Lithium ion transport by erythrocytes of randomly selected blood donors and manic-depressive patients: lack of association with affective illness.

The authors measured the in vitro lithium ion ratio and maximal rate of sodium-lithium countertransport in erythrocytes of 739 randomly selected blood donors and 42 manic-depressive patients to determine the frequency distributions of these two variables in a general population and their relationship to one another and to affective illness. A large interindividual variation was found for the ratio and countertransport, and there was evidence of bimodality in the frequency distributions for these two traits. There was a moderate negative correlation (r = -.

MMPI codetypes characteristic of DSM-III schizophrenics, depressives, and bipolars.

The association between various MMPI codetypes and DSM-III schizophrenics, depressives, and bipolars (manic or depressed) (N = 169) was examined. Most codetypes predictive of bipolar-depressed also predicted major depression, yet these codetypes were not characteristic of bipolar-manic. Furthermore, "affective" codetypes often overlapped with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Brief Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory scales to screen for substance abuse.

Research has focused on development of accurate screening instruments to detect alcoholism. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) has long been employed, but the utility of previous scales in differentiating substance abusers from normals remains unclear. Conley and Kammeier (J.

Electrodermal activity in euthymic unipolar and bipolar affective disorders. A possible marker for depression.

Skin conductance, heart rate, and resting EEG were examined in 26 patients with unipolar and 24 with bipolar affective disorder (in remission) and 46 medical control patients. The electrodermal activity (EDA) was monitored during a tone series that included a dishabituating stimulus as well as at rest and during respiratory maneuvers. The EDA of the patients with affective disorder was uniformly depressed across all tasks and conditions.