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Biomedical subjects

I Modai

Publications and source records attributed to I Modai.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
PubMed1985

Penicillamine therapy for schizophreniform psychosis in Wilson's disease.

A hospitalized 22-year-old woman had suffered from Wilson's disease for the past 11 years. The diagnosis was confirmed by hepatic nonspecific changes, high copper urine excretion, and low to zero serum ceruloplasmin, but psychiatric symptomatology was the main manifestation of the disease. The history of treatment modalities and a controlled trial with penicillamine revealed a clear priority of this drug over phenothiazines in abolishing the psychotic features of the disease. The effective dose in this case was found to be over 1650 mg/day. The mental state, as measured by the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, was clearly correlated to the dose of penicillamine. In addition, there was a tendency to increased copper excretion with penicillamine treatment. This case suggests a connection between copper brain poisoning and the related acute psychotic features, which responded well to penicillamine treatment.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

Autoscopic and drug-induced perceptual disturbances. A case report.

The unique association of autoscopic and toxic hallucinatory phenomena is presented. These two phenomena were clearly differentiated by two clinical aspects--their course of appearance and the patient's attitude. Various conditions affecting the central nervous system have been associated with the autoscopic phenomena. In this case, hallucinatory disturbances were caused by drug intoxication. However, the special features of the autoscopic phenomena were retained and could be clearly distinguished. Psychiatrists should be familiar with the syndrome as lack of clinical recognition might cause wrong treatment decisions--as presented in our patient.

Clomipramine↗
PubMed1984

Parenteral abuse of diazepam: a case report.

A 26-year-old male was admitted to the emergency ward, presenting what seemed to be an acute dystonic crisis. The patient was found to be an oral and parenteral abuser of Valium (diazepam). He used to feign the dystonic syndrome in order to get an i.v. shot of the drug.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

5-Hydroxytryptamine uptake by blood platelets of unipolar and bipolar depressed patients.

The active transport of 5-hydroxytryptamine (5HT) by blood platelets of unipolar and bipolar depressed patients was determined. The 5HT uptake by platelets of bipolar patients was determined in depressive, euthymic and manic states. The 5HT uptake was always followed by studying platelets of healthy individuals of the same sex and age. The results confirm the known fact that there is a decreased 5HT active transport in platelets of unipolar depressed patients. On the other hand, the amount of 5HT transported by platelets of bipolar depressed patients was higher than that observed in platelets of healthy individuals. In manic and euthymic bipolar patients the uptake was similar to their matched controls.

Bipolar Disorder↗
PubMed1982

Masked depression--an ambiguous entity.

The term 'masked depression' is not accepted in current psychiatric classification for three basic reasons: (1) It is not a unique type of a disease or a syndrome, but a state or a stage which is a part of the depressive syndromes. (2) No special list of symptoms which has enough specificity, reliability and validity can be drawn in order to describe this state. (3) The term 'masked' is vague, and is in contradiction to the basic necessity to describe what is observed in contrast to what is unobservable and masked. However, precise and scientific criteria may be unsuitable for diagnostic purposes in these cases which are quite common; thus an entity which has a deep meaning and begs recognition among general physicians may be ignored. In addition, diagnosis of such depression is very important to allow for suitable and adequate treatment procedures. Diagnostic problems, clarification of the term 'masked' and the procedures of diagnosis are discussed in the article.

Depressive Disorder↗
PubMed1980

A comparative uptake study of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine by platelets of acute schizophrenic patients.

Active uptake of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine by blood platelets of 22 acute schizophrenic patients and 15 normal control subjects was studied over a 6-week period. The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) was used to evaluate the subjects' mental state over this period. Serotonin uptake by platelets of the schizophrenic group was 40% lower than that by platelets of the control group (p less than 0.001). No significant differences in uptake of dopamine or norepinephrine were observed. These results might reflected a genetic defect in the schizophrenic patients. No significant correlations were found between the biochemical and BPRS results. A correlation was found between the uptake results with dopamine and norepinephrine but not between these amines and serotonin. This finding may provide indirect support for previously published experimental data which suggest that the carriers to dopamine and norepinephrine differ in function from those of serotonin.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1980

Conversive hallucinations.

Reports of conversive hallucinations are rare in the literature. A case is presented describing the psychogenesis and phenomenology of hallucinations experienced by a female patient.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

Serotonin uptake by blood platelets of acute schizophrenic patients.

Active uptake of serotonin by blood platelets of acute schizophrenic patients has been compared to that of a control group. Preliminary results presented in this article indicate that the uptake of the schizophrenic patients was about 40% lower than that of controls. Patients were followed over a period of 5 weeks with no significant change in uptake.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1979

Hysterical sleep episodes as a manifestation of masked depression.

A 55-year-old man suffered from compulsive sleep episodes as a manifestation of masked depression. Although the overt symptoms were conversive in nature, the treatment which finally focused on the depression was followed by disappearance of the patient's recurring sleeping spells for the first time in 4 years. Three methods were used: a) supportive psychotherapy, b) behavior therapy, and c) antidepressive medication. We conclude that the behavior treatment indirectly revealed the masked depression previously concealed by rigid defense mechanisms.

Amitriptyline↗
PubMed1979

Response to amitriptyline and urinary MHPG in bipolar depressive patients.

This investigation was done in order to test the hypothesis that urinary MHPG levels provide a predictor of response to therapy in depressed patients. 15 elderly biopolar depressives were included in this study. Their depressive state was estimated by the Hamilton Depressive Scale and their urinary MHPG levels were simultaneously measured before and after 5 weeks of amitriptyline therapy. When comparing amitriptyline responders to nonresponders by parametric techniques, the responders excreted significantly higher mean MHPG levels before the treatment than the nonresponders. During treatment MHPG levels rose significantly in both groups.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Relaxation times and concentrations of 7Li in the brain of patients receiving lithium therapy.

The present study describes a protocol for the determination of in vivo absolute molar concentrations of Li+ in the human brain using a double tuned 1H/7Li surface coil. The protocol follows the method of Thulborn and Ackerman [J. Mag. Reson. 55, 357-371 (1983)] where the ratio of the signal intensities of 7Li and 1H in the brain is compared to the same ratio in a phantom containing known concentrations of Li+. The 7Li T1 values in the brains of five patients receiving lithium therapy were measured. The average result was T1 = 3.5 +/- 0.25 s. The phantom solution was adjusted to have this T1 value. The protocol was applied for eight bipolar patients receiving lithium therapy. The average ratio of brain to serum lithium molar concentration was found to be 0.59 +/- 0.12.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Changes in psychological symptoms during the adjustment of recent immigrants.

In the present study, we sought to compare the number, severity, and frequency of psychological symptoms and the intensity of perceived stressors among immigrants with previously identified positive, negative, or normal patterns of distress. We evaluated 199 recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel using the Talbieh Brief Distress Inventory (TBDI) and the Perceived Immigration-Related Stressors Scale (PIRSS) with a 1-year follow-up period. As predicted, the number, severity, and frequency of psychological symptoms and the intensity of perceived stress factors vary among immigrants showing different distress patterns. A negative pattern was associated with an increase in the total number, severity, and frequency of distress-related symptoms and persisting cultural-related stress over time. A positive pattern was associated with a reduction in the overall number and severity of symptoms, as well as a decline in the frequency of distress-free symptoms and the intensity of all but informational-related stressors. A normal pattern was characterized by the reduction of distress symptoms within a normal range along with material- and health-related stresses. Our findings confirm the validity of the suggested classification for different patterns of distress and its usefulness in establishing the prognosis for the adjustment of immigrants.

Depression↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Gender differences in psychosocial risk factors for psychological distress among immigrants.

The reasons for a greater prevalence of psychological distress among women than men remain unknown. We sought to test two hypotheses that gender operates either as (1) a moderator or (2) a mediator between psychosocial risk factors and experienced distress. A cross-sectional community survey of 1,062 adult Russian-born Jewish immigrants to Israel was conducted. The Demographic Psychosocial Inventory (DPSI) and the Talbieh Brief Distress Inventory (TBDI) were used to measure the parameters of interest. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to test the moderation versus mediational hypotheses of gender in the stress-distress relationship. The aggregate levels of psychological distress and depression, anxiety, and obsessive symptoms were significantly higher for women than for men. Five sources of distress were more likely to be reported by women: family problems, inappropriate climatic conditions, anxiety about the future, poor health status, and uncertainty in the present life situation. Men scored higher on three stress-protective factors: the number of reasons for immigration, commitment to the host country, and job adequacy. Results of multiple regression and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) supported the mediation hypothesis that gender differences in psychological distress stem from women's greater exposure to specific psychosocial stressors. Our findings demonstrate the validity of gender as an important mediating mechanism underlying the differential perception of risk factors for the development of psychological distress.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Neural network detection of files of suicidal patients and suicidal profiles.

The optimal configuration of backpropagation (BP) neural networks was determined after 35 trials with different BP configurations evaluating the total detection rate. Ten different training and testing sets were used to identify optimal samples. All trials included sample files of patients with medically serious suicidal attempts (MSSA) and those of non-suicidal patients. Fifty files were used in each group for training and 49 files for testing with no overlap between the samples. The target variable for training was seriousness of suicide attempt (0 = non-suicidal, 1 = MSSA). The input set included 44 demographic, clinical and patient-history variables. The optimal results showed that 93.8% of MSSA and 89.8% of the non-suicidal patient files were detected. Total success rate (TSR) was 91.8% and positive and negative prediction values (PPV, NPV) were 92% and 95.6%, respectively. Living alone (6.76), treatment compliance (5.86), drug abuse or dependence (2.8), global assessment of functioning (GAF) score (1.49), non-paranoid delusions (1.22) and suicide of first degree relative (1.1) were highly associated with MSSA according to the Garson calculation. However, logistic regression attributed high importance to hallucinations (p < 0.0001), diagnosis (p < 0.002), number of children (p < 0.006), GAF score (p < 0.006), employment status (p < 0.02) and stressors (p < 0.03). It was shown that: backpropagation neural networks are very successful in identifying records of MSSA patients; a high GAF score is associated with high risk of MSSA and is the only common variable identified by both methods; and backpropagation identified two non-specific factors (living alone and treatment compliance) whereas statistics found specific factors (hallucinations and diagnosis) highly associated with MSSA.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Backpropagation and adaptive resonance theory in predicting suicidal risk.

The ability of backpropagation and adaptive resonance theory (ART) neural networks to predict the probability of complete suicide, within a two year span, in major psychiatric patients was investigated. Variables associated with suicide risk were collected from the files of 161 hospitalized psychiatric patients with a 10 year or greater history of illness. 84 patients were hospitalized due to suicide attempts and 77 had no previous suicide attempts or ideations. Suicide attempts were rated as medically serious suicide attempts (MSSA) or non-MSSA and used for training the systems. The ability of the neural networks was evaluated by screening the extremes of the suicidal spectrum (1) 54 records of patients who committed suicide and (2) 150 records of patients who never had suicidal thoughts. The records were taken from 3 hospitals, in various geographic regions in Israel. Neither neural network system is reliable in predicting suicide, however, records from one hospital, Gehah Hospital, were better identified than those from the two other hospitals (p < 0.05 for PPV; p < 0.01 for specificity). At present, neural networks are not reliable instruments for evaluating suicidal risk due to the significant number of false positive results. When low risk was indicated reliability was greater (NPV = 75.28%, specificity = 97.10% with ART; NPV = 91.76%, specificity = 95.12% with backpropagation). However, PPV, NPV and specificity rates of both systems achieved with Gehah Hospital records suggest that using a direct-subjective questionnaire may produce better results in the future. ART and backpropagation performed similarly in all measurements.

Humans↗