Renato Lazzari

Hyperendorphinemia in obesity and relationships to affective state

Eight obese patients (exceeding ideal body weight by 50% or more) with no endocrinological or metabolic disorders and 8 healthy, age-matched, normal-weight volunteers were submitted to an overnight short dexamethasone (DXM) suppression test and to a psychological assessment through various psychometric scales. Plasma B-Endorphin (B-EP), B-Lipotropin (B-LPH), ACTH and cortisol concentrations were evaluated in basal conditions, as well as 9 and 17 hours after late night administration of 1 mg DXM in both groups. All hormones were measured by radioimmunoassay, either directly in the plasma (ACTH and cortisol) or after silicic acid extraction and Sephadex G-75 column chromatography (B-LPH and B-EP). In obese patients, plasma B-EP levels in basal conditions were three times higher than in normal weight controls and remained unaltered by DXM suppression. ACTH and B-LPH, in contrast, were within the normal range and were significantly reduced by DXM. In 3 of the 8 patients, plasma cortisol concentrations at 17 hours post-DXM were greater than 50 ng/ml indicating an early escape from the suppression. Psychometric evaluations revealed a prevalence of depressive personality in obese patients. These data indicate an hypersecretion of B-EP in obese patients, which is only partially dependent on hypothalamic control.

Neurotransmitter, opiodergic system, steroid-hormone interaction and involvement in the replacement therapy of sexual disorders

Dopamine (DA) and serotonin (5-HT) are the neurotransmitters most directly involved in sexual activity. DA plays a stimulatory role while 5-HT has an inhibitory effect. The two monoaminergic systems modulate the secretion of many hormones (GnRH, LH, testosterone, prolactin and endorphins) involved in sexual functional capacity. Furthermore, hormones influence synthesis and storage of brain neurotransmitters. Impotence can often be associated to clinical depression and altered neurotransmitter function. Moreover, stress represents an unbalance between various neurotransmitter systems and can induce impotence especially when disorders of the endorphinic system are present. Replacement therapy is based upon the understanding of these basic concepts. Impotence due to an underlying depressive illness must be treated with dopaminergic antidepressant drugs; while in stressful conditions a good response to the naloxone test is the preliminary criterion to subsequent naltrexone treatment. When a hormonal deficiency has been proved, the hormone replacement therapy is of course highly effective (gonadotropins in hypogonadotropic syndromes, testosterone in aging, etc.). Finally, idiopathic impotence could be treated by DA agonist and/or 5-HT antagonist drugs either alone or better yet in association with psychotherapy.

A new scale for the adjective check list based on self vs. ideal‐self discrepancies

Obtained self and ideal-self protocols on the Adjective Check List for 100 American Air Force officers and 95 Italian young men who were applying for a nation-wide precollege military training school. Comparison of endorsement rates for the 300 items in the ACL detected 44 that showed appreciable and similar shifts in both samples. On 31 endorsement increased and on 13 it decreased. The real-self protocols then were scored, +1 each time a positive item was checked and - 1 for each endorsement of a negative item. Self-ideal congruence was measured by the phi correlation between the two protocols from each person. Scores on the new scale correlated. 63 with phi in the American and 0.46 in the Italian samples. Ratings and adjectival descriptions by observers were available for the American sample. Their relationship to scores on the new scale suggested it to be a measure of social poise, ambition, and initiative more than of personal soundness or self-insight.

Correlations for the Rorschach with the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking

The present study examined the correlations between some variables of the Rorschach test and scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking which were administered to 40 normal volunteers. The Rorschach protocols were scored using Exner System. All the variables of the Figural Form of the Torrance tests showed clear association with the Developmental Quality, Synthesised Responses of the Rorschach, except for the Figural Elaboration scores. The group of Verbal variables of the Torrance tests correlated with the scores on Space and Unusual Form Quality Responses of the Rorschach. The results are discussed in terms of the cognitive operations involved in creative aspects of thinking.

Hyperendorphinemia in obesity is not related to the affective state

In seventy-two patients affected by hyperphagic obesity and forty age-matched, normal weight volunteers we performed a psychological assessment, through various mental tests, and evaluated the beta-endorphin (B-Ep), ACTH and cortisol circulating levels, in basal condition and following an overnight short dexamethasone suppression test (DST). The hormones were measured by radioimmunoassay either directly in the serum (cortisol) and the plasma (ACTH), or after affinity gel column chromatography (B-Ep). In obese subjects B-Ep levels in basal conditions were four times greater than in normal weight controls and showed significantly less reduction after DST. ACTH and cortisol levels, in contrast, were in the normal range and were suppressed following dexamethasone as was also true in the control group. Psychological evaluation on M.M.P.I. (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) revealed a trend toward hypochondria, depression, hysterias, psychoasthenia and schizophrenia. However, no significant correlation has been found between M.M.P.I. clinical scale scores and circulating levels of B-Ep and cortisol either in basal conditions or after DST. In conclusion, these data do not support the hypothesis that abnormalities of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis in hyperphagic obesity are related to affective disorders.

A cross‐cultural unisex ideal self scale for the adjective check list

Item analyses of self-report and ideal-self Adjective Check List protocols of 100 American men, 146 American women, 95 Italian males, and 134 Italian females permitted the identification of 46 items that showed consistent and statistically significant differentiations. The Ideal Self scale (Iss) comprised of these items had internal alpha reliabilities of .86, .86, .84, and .82 in the four subsamples. Correlations between Iss and phi coefficients of congruence between self protocols were .72, .75, .45, and .51 in the same four samples. Iss was moderately related to social desirability (median r = .40), but gave rise to a pattern of descriptive ratings rather different from that produced by the desirability measure. Iss scores on self-report protocols were indicative of social effectiveness and goal-attaining abilities among high-scorers, and of constriction and social ineffectiveness among low-scorers.

A 15-Item Form of the F Scale and a Cross-Cultural Application

Summary Item analyses of the 30-item F Scale in a sample of 355 Ss, and proportionate selection from the nine inferential item clusters first specified for this measure, permitted development of a 15-item version that correlated .95 with the original scale. Application of the shortened version to 194 American and 311 Italian subjects produced nearly equivalent means, but greater variance in the Italian sample. Reliability coefficients were .83 for the American sample and .90 for the Italian. Five items revealed significant differences, interpretable in accordance with known cultural emphases and historical experiences. Testing time for the 15-item scale was approximately five minutes. Complaints about item content were less insistent than typically encountered with the 30-item scale.

Emotional activation of obese and normal women due to imagery and food content of verbal stimuli in a memory task.

The aim of this study is to look for correlation between a physiological variable (skin conductance, SCL) and cognitive variables (reaction time, RT and productivity score) obtained in a memory task. Subjects were 17 females, including 7 patients and 10 controls. Patients were recruited among women who went to a clinic for alimentary disorders because of obesity and volunteered for this study; controls were normal women of comparable age without any alimentary problem. Tonic variations of SCL were recorded by a computerized polygraph during the execution of the cognitive task, which consisted of a computerized presentation of frequent, everyday used words evenly divided according to an alimentary/nonalimentary content and to a high/low imagery quality. The acquisition session was followed by an immediate recognition session where subjects were asked to identify the previously presented words among an equal number of similar words not included in the acquisition list. The two session series (acquisition and recognition) were repeated three times to evaluate the learning curve and habituation. This same procedure was separately performed with high imagery alimentary/nonalimentary words and with another list of low imagery alimentary/nonalimentary words. During the recognition tasks, both RT and productivity scores were recorded. A correlation analysis between cognitive and physiological variables was carried out to explore how subjects with different attitudes to food react in cognitive and somatic terms when exposed to verbal stimuli concerning this topic and to neutral verbal stimuli. Results show that obese patients have a different emotional activation in front of these verbal stimuli where both the cognitive activity and the somatic responses are affected by their involvement with the verbal stimuli. On the contrary, the imagery effect does not seem to be influenced by the content and by the idiosyncratic reactions to it of the specific groups of subjects.

Attitudes Related to the Number of Children Wanted and Expected by College Students in Three Countries

A 40-item questionnaire for assessing attitudes toward contraception, abortion, family planning, population management, and modernity was administered to 562 American, 419 Italian, and 136 Swiss college students (515 males, 602 females). Information regarding number of children wanted and expected was also obtained. Transnational difference on the five scales were more pronounced for females than for males. American students scored highest on population management and Swiss students scored highest on modernity. Italian students scored lower than the other two samples on favorability of attitudes toward abortion. The five attitude scales had primarily negative relationships to number of children wanted and expected by male and female subsamples in all three countries. Regression analyses of the attitude measures against the two criteria (number of children wanted and expected) identified linear combinations of the scales that produced, respectively, cross-validational coefficients of .38 and .34 for males and .36 and .40 for females.

Rorschach Measures during Depth Hypnosis and Suggestion of a Previous Life

Using a procedure with suggestions to prompt false memories from an alleged previous Life, we hypnotized 16 normal subjects and collected Rorschach data before and during the hypnotic induction. During hypnosis 9 subjects produced memories that they claimed to remember from a former life. The Rorschach findings bore no resemblance to the available data for other dissociative disorders. Rorschach variables during hypnotic trance remained almost unchanged from baseline. These results indicate that the Rorschach poorly reflects hypnotic trance.