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T J Crow

Publications and source records attributed to T J Crow.

At least 181 records · Page 10Linked to original sources

A re-investigation of the behavioural effects of intracerebral injection in marmosets of cytopathic cerebrospinal fluid from patients with schizophrenia or neurological disease.

In experiments designed to investigate transmission, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from patients with schizophrenia or neurological disease (Huntington's disease) which had been found to induce a cytopathic effect (CPE) in human embryonic fibroblast cell culture was injected intracerebrally into common marmosets. Behavioural observations were made on the animals during a period of 2 1/2 years prior to injection and for 2 1/2 years after injection. In an earlier study (Baker et al. 1983 b) we found that animals injected with CPE + ve CSF became progressively more inactive when compared with those injected with non-cytopathic (CPE -ve) CSF from control patients. In the present study we were unable to replicate this finding. No difference in behaviour emerged between animals injected with control CSF and animals injected with CSF from schizophrenics or patients with neurological disease, nor between animals injected with CPE + ve CSF and animals injected with CPE -ve CSF. The numbers of offspring produced and surviving did not differ between the groups. We conclude that the original findings were due to factors unconnected with the nature of the injected material.

Animals↗

Evidence for a sex chromosome locus for schizophrenia.

The sex chromosomes are strong candidates for a genetic locus for schizophrenia and the affective psychoses. Gender differences in the clinical expression of illness and familial risks, concordance for gender and illness in relatives, and an association of X chromosome anomalies with psychosis suggest an X chromosome locus. The presence of male-to-male transmission in some families, in the face of a lack of strong evidence for heterogeneity, specifically focuses the search within the pseudoautosomal region of the X and Y chromosomes where sequence homology and recombination takes place.

Female↗

Temporal lobe structure as determined by nuclear magnetic resonance in schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder.

Temporal lobe structure has been assessed by magnetic resonance imaging in groups of patients with schizophrenia (n = 21) bipolar affective disorder (n = 20) and normal controls (n = 21). In the temporal lobe area a significant (p less than 0.05) diagnosis by side interaction was present, the area being less on the left than on the right side in patients with schizophrenia in contrast to findings in the two other groups. Lateral ventricular and temporal horn area did not distinguish the groups as a whole. However, there was a significant (p less than 0.05) relationship between lateral ventricular area and poor outcome, and in an analysis confined to males, patients with schizophrenia (n = 15) were found to have significantly (p less than 0.05) enlarged temporal horns.

Adult↗

Concordance by sex in sibling pairs with schizophrenia is paternally inherited. Evidence for a pseudoautosomal locus.

The hypothesis that the gene for schizophrenia is located in the pseudoautosomal region of the sex chromosomes predicts that same-sex concordance will occur in paternally rather than maternally derived pairs. In 120 families that included at least one sibling pair with schizophrenia, affected members were significantly more likely to be of the same sex when there was a history of illness on the paternal than on the maternal side, the difference remaining significant when parent of origin was assessed by three different methods. The finding is as predicted by the pseudoautosomal hypothesis: therefore a search for the gene should be focused on this small (three megabase) region of the genome. The ratio of same to mixed sex pairs in paternally-derived cases (approximately 3:1) suggests the gene is located in the centromeric one-third of the pseudoautosomal region.

Adult↗

Small intestine permeability in schizophrenia.

Gastrointestinal permeability was assessed by means of absorption of 51Cr-labelled EDTA in 24 patients with schizophrenia (12 in relapse and 12 in remission). The results were compared with those for patients with coeliac disease and those for normal controls. Significant differences between the schizophrenic patients and the normal controls were not established. The results for the schizophrenic patients in remission were no different from those for the patients in relapse, and there was no evidence from the study of an effect on gastrointestinal permeability of either anticholinergic or antidepressant medication. It is concluded that schizophrenia is, at least in the majority of cases, unrelated to coeliac disease.

Adolescent↗

The Northwick Park "functional" psychosis study: diagnosis and treatment response.

Functional psychosis is conventionally subdivided into schizophrenia and manic depressive psychosis. Response to treatment is assumed to be a validating criterion for these diagnoses. The efficacy of pimozide (a dopamine antagonist neuroleptic), lithium, and a combination of the two was compared with that of placebo in a 4 week trial in 120 functionally psychotic patients each of whom was assessed for psychotic symptoms, manic symptoms, and depressive symptoms. The sample was subdivided into patients with predominantly elevated mood, predominantly depressed mood, and no consistent mood change. Pimozide reduced psychotic symptoms in all groups of patients. The only significant effect of lithium was to reduce elevated mood. Thus dopamine blockade seems relevant to the resolution of psychotic symptoms in all types of "functional" psychosis but the mode of action of lithium in psychotic patients concerns only mood. Application of standardised classifications of functional psychosis to these data did not change this conclusion.

Adolescent↗

Stereotyped responding on a two-choice guessing task by marmosets and humans treated with amphetamine.

The performance of normal human volunteers and marmosets on a 2-choice guessing task was assessed after saline (control) or amphetamine administration. In human subjects the drug increased the number of alternation responses, which can be interpreted as an increase in stereotyped switching and which is similar to the response pattern produced by some groups of psychotic patients on the same task (Frith and Done 1983; Lyon et al. 1986). Marmosets treated with amphetamine showed an increase in perseverative responding compatible with that seen on other types of task. Our conclusion is that dopaminergic systems are involved in behavioural choice mechanisms and that a dysfunction of these systems may contribute to the symptomatology of psychosis.

Animals↗

Anticipation in Huntington's disease is inherited through the male line but may originate in the female.

Data from the US National Huntington's Disease Roster have been analysed in terms of the difference in age of onset (AO) between affected parents and affected offspring, that is, in terms of 'anticipation'. While mean AO in offspring of affected mothers did not differ greatly from AO in their mothers, the distribution of AO in the offspring of affected fathers falls into two groups, the larger group showing an AO only slightly younger than their affected fathers and a small group whose AO was, on average, 24 years younger than their affected fathers. Analysis of the grandparental origin of the Huntington allele suggests that while propensity to anticipation is heritable for a number of generations through the male line, it originates at the time of differentiation of the germ line of a male who acquires the Huntington allele from his mother. It is suggested that major anticipation indicates an epigenetic change in methylation of the nucleic acid of the genome, which is imposed in the course of the 'genomic imprinting', that is, in the mechanism by which the parental origin of alleles is indicated.

Adolescent↗

Age disorientation in chronic schizophrenia is not associated with pre-morbid intellectual impairment or past physical treatment.

Forty-two long-stay hospital patients with chronic schizophrenia were divided into age and sex-matched groups with and without temporal disorientation, and assessed for premorbid academic performance and past physical treatment. The schooling of schizophrenic patients who had cognitive impairment, as identified by gross temporal disorientation, did not differ from those who were cognitively intact. The groups did not differ in past history of ECT, insulin coma, neuroleptic treatment, or psychosurgery. Patients with age disorientation were on lower mean doses of neuroleptic or anticholinergic medication. Gross cognitive impairment thus appears to occur in the course of the disease and is not due to physical treatment.

Adolescent↗

Sex chromosomes and psychosis. The case for a pseudoautosomal locus.

Although the incidence of the recurrent psychoses (bipolar affective illness and schizophrenia) in the two sexes is approximately equal, gender influences a number of aspects of major psychiatric disease: unipolar depressive illness is twice as common in females, onset of schizophrenia is earlier and outcome is worse in males, and pairs of psychotic first-degree relatives are more often than expected of the same sex. In addition, sex chromosomal aneuploidies (e.g. XXY and XXX) are more frequent in patients with psychosis. Some of these findings can be explained if there is a major locus of predisposition to psychiatric disease in the 'pseudoautosomal' region of the sex chromosomes - that distal segment of the short arms in which there is genetic exchange between X and Y chromosomes at male meiosis. A gene located here would be transmitted in an autosomal manner, but would be passed above chance expectation to children of the same sex when inherited through a male. In that this segment of the sex chromosomes is subject to a high rate of recombination (which could generate new mutations), and may include determinants of brain lateralisation, it appears that the pseudoautosomal region could carry the genes which predispose to the major psychoses.

Aneuploidy↗

Phenomenology of organic and functional psychoses and the overlap between them.

The Present State Examination was conducted upon 328 recently admitted psychotic patients, of whom 23 were later found to have underlying organic illness. The phenomenology in these 23 was compared with that of 92 matching controls drawn from the parent sample who conformed to DSM-III criteria for schizophrenia, mania and depression. Few significant differences were present and there was considerable overlap between the diagnostic groups.

Adolescent↗

CNS amyloid proteins in neurodegenerative diseases.

The amyloid plaques found in neurodegenerative diseases show considerable morphologic diversity. Two amyloidogenic proteins have been isolated from the brains of humans and animals with neurodegenerative diseases--beta-protein from Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Down's syndrome, and prion protein (PrP) from scrapie and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Using monoclonal antibodies to a synthetic peptide corresponding to a portion of beta-protein and rabbit antiserum to hamster scrapie PrP 27-30, we examined in situ amyloid plaques on sections from cases of neurodegenerative diseases, including cases with a spectrum of plaque types. Anti-beta-peptide stained cerebrovascular and plaque core amyloid in all AD cases as well as cerebrovascular amyloid and senile plaque core amyloid in five elderly CJD cases. Anti-PrP stained plaques in CJD, kuru, and Gerstmann-Sträussler syndrome cases but not cerebrovascular amyloid or plaques in AD. Dual localization experiments showed that in cases with a mixture of plaque types, the antibodies identified different populations of plaques that showed anatomic heterogeneity. Colocalization of the two proteins was not observed in any plaque type. The data suggest that in neurodegenerative diseases two major plaque types exist, which have different etiologic origins. Our results emphasize the need for classification of CNS amyloids based not on their morphology but on the macromolecular components comprising these pathologic polymers.

Alzheimer Disease↗

Is there gliosis in schizophrenia? Investigation of the temporal lobe.

Recent studies have described two indicators of pathology in the schizophrenic brain--gliosis and atrophy. The degree of gliosis in the temporal lobe of groups of schizophrenics (with demonstrable atrophy), affectives, and controls was quantified using immunocytochemical techniques and computer-assisted densitometry. Twenty areas within the temporal lobe were assessed. Our data showed no evidence of increased gliosis in the schizophrenic group compared to controls and affectives. This extends and replicates our previous findings, demonstrating that the atrophy/aplasia in schizophrenia is not associated with pathologically significant gliosis. Our observations are consistent with other studies, suggesting that the structural change in schizophrenic brains is due to an embryonic insult or developmental anomaly of an, as yet, undetermined nature.

Aged↗