[Effect of various biologically active substances and hormonal preparations on the pathogenetic mechanisms of manic-depressive psychoses].

Combined investigation in patients with maniac-depressive psychosis revealed the close relation of depression to the direction in which changes of central and peripheral links of bodily neurohumoral system occur. With even some of the homeostatic functions normalized as a result of an adaptogenic effect of hormonal and biologically active drugs (triiodothyronine, thyrotropin, insulin, Sodium succinate, pituitrin (vasopressin), somatotropin, retabolil), the depressive affect weakened or disappeared. Combined therapy of depression is recommended comprising antidepressants and some hormonal drugs promoting the adaptation processes of the body.

[Role of peripheral viscero-autonomic and humoral shifts in the mechanisms of negative emotional states].

The results obtained in a study of 36 depressive patients and in experiments on 134 rats have shown that viscerovegetative and humoral changes developing in the body under the effect of negative emotional states influence significantly, through the feedback mechanism, the function of the central nervous system, as well as the duration and nature of the affect.

[Features of cerebral-somatic and metabolic shifts in older patients with depressive states].

The age-related features of the sympatheticoadrenal homeostatic system identified in healthy subjects affect the pathogenesis and the clinical picture of depressions in old age. Sympatheticotonia , the stimulation of catecholamine synthesis, particularly of noradrenaline synthesis, contribute to the development of anxiety and agitation states in manic-depressive patients. Patients with involutional depression are characterized by the heterogeneous pattern of the functional changes in the body.

[Role of the age factor in the pathogenesis of manic-depressive psychosis].

It was established that young patients in the depressive phase of manic-depressive psychosis (MDP) display the homogeneity of functional changes at various levels of the body auto-regulation system. In advanced age (45-65 years), due to uneven involutional changes, the body exhibits an increase in the activity of the central and, particularly peripheral links of the sympathetico-adrenal homeostatic system, which explains a considerable elevation in the number of patients with pronounced anxious symptomatology and hypersympathicotonia at the periphery. High affective tension with agitation phenomena in patients with the disease onset in advanced age is maintained by fairly high blood levels of catecholamines (particularly noradrenaline) due to the stimulation of their synthesis.

[Biogenic amine metabolism in patients with oligophrenia of different origins].

The levels of blood serotonin and the urinary concentrations of 5-HIAA, DOPA, dopamine, adrenaline as well as the products of their conversion and disintegration were assessed in 104 oligophrenic patients of different age with different genesis (phenylketonurea, Down's disease, mental retardation of residual organic origin including the complicated syndrome of early childhood autism). The results obtained showed peculiar deviations in serotonin and catecholamine metabolism in each of the diseases, which were independent of the degree of mental retardation. Clinical-biochemical parallels point to considerable differences in the mechanisms of the revealed metabolic digressions in the studied forms of psychic retardation.

[Mechanisms of the central action of lithium].

Experiments in 486 white rats given different doses of lithium chloride into different brain structures and the abdominal cavity were examined for changes in bioelectrical brain activity, noradrenaline, adrenaline, serotonin blood content; the activity of total acetylcholinesterase. It was established that the most sensitive to lithium action is the structure of the limbic system and hypothalamus. In the mechanism of the central action of lithium of significant importance is the range of sensitivity to it of each brain structure.

[Pathophysiologic mechanisms of depressive states of endogenous or exogenous origin].

A total of 117 patients with depression of a various genesis were studied. The patients with endogenous (circular) depression displayed a correlation between the EEG, vascular and vegetative tonus, catecholamine excretion (especially noradrenaline) and peculiarities of the clinical picture. In patients with somatogenic depression a correlation between the studied indices of a functional state of an organism is not present.