Report

1958 - Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry. :-)

"Intraperitoneal injection of blood plasma from the majority of schizophrenic and other severely psychotic patients into rats produced a syndrome resembling, but not identical with, that produced by injection of LSD. In rats trained to climb a rope, the injection of 1 ml. of plasma produced a deficiency in performance which could be objectively and quantitatively measured. Comparisons of the effect of plasma from 80 psychotic patients and 82 nonpsychotic subjects, including both general hospital patients and normal subjects, showed a marked and highly significant difference between the two groups. Cerebrospinal fluid had much less effect than plasma (author's summary)." A.M.A. Arch. of Neurol. & Psychiat. 80:441, 1958

Doesnt that mean that a DNA alter which would alter the blood plasmas formula to that of a normal person could make that person normal? just a theory, im sure it was overlooked before..

^^EH?^^

I imagine (or hope) that this sort of experiment was well intentioned enough (and hopefully relatively harmless for the human patients involved), but it still, in a way, feels easily more disturbing than the mummified cat a few shots back.

That said, that is an intriguing result. Could that somehow suggest that schizophrenia has blood-born properties... or at least that whatever causes it also has a clear effect upon the blood?

Sounds like something from a B horror movie. Creating psychotic rats and then the hospital gets taken over by them...

wow...i have no idea what Lynne just said :-)...this was before the time of morphine and RInger's Lactate (a type of IV fluid that closely resembles blood)

Lynn, you are a wonder! thank you for your input to this sight. it wouldnt be the same without you! and motts? how much of it did you read?

Thanks for the link and summary. I was just about to do a search on the effects of blood from psychotic paitents on rats.

Where can I get some?

I couldn't access the entire article - all I could find was the abstract that the authors wrote.

Nuts, I can't access it either, although apparently my university has a hard copy of it somewhere. That would be an interesting read!

See.. There is no psychology: There is only chemistry!

fascinating

it's been cited 47 times in other published literature....shame i couldn't get it either, but maybe when i'm back at school.

Just a thought, but shouldn't human plasma not work with rats. perhaps thats why they weren't able to perform as they previously had? But my knowledge of medicine is next to nothing, so I could be totaly wrong

Perhaps that's why it had a bad effect on the rats. Was there a control group given 'healthy' plasma and cerebro-spinal fluid? Considering that humans often can't take blood from other HUMANS (depending on blood type,) I imagine blood from another animal could be very harmful!

From Selete:
"Perhaps that's why it had a bad effect on the rats. Was there a control group given 'healthy' plasma and cerebro-spinal fluid? Considering that humans often can't take blood from other HUMANS (depending on blood type,) I imagine blood from another animal could be very harmful!"


Yes, they compared the effects of blood from a control group of "healthy" humans as well. Quotation from article summary:

"Comparisons of the effect of plasma from 80 psychotic patients and 82 nonpsychotic subjects, including both general hospital patients and normal subjects, showed a marked and highly significant difference between the two groups."

the title sound gross .

but interesting .

It is an interesting title but what exactly did they think they would benefit from doing it?

Because of their small size even a small amount of plasma from another subject from a rock hyrax to an elephant would have a great deal of effect on it. Witch is to say a small amount of human plasma injected ino another human might not like, blood donating for example. Whether or not blood from a "mentally diseased" human injected into a human with a normal working brain probably would not make a difference but you never know. This kind of stuff may go back to the nazi "scientists" and their "experiments" (and i use that term lightly). Wether or not they kept records of what they is unknown to me.

Such an experiment makes my skin crawl. *shiver*

They were probably investigating whether there is some difference in plasma levels of certain substances ( possibly serotonin, dopamine, or some other neurotransmitters) between healthy and mentally ill patients. The study was done in the 50's before there were reliable ways of measuring their plasma levels.

It might have been said in previous comments, but I'm adding it again at the end just to reinforce the point. There was some evidence that schizophrenia was the result of an infection of the brain. Even now there's some speculation that some sort of physical disease may lead to, if not outright cause, some psychotic disabilities. Therefore, it's not altogether outside the realm of acceptable science to take blood fluids from mentally ill psychotics and inject them into healthy animals to see if any infection is spread such that some basic confirmation could be made that diseases like schizophrenia might be caused by a viral, or bacterial, infection which would very likely be present to some degree in the constituent fluids of the blood.

I'm sure in the 1950s they thought this was very useful research but I'm afraid, speaking as a medical professional, it doesn't tell us anything and the methodology was extremely dodgy.

"Comparisons of the effect of plasma from 80 psychotic patients and 82 nonpsychotic subjects, including both general hospital patients and normal subjects, showed a marked and highly significant difference between the two groups."

Question:
What's normal?

For the purposes of the study this would normally have been described under the "Subjects" section. Since all I can find is an abstract, I don't know what their reference group was. Probably people who had not been diagnosed as having psychosis, a psychotic break, or schizophrenia as defined at the time of the study.

Possibly that poor cat a few shots back got ahold of one of those rats and ate it - I'm often amazed at how medical practice has progressed over the years . . . LOVE this web site - I can't get away from it!!

Awesome story theme for a horror movie.

so are you saying that schitzophrania may be contagious? thats interesting.there is a small line if insanity running through my family,only one of my relatives is in an asylum currently,all of my mothers sisters are slightly insane,does this mean it may pass on to me,i hullucinate on accasion,and hear voices,im afraid i may get this disease genetically.

I don't think contagious is the word. Maybe familial. If you are concerned about your voices you should check with your Dr. I think the implications are fascinating. It may be the precursor of studies that proved the chemical inbalance in certain types of mental illness. Sure glad they weren't injecting the rat plasma into the humans...............

That sounds like a fun test to have to do

Turns out the hearing voices and seeing things was caused by some type of medication I was taking.lol

I love google. I found the name and location of the hospital. Shhhhhh...I won't tell ;>

I'm sure that some of the information in this would still be relevant.