Summary
Sixty-five depressed and 33 paranoid hallucinatory patients were investigated longitudinally for one year to assess short- and long term therapeutic outcome with antidepressant and neuroleptic drugs, respectively. The patients’ thyrotropin (TSH) response to thyrotropin releasing hormone (TRH) was studied at admission, during inpatient treatment and at discharge. Decreased TSH responses at outcome, and normalisation of these pathological responses during treatment were associated with the highest chance for recovery. TSH responses which persisted blunted at discharge were associated with a higher relapse rate during the one year following. It is hypothesized that the blunted TSH response may reflect a nonspecific cerebral malactivation, which is disactivated by the therapeutic effects of neuroleptic and antidepressant drugs.
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Langer, G., Aschauer, H., Keshaven, M.S., Koinig, G., Resch, F., Schoenbeck, G. (1985). Neuroendocrine Involvement in Therapeutic Mechanisms of Neuroleptic and Antidepressant Drugs: Studies of Thyroid Axis. In: Pichot, P., Berner, P., Wolf, R., Thau, K. (eds) Biological Psychiatry, Higher Nervous Activity. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-8329-1_37
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-8329-1_37
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