Differential diagnosis of endogenous psychoses in relation to a symptom catalog

The paper introduces a catalog of symptoms to promote in the field of endogenous psychoses differentiated diagnosis, at the same time constituting a prognosis. Symptoms should be more minutely differentiated than is customary in psychiatric questionnaires. Manic-depressive disorders and purely phasal psychoses are distinguished solely in the clinical evaluation. Thus benign cycloid psychoses can be distinguished from malignant unsystematic schizophrenia.     

Some suggestions on epileptic psychoses, their differential diagnosis and therapy

From a present point of view, some clinical suggestions are put forward concerning the symptomatology, differential diagnostics, and therapy of psychotic states in epileptic patients (twilight states, states of emotional deterioration and epileptic psychoses proper).     

Catamnestic surveys on somato-psychosocial development in childhood and adolescence of patients with unipolar depressive and bipolar manic-depressive psychoses

The somatic and psychosocial development of 80 subjects with manifest affective-phasic psychoses is studied retrospectively and compared with that of an identically sized control group consisting of neuropsychiatrically healthy subjects. Statistically significant differences were found particularly in the answers to questions dealing with social situation and social adaptability. Achievement at school and vocational qualifications were lower among the parents of the patients than among those of the healthy subjects. Characteristic features of the patients' childhood and adolescence were transient depression, often for no apparent cause, and maladaption, and vocational wishes were fulfilled less often than among the controls. The patients experienced greater difficulty in settling in to a new group due to their contact difficulties.     

Determination of similarity and dissimilarity of endogenous psychoses in monozygotic twins based on a differential diagnosis

The frequently published opinion that endogenous psychoses in monozygotic twins often show a marked lack of similarity could not be confirmed by the results of studies performed by the author and his associates. In general, differenting diagnosis allows the particular syndrome, on which the establishment of the respective diagnosis is based, to be nearly always observed in either partner. On the other hand, changes of mood, which are accessory symptoms, often show a different picture which may perhaps be regarded as being due to the fact that monozygotic twins often differ in their respective temperaments. The course and severity of the disease also usually show considerable differences which may in part be due to additional affections.     

Differential diagnosis of cluttering and stuttering in Bulgaria

Fifteen stutterers, primarily children, who visited the Medical Pedagogical Department at the University of Blagoevgrad were evaluated for a variety of criteria used in Bulgaria to differentiate cluttering, stuttering, and mixed cluttering and stuttering. The same battery of tests was administered to all subjects. Based on these criteria, five subjects were diagnosed as clutterers, six as stutterers, and four as mixed. Daly's (1992–1993) Checklist for Possible Cluttering, Experimental Edition was also utilized to classify the subjects. Differences between the differential diagnostic criteria used by Bulgarian logopedists and other authors are discussed.     

Mood-congruent bias and attention shifts in the different episodes of bipolar disorder

An “affective” go/no-go task was used in the different episodes of bipolar patients (euthymic, depressed, and manic) to examine (1) the presence of a mood-congruent attentional bias; and (2) the patients' ability to inhibit and invert associations between stimuli and responses through blocks. A group of healthy individuals served as controls. Results revealed a mood-congruent attentional bias: patients in the manic episode processed positive information faster, whereas those in the depressive episode processed negative information faster. In contrast, neither euthymic patients nor healthy individuals showed any mood-congruent biases. Furthermore, there was a shift cost across blocks for healthy individuals, but not for the patients. This may reflect a general impairment at selecting relevant information (e.g., in terms of disability to inhibit and invert associations between stimuli and responses) in bipolar participants, regardless of their episode. This state/trait dissociation in an episodic and chronic disorder such as bipolar disorder is important for its appropriate characterisation.     

Determinants of tonic and phasic reactions in transswitching

Forty-eight college students were assigned randomly to four groups in a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of phasic conditional stimuli (samevs. different) and tonic conditional stimuli (samevs. different) to receive 2 days of classical conditioning with a transswitching procedure. Tonic stimuli were a 5-minute projected white triangle or circle; phasic stimuli were a 5-second red or green square superimposed over the tonic stimuli. There were six tonic stimulus segments each day, separated by 20-second periods of no stimulus, three containing six trials of the phasic stimulus paired with shock and three containing six trials of the phasic stimulus alone, in the counterbalanced order. Tonic responding at the onset of the tonic stimuli or during brief periods following its onset were recorded, along with phasic responses to the phasic stimuli. Responses included magnitude of skin conductance responses, frequency of unelicited skin conductance responses, and tonic heart rate. Both skin conductance measures of responding to the tonic stimuli differentiated significantly between positive and negative tonic segments during Day 2, but only in the group with two different tonic stimuli and one phasic stimulus (“standard” transswitching). This supported the hypothesis that tonic stimulus differentiation would be absent when two different phasic stimuli were present. The heart rate data did not support this hypothesis, showing tonic differentiation in both groups with two tonic stimuli. Phasic differentiation controlled by the different phasic stimuli was observed on Day 1; on Day 2, phasic differentiation was present only in the group with two tonic and one phasic stimuli and the group with one tonic and two phasic stimuli. The results were interpreted to mean that temporal contiguity between the tonic stimuli and shock or no shock is not sufficient to establish tonic response differentiation in transswitching.