Correspondence
BIOL PSYCHIATRY 1990;27:671-.685
240 mg daily) and report no side effects from the medication. Both report also that their speech continues to be better than it has been for as long as they can remember. They report also that failure to take the verapamil for a day or so (e.g., forgetting to do so, temporarily running out of the medication) is followed by a return of more stuttering. Their rates of dysfluency while reading a 1000 syllable story (RD) and speaking extemporaneously for 3 min (SD) are given in Table 1 along with the corresponding dysfluency rates on initial (baseline) testing and at the 6-month follow-up. The results we published in 1989 are more modest Table 1. Effect of Verapamil on Rates of Dysfluency in Patients with Chronic Stuttering 6-month 2s/2-year Baseline follow-up follow-up Patient A (38-year-old female) RD SD Patient B (59-year-old male) RD SD
6 9
4 7
2 4
48 36
17 34
11 26
Abbreviations: RD, reading dysfluency; SD, speaking dysfluency.
than those reported by Zachariah (1980); only 2 of our 10 subjects (20%) elected to continue with the drug. However, it is very promising that these 2 subjects have continued to improve over an extended period without side effects. We hope that other clinicians will try verapamil with chronic adult stutterers, a generally recalcitrant patient group. We would like to hear of their results. John Paul Bradf Thomas W. McAllister' Trevor R.P. Price2 mDepartment of Psychiatry University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104 2Department of Psychiatry Medical College of Pennsylvania Allegheny Campus Pittsburgh, PA 15212
References Brady JP, Price TRIP, McAilister TW, Dietrich K (1989): A trial of verapamil in the treatment of stuttering in adults. Biol Psychiatry 25:626-630. Ingham RJ (1984): Stuttering and Behavior Therapy. San Diego, CA: College-Hill Press. Zachariah G (1980): Verapamil in the managementof stammering. Antiseptic 77:87-88.
Antiseptal Autoantibodies in Schizophrenia To the Editor: Heathet al. (Biol Psychiatry 25:725-733, 1989) recently reported that serum from 96% of unmedicated schizophrenic patients contained IgG autoantibodies specific for the septal region of rhesus monkey brain, in contrast to 0% of control subjects and 6% of medicated schizophrenics. We were unable to reproduce this finding (Knight et al. Biol Psychiatry, in press). In an attempt to resolve this unexpected discrepancy, we sent 12 coded serum samples on dry ice to Dr. Heath. The results from Heath's laboratory did not ,bear any apparent relationship to the origin of the serum samples, nor to their own previously reported findings.
681
John G. Knight Allison Knight David B. Menkes Paul E. Mullen University of Otago Department of Psychological Medicine Medical School Dunedin, New Zealand
Response To the Editor: Correspondence with Knight revealed departures from our described protocol when he and his colleagues attempted to replicate our findings. When he subsequently sent us coded samples for analysis in
BIOL PSYCHIATRY 1990;27:671-.685
240 mg daily) and report no side effects from the medication. Both report also that their speech continues to be better than it has been for as long as they can remember. They report also that failure to take the verapamil for a day or so (e.g., forgetting to do so, temporarily running out of the medication) is followed by a return of more stuttering. Their rates of dysfluency while reading a 1000 syllable story (RD) and speaking extemporaneously for 3 min (SD) are given in Table 1 along with the corresponding dysfluency rates on initial (baseline) testing and at the 6-month follow-up. The results we published in 1989 are more modest Table 1. Effect of Verapamil on Rates of Dysfluency in Patients with Chronic Stuttering 6-month 2s/2-year Baseline follow-up follow-up Patient A (38-year-old female) RD SD Patient B (59-year-old male) RD SD
6 9
4 7
2 4
48 36
17 34
11 26
Abbreviations: RD, reading dysfluency; SD, speaking dysfluency.
than those reported by Zachariah (1980); only 2 of our 10 subjects (20%) elected to continue with the drug. However, it is very promising that these 2 subjects have continued to improve over an extended period without side effects. We hope that other clinicians will try verapamil with chronic adult stutterers, a generally recalcitrant patient group. We would like to hear of their results. John Paul Bradf Thomas W. McAllister' Trevor R.P. Price2 mDepartment of Psychiatry University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104 2Department of Psychiatry Medical College of Pennsylvania Allegheny Campus Pittsburgh, PA 15212
References Brady JP, Price TRIP, McAilister TW, Dietrich K (1989): A trial of verapamil in the treatment of stuttering in adults. Biol Psychiatry 25:626-630. Ingham RJ (1984): Stuttering and Behavior Therapy. San Diego, CA: College-Hill Press. Zachariah G (1980): Verapamil in the managementof stammering. Antiseptic 77:87-88.
Antiseptal Autoantibodies in Schizophrenia To the Editor: Heathet al. (Biol Psychiatry 25:725-733, 1989) recently reported that serum from 96% of unmedicated schizophrenic patients contained IgG autoantibodies specific for the septal region of rhesus monkey brain, in contrast to 0% of control subjects and 6% of medicated schizophrenics. We were unable to reproduce this finding (Knight et al. Biol Psychiatry, in press). In an attempt to resolve this unexpected discrepancy, we sent 12 coded serum samples on dry ice to Dr. Heath. The results from Heath's laboratory did not ,bear any apparent relationship to the origin of the serum samples, nor to their own previously reported findings.
681
John G. Knight Allison Knight David B. Menkes Paul E. Mullen University of Otago Department of Psychological Medicine Medical School Dunedin, New Zealand
Response To the Editor: Correspondence with Knight revealed departures from our described protocol when he and his colleagues attempted to replicate our findings. When he subsequently sent us coded samples for analysis in
