STUDIES IN RESPONSIVITY OF THE ADRENAL CORTEX IN SCHIZOPHRENIA
Abstract
Eleven chronically hospitalized schizophrenic patients, in good physical and nutritional health, were studied by hourly eosinophile and lymphocyte counts after injections of saline and ACTH on consecutive days.
Wide variations in the fasting levels of these blood elements existed among different patients and in the same patients from day to day.
Saline elicited variations in eosinophile counts so that 5 of 11 subjects showed decreases of 50% or more after 4 hours. The lymphocytes varied by at least 29% for each subject at some point in the study after saline was injected.
The response of the eosinophiles to ACTH was greatest 3 hours after injection.
Ten of the 11 subjects showed a 50% or more variation in eosinophiles at some point in the procedure. All 11 subjects had more than a 50% variation in their lymphocyte counts.
The adrenal cortical response of the schizophrencis we have studied, as measured by the eosinophile and lymphocyte responses to ACTH and by physiological variation, falls within the normal range.
Studies of the 17-ketosteroid and corticosteroid excretion after ACTH in 11 cases of acute schizophrenia also showed varying responses in different subjects.
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