Frank Stallone

Personality features of patients with primary affective disorder

personality variables were assessed in outpatients with primary affective disorder by use of the Maudsley Personality Inventory (MPI) and the Marke Nyman Temperament Scale (MNTS). Significant differences between diagnostic groups were initially noted for the extraversion and neuroticism scales of the MPI. However, when mood was more rigorously controlled for, these differences largely disappeared, while interdiagnostic differences for the solidity scale of the MNTS emerged. The findings suggest that these measured aspects of personality may be quite state (mood) dependent even when patients are given test instructions previously reported to minimize mood effects. This was born out in a follow‐up study for the N scale, but not the E scale, of the MPI. These data indicate that assessment of neutroticism in affectively ill patients will be contaminated by the presence of even mild depressive symptoms, a finding that has important implications for studies of personality in affective disorder.

Statistical predictions of suicide in depressives

The purpose of the present study was to determine how accurately suicide potential could be identified among patients with primary affective disorder by means of multivariate statistical procedures. Among patients with this disorder, suicide has been estimated to be about 30 times more prevalent than in the general population1 and to be the cause of death in about 15% of patients.2 However, many patients with depressive disorder never attempt suicide or become preoccupied with suicidal thoughts. The present study is concerned with identifying some of the factors that distinguish the suicidal from the nonsuicidal depressive. A number of studies to derive predictions of suicide potential by multivariate statistical means have appeared recently. Some that have applied vague predictor variables and met with little success have been reviewed elsewhere.3 Others have been concerned with a diagnostically heterogeneous group of patients with a history of suicide attempts in order to determine prognostic factors associated with repeated attempts.4,5 In contrast, the present study was concerned with a diagnostically homogeneous group that is heterogeneous with regard to suicidal behavior. These patients were classified as attemptors, contemplators, or nonsuicidals according to their responses in a structured interview, and the ability of predictor variables to identify membership in one of these groups was assessed by means of discriminant function analysis. The predictor variables were age, sex, marital status, diagnostic subtype, family history of suicidal behavior, and scaled ratings of work impairment and social isolation.

Psychosis as a predictor of response to lithium maintenance treatment in bipolar affective disorder.

Sixty-six bipolar I lithium clinic patients were studied for a history of psychotic symptoms at some time during the course of their illness. Agreement between different sources of information was calculated, and the patient population was divided into psychotic and non-psychotic subgroups. Probability of remaining well on lithium for the different subgroups was analyzed by the life table method. Psychosis during mania appeared to be associated with especially good early lithium prophylaxis.

Plasma dopamine Β hydroxylase activity in affective disorders

Plasma dopamine Β hydroxylase (DBH) activity was measured in patients with affective disorders and in their relatives. The groups studied had wide distributions of values for plasma DBH activity. No significant difference of plasma DBH activity was found between unipolar and bipolar patients, nor between patients given lithium or placebo. Exercise on a treadmill at 40‡ or 10‡ C elicited a different pattern of response for plasma DBH activity in 3 patients as compared to control subjects. In familial studies we found the values of plasma DBH activity to be almost identical in monozygotic twin pairs and quite similar in dizygotic twin pairs. All pairs, however, were discordant for affective illness. There was also a marked similarity of plasma DBH activity in 15 pairs of same sex sibs discordant for affective illness, These studies suggest that the resting level of plasma DBH activity is not related to affective illness but is genetically determined.

Metabolism of naturally occurring Rb in the human: The constancy of urinary RbK

Abstract Our observations demonstrate that there is a large variability in the amount of rubidium excreted each day; that the variability is not diminished by controlling the amount of potassium ingested; that, although the daily rubidium excretion is independent of minor variations in daily potassium ingestion, it is well correlated with long-term levels of potassium ingestion; and that the variability in the rubidium excretion is markedly diminished when the rubidium excretion is computed as a ratio to potassium excretion. Since it is not the daily variation in ingestion, but rather in excretion, that relates the daily excretion of potassium to rubidium, it seems clear that the factors that normally control potassium flux can operate at the same time to control rubidium flux.