Am J Psychiatry 1981; 138:1457-1462
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychiatric Association
Endogenous opioid activity and beta-endorphin immunoreactivity in CSF of psychiatric patients and normal volunteers
D Naber, D Pickar, RM Post, DP Van Kammen, RN Waters, JC Ballenger, FK Goodwin and WE Bunney Jr
The authors measured total opioid activity by radioreceptor assay in the
CSF of 41 normal subjects and 89 unmedicated psychiatric patients,
including schizophrenic, schizoaffective, depressed, and manic diagnostic
groups. Schizophrenic men had significantly lower levels of opioid activity
than the normal men, although these levels did not significantly differ
from levels of other male patients. The authors observed higher opioid
activity during mania than during depression in paired samples for 4
manic-depressive patients. beta-Endorphin immunoreactivity in a subsample
of the same subjects was no different in the patient group than in the
normal group, suggesting that the differences in CSF opioid activity
between schizophrenic men and normal patients may be related to opioids
other than beta-endorphin.
