[Electron-microscopic analysis of cytoarchitectonic disorders in the cerebral cortex in schizophrenia].

Microscopy and electron microscopy were used to examine foci of neuronal loss in the 2nd-3rd layers of the prefrontal cortex of the autopsy brain from 8 schizophrenic patients and 8 controls without any mental pathology. No signs of gliosis were identified. Foci of neuronal loss showed multiple accumulations of the thin bundles of unmyelinated fibers not discovered in the control, dystrophic-changed astrocytes, swollen dendrites free of microtubules.

[Possibilities for the histochemical study of the nuclei of normal brain cells and in pathology].

Possibilities of application of some histochemical methods to studying cell nuclei of brain are reviewed considering the following techniques: hybridization histochemistry on the light and electron microscope levels, immunohistochemistry and immunoelectron microscopy, absorbtion and fluorescence histochemistry of nucleic acids, histones, non-histone proteins of chromatin, and of cell nucleus lipids, electron histochemistry. Besides, some physicochemical and molecular-biological methods are considered. Data on human brain research in the norm and upon various brain disorders are particularly provided.

[Ultrastructure of neurons with initial signs of ischemization in schizophrenia].

The authors studied two cases of sudden death of schizophrenia patients aged 23 and 40 years who died from acute asphyxia. Two types of ultrastructural changes in their cortical neurons are described: gradual lightening of the cytoplasm and nuclei in some cells; cytoplasm lightening, perinuclear edema and increased nuclear density due to condensed chromatin in others. Cytoplasm lightening is explained by swelling of the cysterns of the endoplasmatic reticulum and loss of polysomes.

[Ultrastructural analysis of the phenomenon of acute neuronal swelling].

WAG rats were exposed to hyperthermia. Neurons manifested acute swelling in all portions of the brain. At the ultrastructural level these phenomena were characterized by an increase in the size of the bodies and nuclei of neurons, complete dissociation of polysomes, swelling of some cisterns of the endoplasmatic reticulum and perinuclear space, and destruction of the mitochondria of apical processes.

[Lymphocytes in the human brain].

There are different concepts of the role of lymphocytes in the brain of schizophrenics available in the literature (they are considered as manifestations of encephalitis or as an allergic reaction, etc.). Autopsy of 350 schizophrenics and 16 mentally healthy subjects who died at the age of 15 to 87 years revealed the constant (nearly in 90 percent of the cases) presence of sparse segmentary clusters of small lymphocytes in the adventitial vessels in the medulla oblongata irrespective of the death causes.