Neurochemical and Immunologic Components in Schizophrenia

333 care but should be available to such individuals in medical libraries associated with their hospitals. This book very nicely presents current concepts of virology and immunology as applied to brain function, although perhaps a better title would have been "Viral and Immunologic Components in Schizophrenia" since the neurochemistry is minimal. The book consists of the proceedings of conference held at the Unviersity of Texas Medical Branch, during October 28-31, 1976, which brought together experts who ordinarily do not attend the same meetings. The papers could rougly be divided into "'state of the art" summaries (diagnosis and genetics in schizophrenia, diseases due to slow viruses, mechanisms of cellular and antibody immune responses, and the effect of autoimmune responses on the CNS), briefer experimental papers (viral and immunologic), and, thankfully, only a few speculative presentations. The conference was organized in five sections: foundations for schizophrenia research, viruses and central nervous system (CNS) disease, autoimmunity and the CNS, plasma and cerebrospinal proteins in schizophrenia, and immune functions and psychoactive drugs. In the first section, Kety and Erlenmeyer-Kimling summarize the genetic data, Himmelhoch historically reviews the development of the current understanding of the disorder, and Endicott et al. compare the many current diagnostic scales for schizophrenia. The concepts of "slow virus" CNS disease are too briefly reviewed by Gajdusek (the question-and-answer section provided more interesting data), Carp examines the work done which has explored a viral etiology for multiple sclerosis (MS), Jersild provides an overview of the HLA system and the concepts involved in defining a linkage with a given disease (MS in this case), and Hotchin and Seegal provide a nice experimental paper showing that persistent CNS virus infection decreases the amphetamine motor response in mice. Immunologic regulation and autoimmunity are well reviewed by Talal, complete with mouse (NZB and B/W) models in whom genetic, immune, and viral components of a CNS illness can be explored. The neuropsychiatric symptoms of systemic lupus erythematosus are reviewed by Carr et al. as a model of how autoimmune concepts are applied to the CNS. Brostoff briefly reviews the immune responses to myelin basic protein as the pathologic process involved in experimental allergic encephalomyelitis and neuritis. Vartanian et al. present their work, showing that schizophrenics have altered cellular as well as humoral immune responses to certain brain proteins. Liedemann and Prilipko indicate a serum factor may be involved in the decrease in responsiveness of T lymphocytes …