CLINICAL AND RESEARCH REPORTS 1060 Am J Psychiatry 140:8, August 1983 REFERENCES 1. Verebey K, Volavka J, Clouet D: Endorphins in psychiatry: an overview and a hypothesis. Arch Gen Psychiatry 35:877-888, I 978 2. Watson SJ, Berger PA, Akil H, et al: Effect of naloxone on schizophrenia: reduction in hallucinations in a subpopulation of schizophrenics. Science 201:73-76, 1978 3. Kline NS, Li CH, Lehmann HE, et al: Beta-endorphin-induced changes in schizophrenic and depressed patients. Arch Gen Psychiatry 34:1111-1113, 1977 4. Akil H, Watson SJ: Neuromodulatory functions of the brain pro-opiocortin system, in Neural Peptides and Neuronal Com- munication. Edited by Costa E, Trabucchi M. New York, Raven Press, 1980 S. Simantov R: Glucocorticoid inhibits endorphin synthesis by pituitary cells. Nature 280:684-685, 1979 6. Nicoll RA, Alger BE, Jahr CE: Enkephalins block inhibitory pathways in the vertebrate CNS. Nature 287:22-25, 1980 7. Terenius L, Wahlstrom A, Agren H: Naloxone (Narcan#{174}) treatment in depression: clinical observations and effects on CSF endorphins and monoamine metabolites. Psychopharma- cology (Berlin) 54:31-33, 1977 8. Besser GM, Thorner MD: Bromocriptine in the treatment of the hyperprolactinemia-hypogonadism syndrome. Postgrad Med J 52:64-70, 1976 9. Mendelson JH, Ellingboe J, Keuhnle JC, et al: Effects of naltrexone on mood and neuroendocnine function in normal adult males. Psychoneuroendocninology 3:231-236, 1979 Asymmetries in the Densities of White and Gray Matter in the Brains of Schizophrenic Patients John W. Largen, Jr., Ph.D., Marcos Calderon, M.D., and Robert C. Smith, M.D., Ph.D. Although the densities of gray and white matter of 25 schizophrenic or schizoaffective patients did not differ from those of controls, the schizophrenic patients had higher densities of gray and white matter in the right hemisphere than in the left. (Am J Psychiatry 140:1060-1062, 1983) brain density may be of more differential diagnostic value than measures of cerebral atrophy. Golden and associates (10) reported differences in total brain den- sity between schizophrenic patients and normal con- trols. We now report significant left versus right differ- ences in the brain densities of schizophrenic patients, but not in those of controls. R eports (1-3) of abnormalities on computerized axial tomographic (CAT) scans of patients with schizophrenia or related psychosis have concentrated on ventricular size and cerebral atrophy. A few studies (4, 5) have also shown a higher frequency of reversed morphological asymmetries in the brains of schizo- phrenic patients than in those of controls. Continued investigation of structural deficits in schizophrenia has potential significance for determining the underlying pathophysiology, for linking structure and behavior (6), and for predicting treatment response (7). For other diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, in which CAT scans have been used for diagnostic evaluation, several reports (8, 9) have indicated that measures of Received Oct. 20, 1982; revised Feb. 22, 1983; accepted March 14, 1983. From the Texas Research Institute of Mental Sciences; and the Houston Imaging Center. Address reprint requests to Dr. Smith, Biological Psychiatry, Texas Research Institute of Mental Sciences, 1300 Moursund, Texas Medical Center, Houston, TX 77030. Copyright 1983 American Psychiatric Association. METHOD Twenty-five patients with Research Diagnostic Cni- tenia diagnoses of schizophrenia (N=19) or schizo- affective psychosis (N=6) participated in the study. Two patients had acute or subacute illnesses, and 23 had chronic or subchronic disorders. The group’s mean (±SD) age was 27.7±6.7 years. There were 14 men and 11 women. After a 1-2 week drug-free period, they were treated with a fixed dose of thiorid- azine or haloperidol. During the second or third week of fixed-dose treatment, they received a CAT scan with a GE-8800 CAT scanner. Consecutive S-mm slices (24-27 cuts) from the base of the brain to the top of the skull were taken in standard manner with patients’ heads positioned at a 1S angle to Reid’s baseline. We used as controls 19 subjects who had complaints of headache but who had normal CAT scans obtained from the same CAT scanner. This group’s mean age was 25.6±5.7 years, and it contained six men and 13 women. The CAT scans of the control group were