Soviet Psychiatry

Although Soviet psychiatry has been criticized for abuses, there has been brilliant research. Soviet psychiatrists have been accused of putting dissidents in mental hospitals. I do not condone this, but many of the researchers have worked very hard. Much of their research work has been largely ignored in the US except by Frohman & Gottlieb of Detroit.

Snezhnevsky
Snezhnevsky was a big name in Soviet psychiatry. Alexander Luria was more famous, but Luria was a psychologist. Snezhnevsky headed the Institute of Psychiatry in Moscow. He contributed to the classification of mental diseases. The Soviets have not used the classification ADHD. Instead they have divided schizophrenia into various types. The Institute has done many biochemical investigations. Metabolites having biological activity have been found in the biological fluids of schizophrenics. Romasenko was the head of one of the laboratories. Vartanian was the head of another.

Lozovsky
Lozovsky worked at the Institute. A disorder of intermediary energy metabolism was found in schizophrenia. Lozovsky and colleagues confirmed the work of Frohman etal of the US. The serum of schizophrenics elevated lactate in a chicken erythrocyte assay.

Conclusions
Work at the Institute showed that the beta-globulin serum protein fraction was the most active. The factor was a lipoprotein. Experiments showed that tissue respiration of slices of rat brain was inhibited. The mitochondria showed swelling, fragmentation, and changes in cristae. This finding helped inspire my own theory of the cells overeating some macronutrients. In my theory amino acids flood the cells. Another test used fibroblasts of chicken embryos. The serum had a cytopathological effect. Again the main activity was in the beta-globulin fraction. The hemolytic activity was considered an effect on the cellular membranes. Another assay used was the development of experimental animals. Lozovsky felt that "there are a number of different biologically active factors in the serum". He wrote that in a 1968 volume of International Review of Neurobiology. Work in Norway has been consistent with the Russian work on carbohydrate metabolism. The Norway workers have also found a toxic factor in the blood that causes this defect. The late Alexander Luria was the author of a famous book on the brain. It was translated into English.