Disturbances in Serine-Glycine Metabolism in Relation to Acute Psychoses with Psychedelic Symptoms

Abstract

The idea that disease entities might exist in psychiatry can be strongly supported by demonstrating that the disease is linked with a specific pathochemical marker. In general, pathochemical markers comprise the presence or (relative) absence of a biological substance, such as an enzyme, which is only found in latently or manifestly afflicted subjects. With respect to the present findings we wish to extend this narrow definition to include a specific reaction of a patient to an administered substance. Such a procedure can be compared to skin reactions of allergic subjects to hypodermically injected substances, or perhaps more appropriately to the panic reactions of patients with anxiety neurosis to infusions of lactate (Appleby et al. 1981). Demonstrating that the administered substance is pathogenetically related to the diseased state may greatly improve the understanding of the biological basis of the disease, while the specific reaction of the subject to the substance makes a more homogeneous classification of this disorder possible.