[Catecholamine and indoleamine metabolism in groups of patients with paranoid and simple forms of schizophrenia].

The content of neuromediators, such as biogenic amines and their metabolites in the blood and urine was determined by spectrofluorometric methods in 14 patients with paranoid and 11 patients with simple schizophrenia (5 of them showing the apatho-abulic and 6 the psychopathlike syndromes), as well as in 12 healthy subjects who served as control. Both the initial levels of the neuromediators, and those observed 3 hours after oral intake of 0.5 g of L-DOPA were determined. Blood levels of dopamine (DA), its metabolites, homovanilic acid (HVA), and serotonin, and urine levels of dopamine, nor-adrenaline and 5-hydroxyindolacetic acid (the metabolite of serotonin) were examined. In a number of the biochemical indices of biogenic amine metabolism the patients examined differed substantially from those in the control healthy subjects. The most stable distinctive feature was the lowering of the HVA/DA ratio (in 17 out of the 25 patients). This was, probably, due to the functional inadequacy of the enzymes of DA catabolism, as well as to such clinical peculiarities of the disease as continuous progredient course and presence of negative symptoms.