Postmortem studies in neuropsychiatric disorders test hypotheses with regard to schizophrenia, suicide, and addictions. New findings include the following: (1) Autoradiography of schizophrenics, suicides and controls have been done using a series of noradrenergic and serotoninergic ligands. The most interesting findings involve the 5HT ligands. A previously reported decrease in 5HT uptake sites was confirmed in frontal, cingulate and parietal cortex of schizophrenics without changes in more posterior regions such as hippocampus and temporal cortex. Subcortically, an increase in 5HT uptake binding was seen in the striatum. Suicides had decreased reuptake in the more posterior regions such as entorhinal and temporal cortex. 5HT2 receptors were found to be increased in ventral striatum, posterior cingulate, temporal cortex and hippocampus without changes in frontal or anterior cingulate cortex. 5HTIA were increased in posterior cingulate and hippocampus of schizophrenics and the entorhinal receptors cortex and hippocampus of suicides; (2) A second preliminary group of studies involves the use of Western immunoblot analyses of choline acetyltransferase activities (CHAT) in schizophrenia. CHAT was found to be reduced in schizophrenics in pontine tegmentum with normal levels in frontal, occipital and temporal cortex, thalamus, and cerebellar. Glial fibrillary acidic protein was normal in all 6 brain regions of schizophrenics versus controls; (3) A negative study was published with regard to stains for iron binding in basal ganglia-schizophrenia. A second negative study involve the measurement of cells and plagues in the nucleus basalis of Meynert of cognitively impaired schizophrenics versus controls. A third negative study involved a search for cytomegalovirus in the brains of schizophrenics. (4) Studies of basal ganglia of cocaine addicts revealed increases in M-RNA for K-opiate receptor (caudate) and dynorphin (patches in putamen) with decreases of encephalin, u-opiate receptors and mazindol binding (caudate and putamen).
Showing the most recent 10 out of 73 publications
