[Effect of leponex on lactate dehydrogenase activity in a tissue culture of embryonal human brain]

Using the method of quantitative spectrophotometry the activity of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) was determined in a culture of the brain tissue of a 8- to 10- week-old human embryo. To the culture medium the blood serum of schizophrenic patients treated with leponex was added. In the control experiments the sera of healthy subjects, non-treated schizophrenics, and schizophrenics treated with phenothiazines and benzodiazepines were added. Leponex caused a statistically significant lowering of the LDH activity in the culture cells irrespectively of the prevalence of discrete or monolithic forms of the mitochondria in them. This effect of leponex distinguished this drug from other psychopharmacological agents tested by the author. A connection between mitochondria transition from the descrete to the monolithic form on the one hand, and the LDH activity, i.e. transition of the cells to the glycolytic pathway of respiration on the other, has not been confirmed.