[Presentation of the AGP and observations on this evaluation system of symptomatology in gerontopsychiatry].

The first part of the present paper concerns the presentation of the AGP-System. The authors formulate several remarks concerning some items of the 6 sheets of the System, and they stress its advantage over other scales in geriatric psychiatry. Nevertheless, the AGP-System is little used.

[Psychological indices and longevity].

Among 63 former prisoners of war, aged 54 to 65 years, submitted to a psychometric battery, 16 died within the next three years. The comparison of the deceased and surviving groups indicates that personality variables (MMPI) are more predictive of death than mental deterioration.

[Effects of time variables (time-blind, time gap) on quantitative evaluation of psychopathology].

Are the objectivity and sensibility of quantitative psychopathology influenced by certain methodological conditions (time-blind evaluation or not, chronological order or random order, suppression of the time gap between two evaluations or not)? Different evaluations of AMDP videotaped interviews were not able to demonstrate systematic effects of these temporal conditions on the evaluation itself. Other variables (monotony, order of sequences, verbal inertia, contingencies) might well play a greater role. Within the methodological limits of the present study, the time-blind evaluation was the most sensitive.

[Neurophysins, vasopressin and cognitive function in aging].

Neurophysins, vasopressin and oxytocin are not restricted to the hypothalamo-neuropituitary system but are also found in different brain area in relation with cognitive and emotional function and with cardiovascular regulation. During early aging it seems to exist a decrease of the hypothalamic and brain content of vasopressin. It appears that in some patients, presumably suffering from a deficit of central vasopressinergic function, exogenous vasopressin could improve arousal and/or memory.

[Effect of lysine-vasopressin on the Flicker Test and the Buschke Memory Test in elderly patients].

In the present study, we have tested the cortical arousal (Flicker's Test) and mnesic function (Buschke Test) before and after a short-term Lysine-Vasopressin (LVP) treatment in normal senescent male (Age: 64,3 +/- 3,4). We have not been able to evidence any objective nor subjective improvement in the LVP versus placebo treated group. We do not know the origins of the discrepancies between the different clinical studies published so far concerning the influence of exogenous vasopressin on memory in man.

[Factor analysis of the French revision of the AMDP rating scales. Results of an international study of 388 cases].

A total of 388 patients from 10 Belgian and French Centers were evaluated with the 1981 revision of the psychopathological and somatic scales of the AMDP System. Principal components factor analyses indicate that the somatic items contribute little to the structure. A 10-factors solution of the psychopathological items generate the following factors after orthogonal rotation: Obsessions-Phobias, Dramatization, Anxiety, Depression, Retardation, Organicity, Dissociation, Delusions, Mania, Dysphoria.

[Critical flicker fusion frequency in psychopathology and psychopharmacology. Review of the literature].

As far back as the second century, Ptolemy reported the apparent immobility of wheel radius at a certain speed. The psychophysical laws of this flicker fusion phenomenon related to the frequency of the light stimulus were established in 1834-1835 by the Englishman Talbot and by the Belgian Plateau, whose thesis in Liège is described as a landmark in the field. CFF is more a measurement of cortical arousal than of visual functions.