Psychosomatic Medicine 11:334-337 (1949)
© 1949 American Psychosomatic Society

Serum Protein Fractionation Studies on Schizophrenics

¹ Medical Research Unit, Veterans Administration Hospital Northport, L. I., N. Y.

Serum protein fractionation studies were performed on young, male schizophrenic patients upon admission and during and after insulin and electric shock treatment.

The mean total protein, albumin, globulin, A/G, and euglobulin values of the schizophrenic patients before treatment agreed closely with those obtained for the normals. Only the mean pseudoglobulin level differed from the normal, being slightly higher.

Insulin treatment exerted no marked effect on the serum proteins, except for the pseudoglobulin which was elevated during coma.

During coma induced by electric shock, a rise of 0.21 to 2.46 Gm. per cent was obtained in the total proteins. Both the albumin and the globulin were elevated in a majority of the cases, the former more so than the latter. The euglobulin was also elevated, but the pseudoglobulin and A/G varied in either direction.

After electric shock treatment had been terminated, the total proteins remained elevated in most of the patients. This time the increase appeared due to the globulin, the albumin dropping almost to the pretreatment level. This rise in the globulin was due to the euglobulin fraction which remained close to the elevated level obtained during coma.

Electric shock differed from insulin shock treatment in that during the coma induced by the former, a rise in the total serum proteins occurred which did not take place in an insulin induced coma. Secondly, electric shock therapy produced an elevation in the serum euglobulin which insulin shock therapy did not do.

Views are presented as to whether the increase in euglobulin during electric shock was due to a pituitary-adrenocortical stimulation.