Biomedical subjects

M Hydinger-Macdonald

Publications and source records attributed to M Hydinger-Macdonald.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1981

Motility, Parkinsonism, and prolactin with thiothixene and thioridazine.

Clinical impressions suggest that thioridazine hydrochloride produces fewer extrapyramidal effects and more sedation than thiothixene. These drugs were given, each for three weeks, to 15 chronic schizophrenic outpatients in a counterbalanced, double-blind, crossover study. Spontaneous locomotion was recorded with an unobtrusive actometer toward the end of each three-week drug period. Surprisingly, patients were significantly more active with thioridazine, whereas parkinsonian scores, prolactin levels, and Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale scores remained about equal with the two drugs; thioridazine's extrapyramidal side effects were not "atypical." There are some explanations for why common clinical impressions and recent rodent studies have not predicted these results.

Adult↗

PubMed1979

Bedtime flurazepam and the human circadian rhythm of spontaneous motility.

Sixteen male students received bedtime placebo and flurazepam 30 mg at home in a counter-balanced double-blind, crossover design. For 24 h after each treatment the subjects' spontaneous motor activity was recorded each 15 min with an unobtrusive actometer, worn as the subjects attended classes. The circadian activity curves were submitted to cosinor analyses. The 24 h post-flurazepam activity was a mean of 15.1% lower than post-placebo activity (P less than 0.025). On the average, both the nocturnal through and the daytime peak of motility dropped; the latter change was greater, reducing by a mean of 19.4% the amplitude of the circadian rhythm of activity (P greater than 0.01). the timing, or phase, of the rhythm was not shifted. Although the drug did not consistently modify reports of subjective feelings on the Profile of Mood States (POMS), 13 subjects correctly discriminated drug from placebo sessions (P less than 0.05). A bedtime dose of 30 mg of flurazepam appears to significantly reduce spontaneous human motility that night and during the next day. Activity recording revealed an important residual, behavioral effect of the drug which was not reflected in POMS reports of subjective feelings, suggesting that activity recording may provide a more sensitive measure for psychotropic drug effects.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Circadian rhythm changes following maternal separation.

The monkey mother-infant separation paradigm is one of the best available animal models of grief and loss related depression. Because of the evidence implicating a relationship between disturbances in circadian rhythms and affective behavioral disorders, we studied circadian rhythms of temperature and heart rate in 10 group living infant pigtailed (M. nemestrina) monkeys during the affective behavioral reaction which accompanied 10 days separation from the mother. Best fit (least-squares method) cosine curves were computed for a total of 176 24-h periods for heart rate (HR) and 139 24-h periods for body temperature (BT), providing estimates of the fitted cosine level (approximating the mean value of the data), amplitude (half the value from the peak to the trough as the fitted cosine), and acrophase (time of fitted cosine peak). Significant decreases in cosine level, and delay in acrophase of 1-1.5 h, were found for both body temperature and heart rate during separation. Following reunion with the mother the acrophase occurred progressively later on subsequent days, suggesting possible free running rhythms. These data, in addition to reinforcing the relationship between circadian rhythm regulation and affective behavior, demonstrate that circadian phase shifts can be precipitated by disruption of an attachment bond without changing other circadian synchronizers, and support the view that disturbances in the regulation of circadian systems are one component of the reaction to loss or separation.

Animals↗