We studied glucocorticoid receptor autoregulation and corticotropin response to dexamethasone in depressed patients and controls, attempting to control for the confounding effect of endogenous glucocorticoids. After depletion of endogenous cortisol, depressed patients showed an attenuated suppressibility of corticotropin by dexamethasone in the face of unchanged dexamethasone plasma levels. Bet...

The prevalence of use of medicines with a known potential to cause depression among 40 elderly depressives and 20 matched controls was studied. Results showed that the prevalence was not significantly different between the two groups. Within the patient group, the prevalence was independent of the variables of sex, nature and severity of depression, and history of previous episodes of affective...

Acute caffeine administration increases cortisol and converts the dexamethasone suppression test (DST) to nonsuppression in normal humans; data concerning chronic administration as well as effects in depressed patients are minimal. To determine whether caffeine intake influenced DST results in depression, we retrospectively studied the relationship between regular daily caffeine consumption and...

A door to door field-survey was conducted in two villages by a team of psychiatrists with the aim of assessing the mental morbidity of the population. The present communication is restricted to the mental morbidity of the elderly population aged 60 years and above. The total sample comprised 183 persons (male 85, female 98). Majority of the families (44.2%) belonged to class IV according to Par...

The relation between cognitive distortion and depression, found in adult affective disorders, has not previously been demonstrated in childhood affective disorders. Therefore, a Cognitive Bias Questionnaire for Children (CBQC) was developed to examine this relation in a sample of 39 psychiatrically disturbed children and adolescents. The depressed-distorted (DD) scale from the CBQC was signific...

This report is based on a study of 12 cases of depression (8 endogenous, 4 neurotic) with a view to explore the possible association between urinary melatonin and the illness prior to and following treatment. While cases of endogenous depression had low 24 hour as well as nocturnal urinary melatonin levels, the neurotic depressives showed higher than normal levels. A rise in the 24 hour melaton...

The association between abnormal Dexamethasone Suppression Test (DST) and sleep electroencephalographic (EEG) findings and depressives’ response to active drug treatment is equivocal. Recently, however, investigators have attempted to determine the relationship between these measures and response to somatic versus nonsomatic treatment. Carroll (1985) has reported that DST nonsuppressors are not...

The baseline EEG sleep patterns of 10 young depressed patients, 20 patients with anorexia nervosa, 10 patients with bulimia nervosa, and 10 healthy subjects were found to be indistinguishable, except for an increased REM density in the depressed patients. In eating disorder patients, a concomitant major depressive episode had no influence on EEG sleep. The results of the cholinergic REM sleep i...

Little difference was found between the psychiatric symptoms of medical patients and general-population subjects with affective disorder, both groups having been assessed with the same procedure (Present State Examination). Discrimination between medical patients with and without affective disorder was best achieved when patients with depressive and anxiety disorders were considered separately....