Triiodothyronine accelerates and enhances the antipsychotic effect of risperidone in acute schizophrenia.

In acute psychotic schizophrenia patients we investigated if the combination of triiodothyronine (T3) plus risperidone was more effective when compared to risperidone monotherapy. Thirty-two in-patients meeting the DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia and without thyroid disease received risperidone (flexibly adjusted dose for tolerability) and were randomized to additionally receive either T3 (25 μg daily; risperidone plus T3 group) or placebo (risperidone plus placebo group). Treatment lasted until meeting the response to treatment criteria defined as score of ≤ 3 on the Clinical Global Impression Severity and Improvement scales.

Thyroid axis function after in-patient treatment of acute psychosis with antipsychotics: a naturalistic study.

Background: Endocrine function in psychiatric patients may be affected by mental disorder itself as well as by antipsychotic medications.The aim of this naturalistic observational study was to determine if treatment of acute psychotic episode with antipsychotic medication affects thyroid axis hormone concentrations and if such changes are associated with symptomatic improvement.

Methods: Eighty six adult acute psychotic patients, consecutively admitted to a mental hospital, were recruited for the study.

Fatigue in patients with coronary artery disease: association with thyroid axis hormones and cortisol.

Objective: In people with coronary artery disease, the association between endocrine measures and fatigue is not well understood. We evaluated possible associations of fatigue and exercise capacity with function of adrenal axis and thyroid axis.

Methods: Sixty-five men and 18 women (mean age 55 years) attending a rehabilitation program were examined using the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory, Dutch Exertion Fatigue Scale, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale.

Concentrations of thyroid axis hormones in psychotic patients on hospital admission: the effects of prior drug use.

The aim of this study was to determine the concentrations of thyroid axis hormones in psychotic patients on hospital admission and to search for the associations between the concentrations of these hormones and prior drug use as well as mental symptoms. MATERIAL AND METHODS. Psychiatric diagnoses, psychotropic drug use, and the severity of psychoses were evaluated using the standard methods on admission.

Thyroid disease and mental disorders: cause and effect or only comorbidity?

Purpose Of Review: To discuss the effects of thyroid dysfunction and thyroid autoimmunity on mental symptoms and disorders in patients with thyroid disease with reference to recent epidemiological, clinical, and genetic findings.

Recent Findings: During brain development, iodine deficiency, maternal thyroid dysfunction, and neonatal thyroid malformations together with genetic factors contribute to neurological deficit. Most adults with thyroid dysfunction will develop mental symptoms.

Psychiatric manifestations of Graves' hyperthyroidism: pathophysiology and treatment options.

Graves' disease is an autoimmune disorder that is the most common cause of hyperthyroidism. Other symptoms associated with the disease are goitre, ophthalmopathy, and psychiatric manifestations such as mood and anxiety disorders and, sometimes, cognitive dysfunction. Graves' hyperthyroidism may result in these latter manifestations via the induction of hyperactivity of the adrenergic nervous system.

Depression and thyroid axis function in coronary artery disease: impact of cardiac impairment and gender.

Background: Increased rates of depression are reported in coronary artery disease (CAD). In heart disease, depression increases disability, reduces quality of life, and increases mortality.

Hypothesis: The study was undertaken to examine the relationship between depression and thyroid axis function in patients with CAD.

Mood and anxiety disorders in women with treated hyperthyroidism and ophthalmopathy caused by Graves' disease.

Objective: To evaluate the prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders in women with treated hyperthyroidism caused by Graves' disease and to compare them with the prevalence of such findings in women without past or present thyroid disease.

Methods: Thirty inpatient women with treated hyperthyroidism and ophthalmopathy caused by Graves' disease and 45 women hospitalized for treatment of gynecologic disorders such as abnormal vaginal bleeding, benign tumors or infertility were evaluated for the prevalence of mood and anxiety diagnoses using a standard Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview and for mood and anxiety ratings using the Profile of Mood States (POMS). At the time of assessment, it was discovered that 14 of 30 women with treated hyperthyroidism caused by Graves' disease were still hyperthyroid, while 16 women were euthyroid.

Preliminary study of the relationship between thyroid status and cognitive and neuropsychiatric functioning in euthyroid patients with Alzheimer dementia.

Objective: To investigate whether variations within normal ranges of thyroid functioning are related to cognitive and neuropsychiatric functioning in Alzheimer disease (AD).

Background: Mild alterations of thyroid hormone levels, even in the normal range, are associated with changes in mood and cognitive functioning in older, nondemented adults, and lower concentrations of thyroid hormones have been shown to be associated with an increased risk for cognitive decline. Less is known about the relationship between thyroid hormone levels and cognitive and neuropsychiatric dysfunction in AD.

Historical sexual abuse and current thyroid axis profiles in women with premenstrual dysphoric disorder.

Objective: This study investigated whether women with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) who also had histories of sexual abuse differed from women with PMDD with no previous sexual abuse and from women without PMDD in hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid (axis measures).

Methods: Ten sexually abused women with PMDD were compared with 18 nonabused women with PMDD and 22 nonabused women without PMDD for hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis hormone concentrations during the follicular and luteal phases of confirmed ovulatory cycles.

Results: Compared with the women without PMDD, only the group of women with PMDD with sexual abuse showed greater variance in both cycle phases in thyroid-stimulating hormone concentrations and greater luteal phase variance in free and total thyroxine (T4) and reverse tri-iodothyronine (T3).

The thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) hypothesis of homeostatic regulation: implications for TRH-based therapeutics.

The functions of thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) in the central nervous system (CNS) can be conceptualized as performed by four anatomically distinct components that together comprise a general TRH homeostatic system. These components are 1) the hypothalamic-hypophysiotropic neuroendocrine system, 2) the brainstem/midbrain/spinal cord system, 3) the limbic/cortical system, and 4) the chronobiological system. We propose that the main neurobiological function of TRH is to promote homeostasis, accomplished through neuronal mechanisms resident in these four integrated systems.

Thyroxine vs thyroxine plus triiodothyronine in treatment of hypothyroidism after thyroidectomy for Graves' disease.

It was recently demonstrated that treatment with levorotatory thyroxine (T4) plus triiodothyronine (T3) compared with treatment with T4 alone improves psychologic functioning in hypothyroid patients with thyroid cancer or autoimmune thyroiditis. In the present double-blind crossover study, we again compared the effects of combined thyroid replacement vs monotherapy on psychologic function, endocrine function, cardiovascular function, and body composition. The patients were women who were hypothyroid after thyroidectomy for Graves' disease.

Mental improvement after replacement therapy with thyroxine plus triiodothyronine: relationship to cause of hypothyroidism.

We treated 26 hypothyroid women - 11 with autoimmune thyroiditis and 15 who had been treated for thyroid cancer - with their usual dose of thyroxine (T4) or with a regimen in which 50 &mgr;g of T4 had been replaced by 12.5 &mgr;g of triiodothyronine (T3). Patients were first randomly assigned to one regimen for 5 wk and then to a second regimen for an additional 5 wk.

Combined Use of Thyroid Hormone and ECT.

Neurocognitive deficits, including acute confusion and memory impairment, remain important effects of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Laboratory and clinical research demonstrates interactions among neurocognitive functioning, the hypothalmic-pituitary-thyroid axis, depressive mood, and ECT. Preclinical studies have demonstrated that exogenous triiodothyronine (T(3)) administered to animals receiving electroconvulsive shock (ECS) protects against ECS-related amnesia and accelerates the "antidepressant effects" of ECS, possibly due to alterations in catecholamine and/or indoleamine neurotransmission.