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Biomedical subjects

J C Scotto

Publications and source records attributed to J C Scotto.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

[The health of foreign populations in France].

In France, 8% of the population are foreign. They come from the lowest socio-economic level. In distinguishing the new arrivals from those who have lived in France for several years, the migrant related health patterns are applied. Health problems of foreigners in France can be examined in a number of different ways: --Foreign workers are found in unskilled work and in jobs where they are constantly subjected to hazards of the workplace, occupational health risks and accidents. --The quality of maternal and child health care among foreign women is lower than among the French. --Foreign children are hospitalized more often and for longer than French children. The types of illness are not specific. The truancy rate is more significant than the national mean. --Restrictions on the opportunities for enjoying certain social rights, administrative and financial obstacles encountered as well as difficulties in communication all make it harder to meet the needs of this section of the population.

Child

[A double-blind nomifensine-nortriptyline trial in ambulatory patients conducted by psychiatrists in private practice: results and comments].

Nomifensine and nortriptyline were compared in a collaborative trial by psychiatrists in private practice. The trial impiled:--selection of ambulatory depressed patients--randomization in parallel groups (respectively 31 and 34 subjects)--administration in double-blind condition of 4 capsuels daily of either compound during 4 weeks--quotation of depressvie syndrom with Hamilton depression scale before treatment after 2 and 4 weeks. The analysis of results shows clear improvment of depression scores, equivalent in both groups (non significant difference and posterior rejection of an alternative hypothesis). Practical problems encountered in controlled trials in psychiatrist's outpatients are discussed.

Adolescent

[Alterations of sleep caused by acute and chronic adminstration of lithium].

The sleep of 2 groups of subjects receiving lithium was studied. Ten normal controls after 17 days of lithium had a significant decrease of Paradoxical Sleep duration, with an increase of PS latency. A second group of 10 manic-depressive patients had received lithium for 22 +/- 6 months when they were recorded. They had a greater amount of slow wave sleep than the control group before lithium but the difference of PS duration was only related to a first night effect. Therefore sleep changes induced by lithium are different according to the duration of lithium administration. In any case they are less important than those induced by most of the anti-depressants.

Adult

[Metapramine: antidepressant and psycho-stimulant].

Metapramine is a new antidepressant drug. A tricyclic molecule gives it a novel activity in so far as its thymoanaleptic and, at the same time, psychostimulating actions are concerned. Quick acting, metapramine has a very interesting peculiarity: its large tolerance which seems to be related to a no-anticholinergic effect.

Adjustment Disorders

[Amitriptyline in psychiatric therapeutics. Apropos of 8 years of its use in hospital practice].

A hundred and thirty patients have been treated with Amitriptylin in the "Clinique de Psychiatrie" in Marseille during the last eight years. The review of the hundred cases for which the information are the most detailed show that Amitriptylin remains one of the most powerful, manageable and well-tolerated anti-depressant drugs available at the present time. Its therapeutic indications are numerous, but the best ones are proceeding from depressed states with high anxious participation in subjects of less that 60 years of age.

Adjustment Disorders

[A new substituted benzamide with neuroleptic effects: lin 14 18 or sultopride].

After the research about Sulpiride, a new substituted benzamide has been studied. Although it was characterized by modest pharmacological effects in the neuroleptic identification tests, LIN 1418 turned out to have very interesting therapeutic properties. A study conducted with 50 cases, 30 of which were submitted a systematic pluridisciplinary control, leads to provisory conclusions as follows: 1) its psychotropic effects are powerful and constant; 2) its prevailing action is antipsychotic and desinhibiting altogether; 3) while LIN 1418 appears as successful with all psychoses, whether acute or chronic, up to now, the quality of its results in many chronic psychoses seems to be particularly remarkable; 4) its side-effects are those of most neuroleptics: its extrapyramidal symptoms being all the more obvious as the patient's "passivity" is less important.

Adult

[Sexology].

Whatever type of practice he may have, the physician is confronted daily with an increasingly important demand for help concerning sexual problems, be they "masked" in terms of functional symptomatology, or be they openly "verbalised" as sexual difficulties. Possessing no real sexological background, [corrected] and having merely heard of "methods", without knowing either their bases or their qualities, the physician is not capable of responding in more than a minimally effective manner. Confronted with this need, american researchers have perfected, with Masters and Johnson, new techniques which have been borne out by their statistical results. The originality of these techniques lies in their being carried out by a couple, centered around the relation of the solliciting couple, and aiming at a psychosensorial reeducation. If the application of such methods, as well as sexology research and training, is still timid in Western Europe, their importance is no way lessened. They represent, in fact, for the psychiatrist, a new way of approaching sexuality, by means of: --medical team work; --"manipulation" of body language; --and perhaps, also... reality.

Behavior Therapy

[Substituted benzamides].

The comparison of the therapeutic effects of three molecules belonging to the substituted benzamide family allows the following observations: --the three products are generally well tolerated by the organism; --at sufficient doses they act as a major tranquilizers: -sulpiride is chiefly a disinhibitor but also has antipsychotic properties; -sultopride is at first somewhat sedative, especially when given parenterally, then antipsychotic, and little by little desinhibiting; -GRI 16-65 is "soothing", "euphoriant", "sociabilizing", as well as antipsychotic. Effect of reintegration in reality seems to constitute a common characteristic of these three products.

Antipsychotic Agents

[Erythrocyte membrane transport of tyrosine and tryptophan and plasma level of MHPG in depressive disorders].

Both plasma MHPG level and red blood cell membrane transports (TM) of L-tyrosine (L-TYR) and L-tryptophan (L-TRY) were evaluated in 29 depressed patients and compared to 16 control subjects. On the basis of MHPG plasmatic levels, we were able to define two subgroups in the depressed population showing a biological homogeneity: in the first one, both MHPG level and TYR TM decreased, while in the second one neither of these indices were disturbed. These biological features were not related to the nosographic subgroups. Bipolar depressed subjects showed a decrease in both MHPG and TYR TM; unipolar depressed subjects exhibited a decrease in both MHPG and TYR TM associated to an increase in TRY TM, whereas no change was found in dysthymic disorders. The time course of MHPG and MT were desynchronized if followed during the antidepressant treatment. At day 7, MHPG level increased significantly, while clinical improvement showed a normalisation of MHPG and TYR TM.

Adult

[Plasma levels of metapramine and its 3 major metabolites in patients with depression. Results and preliminary interpretations].

Metapramine (Timaxel) and his three major metabolites (19148 RP, 23669 RP, 19749 RP) have been determined in the plasma of 18 depressed inpatients treated by the antidepressant drug (12 women and 6 men; 7 are smokers and 11 non-smokers). In a steady state, interindividual variability is very important, especially for 23669 RP. No significant correlation exists between normalized doses (mg.kg-1) and normalized plasma concentrations (ng.ml-1/dose mg.kg-1) of metapramine or anyone of its metabolites. The plasma metabolic ratios reveal also important intraindividual and interindividual variability. Two populations of patients seem to exist: extensive metabolizers and relatively poor metabolizers, without apparent clinical consequence because 23669 RP shows an antidepressant activity. Women seem, with equal normalized doses, to exhibit higher plasma levels of unchanged metapramine than men, due to a lower protein-binding rather than to a more active metabolism. In patients who received a poly-medication smoking seems not to induce desmethylation of metapramine. The plasma metabolic ratios, compared by the analysis of variance and the Wilcoxon distribution-free test, are significatively influenced by sex and not by tobacco-smoking.

Adult

[Visual potentials evoked by a pattern reversal checkerboard in 50 depressed patients].

The pertinency of the visual evoked potentials (VEP) was studied as an index of depression in a group of 50 depressed patients (according to DSM III criteria). The VEP recordings were realized before an antidepressive treatment (D0) and 4 weeks after the beginning of the treatment (D28). Identical recordings were realized with 15 healthy and voluntary reference subjects. Stimulations were reversal checkerboard. The analysis of the results indicate at D0 a reduction of P1 and N1 latencies in the depressed people compared to the reference subjects, and an increase of the P1-N1 amplitude. These differences disappear at D28 (after the antidepressive treatment), as we don't notice any significative difference between D0 and D28 with the reference subjects. The interpretation of these results leads to the hypothesis of a neurophysiological modification of the attentional processes during the depression state. The antidepressive treatment seems merely to produce a normalization of the evoked responses in the depressed patients.

Adult