James P. Mayo

A study of the TRH test in a family with psychiatric illness: A reflection on the TRH test as a state-trait marker

The discovery that about 30% of depressed patients exhibit a blunted thyrotropin (TSH) response to thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) (Loosen and Prange 1982) has led to a number of strategies to investigate the significance of this marker. Currently, a major issue is whether the TRH test is state-dependent or is a trait marker. There is evidence to support both possibilities. Kirkegaard (1981) and Targum (1984) have noted that some TSH blunters change to nonblunters with recovery. Loosen et al. (1977) and Linkowski et al. (1981) have reported clear instances in which the blunted TSH response persists after remission. These observations suggest that the TSH response in some cases is a state marker and in others a trait marker. However, there is little information on whether or not a blunted TSH response is present prior to an affective episode. One method to test this is to study populations at risk for affective disorders, such as fam-

The presistence of stimulant effects in chronically treated children: further evidence of an inverse relationship between drug effects and placebo levels of response

Seventeen hyperactive children who had been treated for 1–5 years with methylphenidate were studied in a double-blind placebo-controlled crossover study. Specific measures of stimulant response were found to be inversely related to the subjects level of response in the placebo condition. This inverse relationship was previously found to characterize the clinical effects of hyperactive children in an acute-treatment paradigm. It is equally valid in a chronic-treatment study. “State-contingency” is not, therefore, simply a function of the “novelty” of initial drug treatment.

A developmental study of temporal duration judgments

First, third, fifth, and seventh graders and college students (18 per grade) made four serial reproductions of each of three time intervals, 8, 13, and 32 sec. The results paralleled those of other studies using only adults since both the psychophysical function and the Weber fraction were typical, and magnitude of judgments was an increasing, negatively accelerated function of trials. None of these effects was a function of age nor were there any age effects in an analysis of variable errors. Analysis of first-degree sequential dependency of judgments (using lag correlations) revealed a slight negative recency which was also invariant with age of Ss.