Cerebroventricular size and cerebrospinal fluid monoamine metabolites in schizophrenic patients and healthy volunteers

Is negative schizophrenia a variant of parkinsonism?

“…This concept was supported by the studies of van Kammen et al (1983) and Nyback et al (1983), who found that cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) HVA and dopamine-beta-hydroxylase (DBH) levels were negatively correlated with both cortical atrophy and ventricular brain ratio. In a subsequnt study, van Kammen et al (1986) found that schizophrenic patients with reduced CSF dopamine metabolism had greater degree of cortical atrophy on computed tomography (CT) scan and more negative symptoms as compared to those without brain atrophy and increased CSF dopamine metabolism.…”

“…Increased ventricular brain ratio (VBR), a putative feature of negative schizophrenia (Andreasen, 1985) is described in patients with Parkinson's disease (Steiner et al, 1985) and as a risk factor for drug-induced Parkinsonism (Luchins et al, 1983;Hoffman et al, 1987). This communality is not surprising in view of the decreased dopamine metabolism in patients with large VBR (Van Kammen et al, 1983;Nyback et al, 1983;Van Kammen et al, 1986). More recently, we found in neuroleptic-treated chronic schizophrenics a strong association between enlarged VBR and Parkinsonian bradykinesia, which is the core motor symptom of Parkinsonism (Sandyk & Kay, in press b).…”

Serotonin Depletion in the Adult Rat Causes Loss of the Dendritic Marker MAP-2 A New Animal Model of Schizophrenia?

“…Moreover, at least three studies have correlated decreased serotonin in the cerebrospinal fluid of schizophrenics with decreased brain volume (Losonczy et al 1986;Nyback et al 1983;Potkin et al 1983). Finally, the method of serotonin depletion that we have chosen (i.e., PCPA) is known to produce deficits in latent inhibition in rats.…”

Serotonin and Schizophrenia

“…This idea has led to the approach to calculate HVA/5-HIAA concentration ratios to investigate the relation of serotonergic and dopaminergic activity in schizophrenia . Lewine et al (1991) demonstrated for example that the HVA/5-HIAA ratio was a better predictor of the extent of brain atrophy than HVA or 5-HIAA CSF levels alone (see also Nyback et al, 1983). Additionally, while 5-HIAA and HVA levels alone could not predict treatment outcome, a low HVA/5-HIAA CSF ratio was significantly associated with better response to clozapine and typical antipsychotics in several studies (Pickar et al, 1992;Kahn et al, 1993a;Risch and Lewine, 1993;Szymanski et al, 1993;Lieberman et al, 1994;Risch, 1995).…”

“…Studies linking specific characteristics of the illness with 5-HIAA CSF levels have shown that low 5-HIAA concentrations are associated with advanced brain atrophy (Nyback et al, 1983;Potkin et al, 1983;Jennings et al, 1985;Losonczy et al, 1986), more prominent negative symptoms (Pickar et al, 1986;Csernansky et al, 1990), and failure to activate the PFC during the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (Weinberger et al, 1988). But all of these measure have been found to be associated with decreased HVA CSF levels as well (ibid.…”