A Scientific Hypothesis for Schizophrenia

"The membrane alterations found in platelets of schizophrenic patients look like the alterations found in the central nervous system. Big vacuoles originates of the same ones with presence of inclusion bodies or particles like virus." Dr. Mesa Castillo (Havana, Cuba)

The English is imperfect in this otherwise brilliant quote, perhaps because his native language is Spanish.

Introduction

Brilliant work has been done on schizophrenia by Dr. Mesa Castillo of Havana using the electron microscope.

"In the last eleven years we have carried out studies of samples of blood of young schizophrenic patients observing that their platelets have changed in form, size and specific caracteristics that let us differentiate patients of controls (4)." Mesa Castillo

"RESULTS.

1. Widening of the nuclear envelope in neurons frequently observed in samples from the amygdala and the auditory cortex.
2. Presence of fibrillar material within this widened nuclear envelope.
3. Presence of inclusion bodies." Mesa Castillo

His reference 4 is in Spanish, so I haven't included it here. Castillo's work is presented at the World Psychiatric Association website, which is http://www.wpanet.org/ . At this site his work is presented both in English and in Spanish.

Mesa Castillo feels that his particles are a virus. My view is that they may represent either a toxin or the residue of a toxin.

Harrison

"A number of abnormalities have been identified and confirmed by meta-analysis, including ventricular enlargement and decreased cerebral (cortical and hippocampal) volume. These are characteristic of schizophrenia as a whole, rather than being restricted to a subtype, and are present in first-episode, unmedicated patients." Harrison (University Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, UK)

"There is considerable evidence for preferential involvement of the temporal lobe and moderate evidence for an alteration in normal cerebral asymmetries. There are several candidates for the histological and molecular correlates of the macroscopic features." Harrison

"Pathology in subcortical structures is not well established, apart from dorsal thalamic nuclei, which are smaller and contain fewer neurons." Harrison

Harrison's entire 1999 article is available for free on the Internet. It is from the journal Brain, produced by Oxford University Press.

Averback

In 1981 Averback reported "lesions of the nucleus ansae peduncularis in neuropsychiatric disease". This was reported in the journal Archives of Neurology (1981; 38: 230-5).

Southard (Harvard)

In 1915 the neuropathologist Southard stated "Aside from the left-sidedness of the lesions and internal hydrocephalus, very striking is the preference of these changes to occupy the association centres of Fleschig'."

Conclusions

A great deal of work has been done. An entire book could be devoted to this subject. My hypothesis is that first of all schizophrenia (called "dementia praecox" by Southard, Alzheimer, and Kraepelin) is organic. Second we need to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. Clearly it is in the brain.

Averback found massive bloating and death of neurons. Mesa Castillo found "giant platelets" with "elephant feet". Both found vacuoles, which Averback found to be mostly fat. Averback found the destruction of the Nissl substance, which contains amino acids. If amino acids were flooding the cells, all of this data would be explained except for the particles seen by Mesa Castillo. Excessive amino acids would be converted to fat.

The glycogen deposits seen by Mesa Castillo would also be explained. The cells would burn amino acids for fuel instead of glucose, which would be a metabolic error disastrous to the brain. The paticles seen by Mesa Castillo may represent a toxin that is causing the amino acids to flood the cells.

But what is the treatment? It would appear that a diet highly restricted in amino acids should be tried as a therapy. Fat may be bad also because there is too much fat in the neurons. Due to the complexity of the subject further articles will probably be written by the author explaining the data more. Also there is more data yet to be discussed.

Bibliography

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