RT Journal
A1 STERN JA, ULETT GA, SMITH KK
T1 EFfect of blood plasma from psychotic patients upon activity levels of white rats
JF A.M.A. Archives of General Psychiatry
JO A.M.A. Archives of General Psychiatry
YR 1959
FD September 1
VO 1
IS 3
SP 342
OP 345
DO 10.1001/archpsyc.1959.03590030126015
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archpsyc.1959.03590030126015
AB Winter and Flataker2 have recently demonstrated an impairment in performance of a learned rope-climbing task in rats that have been intraperitoneally injected with either plasma or serum from schizophrenic patients. Rats injected with plasma from control subjects or with saline did not show this effect. Since rope climbing is a relatively complex performance which can be broken down (at least logically) into a number of different tasks, we decided to test the hypothesis that at least part of the effect observed by these authors was a function of a decrease in the activity levels of the experimentally injected animals. That this might have been an important factor in the effect observed is also indicated by Winter and Flataker’s comments concerning activity levels of animals. Normal-plasma-injected animals “usually show nothing abnormal in their behavior, except sometimes some sluggishness while climbing.” Schizophrenic-plasma-injected animals, on the