Schizophrenia as an Encephalopathy

Ivan Pavlov

"How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct."

Benjamin Disraeli

Introduction

Diana Orlovskaia of Russia has described schizophrenia as an "encephalopathy", meaning an organic disease of the brain. I feel that she was right.

The Neurophysiology of Schizophrenia

Heath used depth electrodes to find EEG spiking in the septal area in schizophrenia. Prior to this theories had blamed schizophrenia on the frontal lobes, although both theories could be true. Heath extracted a serologic fraction from the blood of schizophrenics. He named it "taraxein". Taraxein was given to monkeys, and it induced severe behavioral symptoms in the monkeys.

Taraxein

The monkeys exhibited reduced awareness, waxy flexibity, and septal spiking. Taraxein was given to nonpsychotic human subjects, and it produced temporary clinical manifestations of schizophrenia. This work was confirmed by Hoagland et al, who reported an active globulin. They found that their globulin was associated with a tightly bound small molecule.

Bergen et al

Bergen et al used a test which measured the delay in rat rope climbing, a kind of vertical rat race. They found greater delays produced by extracts of schizophrenic patients than by extracts from normals. The factor was a protein.

Kemali

This Italian worker found a toxic factor in the urine of schizophrenics. His assay used the rabbit cerebral cortex. The toxic factor produced a focu of high voltage acivity in the rabbits' cerebral cortex.

The Biochemistry of Schizophrenia

One of Bergen's many reports was published in 1963. In that report he used "the optic evoke response in the rabbit" as an assay. Since so many different assays have been used, the evidence for taraxein is very compelling. What remains to be determined is the exact nature of taraxein and how to counteract it. It appears to be present in both blood and urine, which suggests that it is not an immune factor. Immune factors would not be found in urine. Urine consists of substances that the body does not want. Thus the popular but unsound theory that schizophrenia is an immunological disorder is most likely wrong. A Russian theory is that taraxein is an "antibrain" globulin. Most likely taraxein is an internal toxin. For more information on this matter, consult my website, which is http://www.craigolson.bizhosting.com/.

This is an extemely complex and controversial subject, yet we must attack it because it is very important. A large number of studies have shown a strong genetic component in schizophrenia. This is consistent with one or more biochemical errors. This was the view of Linus Pauling.

Dohan

Dohan found that schizophrenics improved on a gluten-free diet. This view was rejected by Frohman and Gottlieb in 1974.

Membrane Transport

Frohman & Gottlieb (1974) favored a membrane transport theory. They cited the work of Walaas et al in 1958. The Scandinavian group reported "disturbances of carbohydrate metabolism in schizophrenics". They found that a serum fraction from schizophrenics inhibited the glucose uptake in an assay.

Henneman et al (1954)

This group reported that administering glucose to schizophrenics caused blood lactate and pyruvate to increase abnormally. They also found that levels of alpha-ketoglutarate were increased. This could signify a problem in the citric acid cycle, also called the tricarboxylic acid cycle.

The Lafayette Clinic

Studies at the Lafayette Clinic in Detroit showed an unknown toxic factor in the blood which caused an increased cellular uptake of tryptophan. These results would appear to explain the previous results of the Scandiavian group and the Massachusetts group. The citric acid cycle is being flooded due to a transport error in amino acids.

Conclusions

The possibility exists of a diet very low in trytophan and other amino acids as a possible treatment for schizophrenia.

Bibliography

1. http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/630989/the_riddle_of_mental_illness.html

2. www.associatedcontent.com/article/739945/new_ideas_in_psychiatry.html

3. www.associatedcontent.com/article/736707/biochemistry_and_schizophrenia.html

4. www.associatedcontent.com/article/733043/schizophrenia_as_an_error_in_evolution.html