Architectonic distribution of acetylcholinesterase in the frontal isocortex of psychotic and nonpsychotic patients.

Abstract

WHETHER study of the physics and chemistry of the brain can contribute importantly to fuller understanding of the nature of mental illness is a question to which present knowledge furnishes no clear answer. With certain simple exceptions, translations are not now possible between verifiable assertions in physical language concerning that structure of spatiotemporal events which is the brain in action and those in psychological language that describe behavior and, within the framework of psychodynamics, postulate its determinants. Both systems of assertions refer to aspects of single sets of occurrences, and, a priori, there is no reason for devaluation or exclusion of either as a means toward greater understanding of the phenomena of psychiatry. Classic neuropathology has sought unavailingly for a characteristic brain lesion in the major psychoses. Innumerable claims to the contrary, it must be acknowledged that at the level of histopathology and cytopathology no unique, characteristic, or consistent anatomical