Information on Schizophrenia

Matthysse S, Baldessarini RJ (1972) S-adenosylmethionine and catechol-O-methyl-transferase in schizophrenia. Am J Psychiatry 128:1310-1312.

Carol A. Tamminga, M.D., and colleagues at the University of Maryland detected in schizophrenics greatly reduced metabolism of glucose, the brain's main fuel, in two structures - the subcortical hippocampus and the cingulate gyrus of the cortex.

Because the sea-horse shaped hippocampus is involved in memory function and the cingulate gyrus controls the body's emotions, neuronal underfunction here could explain, for example, why schizophrenics laugh at funerals or cry at inappropriate times, Dr. Tamminga and company report in Archives of General Psychiatry (Vol. 49, No. 7).