Some recent biochemical findings with possible therapeutic implications for schizophrenia

Hemodialysis resulted in remission of psychopathological symptoms in eight of ten chronic schizophrenics and successful hemodialysis was associated with a decrease of leucine endorphin levels in the blood. Three endorphins (endogenous peptides) have been isolated from the brain, and among them beta-endorphin was found to be the most potent in inducing behavioral changes in the rat. Nevertheless, neither a positive, nor an inverse relationship between the severity of schizophrenic psychopathology and CSF endorphin concentrations could be borne out by clinical experiments. Most recently, on the basis of an entirely different line of research, the possibility that schizophrenia is a prostaglandin deficiency disease has been raised.