Faculty Bibliography

Forty inpatient volunteers with diagnoses of schizophrenia were randomly assigned to treatment either with trebenzomine or thioridazine in a double-blind study of clinical antipsychotic efficacy following a 1-week placebo treatment. Psychopathology was rated using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and Clinical Global Impression (CGI). There was a significant difference in therapeutic response to the two drugs in that psychopathology decreased significantly for the thioridazine group, but not for the trebenzomine group. Serum prolactin was elevated during treatment with thioridazine, but not with trebenzomine. Side effects were more frequently reported for the thioridazine group. These results fail to confirm previous reports of clinical antipsychotic efficacy for trebenzomine

Sensitivity to the emetic effect of apomorphine was not different in unmedicated schizophrenic and control subjects. Sensitivity to apomorphine emesis also did not correlate with schizophrenics' level of psychopathology before treatment. Floridity of baseline psychopathology was found to predict improvement with treatment. Change in psychopathology after amphetamine correlated inversely with apomorphine emesis sensitivity and statistically predicted improvement after neuroleptic treatment. Clinically meaningful improvement after neuroleptics was rare in subjects whose psychopathology did not change after amphetamine. In a separate study, clear increases in psychopathology after amphetamine appeared to predict rapid relapse after neuroleptic discontinuation. These later data are preliminary.

Prostaglandin (PG) E1 enhances formation of 3H-adenosine-3',5'-cyclic monophasphate (3H-cAMP) in platelets pulse-labeled with 3H-adenine. This response was assessed as an index of receptor sensitivity and of PG function. Prostagladin E1-stimulated 3H-cAMP accumulation in paltelets from schizophrenics was significantly reduced compared with control subjects. Platelet incorporation of 3H-adenine and basal 3H-cAMP accumulation. We discuss the results in terms of the possible role of PGs in the etiopathology of schizophrenia and derivative implications for treatment

When quaternary-chlorpromazine (Q-CPZ) was administered intraventricularly (ICV) to rats, it induced a lateralized dystonic reaction, which progressed to head-to-tail barrel rolling. The syndrome persisted for approximately 10 minutes, was not antagonized by pretreatment with drugs used to treat extrapyramidal movement disorders, and could not be mimicked by ICV administration of dopamine antagonists. Unlike known dopamine antagonists, Q-CPZ does not alter dopamine turnover, cause prolactin release in vivo, or bind to dopamine/neuroleptic receptors in vitro. These data suggest that Q-CPZ differs substantially from CPZ in pharmacologic action, and that it elicits a behavioral syndrome of potential use for studying dystonias