the schizophrenics studied by Gottlieb, the fraction was present at far-above-normal levels. The excessive alpha-2-globulin, Gottlieb theorizes, may perforate brain-cell walls and cause leakages that could disrupt the organ's normal processes. Such disruptions might contribute to the delusions, hallucinations and withdrawn state of schizophrenia victims.

Damaging Proportions. So far, the function of the substance, even in normal amounts, is unknown. Its level in the bloodstream generally rises under conditions of stress, however, so it is apparently involved in the biochemistry of tension and anxiety. In the schizophrenic patient, Gottlieb points out, tension and anxiety are already "out of control." Thus its level may rise unchecked to mind-damaging proportions. By coincidence, the Worcester Foundation research team working with Dr. John R. Bergen discovered and tested similar blood fractions simultaneously with the Lafayette team. They injected the substance into rats that had been trained to reach food by climbing a rope. The injections disoriented the rats and impaired their climbing ability. A similar effect on a rat's shinnying skills is also caused by derivates of 3,4, dimethoxyphenethylamine (DMPEA), more simply known as "the pink spot" because of its color in paper chromatography tests designed to detect it. DMPEA has been found in the urine of several thousand severely ill schizophrenics. It was isolated six years ago by Psychiatrist Arnold Friedhoff and Biochemist Elnora Van Winkle of the New York University School of Medicine, and studied further in additional tests in England and Rumania.

Not-so-Little Riddle. At last week's Boston meeting, Tulane University's Dr. Robert G. Heath reviewed 19 years of research on another possible biochemical agent in schizophrenia--a brain protein he calls taraxein. When extracted from human plasma and injected into monkeys, it plummets the animals into a confused, schizophrenia-like condition. The same temporary effects can be induced in human volunteers subjected to taraxein injections.

Now under intensive study, the three substances could provide clues to the biochemistry of schizophrenia. Whether such substances are a cause or a result is still unclear. Eventually, however, understanding these biochemical processes may provide new ways to deal with the disease.

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