Among the common psychiatric illnesses a genetic predisposition is most apparent, and evidence for dominant inheritance strongest, in manic-depressive disease. The protean manifestations encourage the speculation that it is a group of conditions with differing aetiology. Bipolar affective illness in which episodes of illness of both depressive and manic character, frequently unrelated to situat...

An 11 year old boy presented with 30 day continuous cycles of bipolar illness occurring regularly for 9 months without any genetic predisposition for affective illness. The patient was refractory to Lithium but Carbamazepine proved to be highly effective. The various unusual features of the case are highlighted and discussed.

In the search for paradigms of postulated abnormalities in indolamine function in the brain in affective disorders, 5-HT uptake and release was estimated in platelets from patients suffering from severe depressive illness. Neither of these measures was altered by the illness and the most likely explanation for the negative findings was that in this setting platelets are not a suitable model.

BACKGROUND More severe and persistent forms of affective disorders are accompanied by grey matter loss in key frontal and temporal structures. It is unclear whether such changes precede the onset of illness, occur early in the course or develop gradually with persistence or recurrence of illness. A total of 47 young people presenting with admixtures of depressive and psychotic symptoms were rec...

Psychiatric morbidity among 230 medical inpatients was determined by a two-stage screening procedure, using the General Health Questionnaire and Standardized Psychiatric Interview. Of these patients, 23% were considered psychiatrically ill, affective disorders being the commonest illnesses encountered; and 27 (12%) were psychiatrically referred. While referral was related to severity of psychia...

BACKGROUND Research on theory of mind (ToM) abilities in patients with bipolar disorder has yielded conflicting results. Meta-analyses point to a stable moderate impairment in remitted patients, but factors such as subsyndromal symptoms, illness severity, and deficits in basic neurocognitive functions might act as confounders. Also, differences in deficits depending on task area (cognitive or a...

BACKGROUND Population-based studies of cognitive and behavioral premorbid functioning in psychotic disorders generally focus on late adolescence in schizophrenia and most are based on IQ test scores. AIMS To examine differences in school grades at the ages of 13-14 between persons hospitalized during adulthood for schizophrenia or affective disorders and their peers. METHODS Ten years of sc...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Temperament and mood swings are promising indicators for the characterization of mood spectrum vulnerability. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between affective temperament and mood swings in bipolar disorder. We explored these clinical features retrospectively. METHODS Patients who met the criteria for bipolar I disorder were enrolled in the study. Ex...