Serum Levels of Growth Factors in Alcohol-dependent Patients according to Comorbid Depressive Symptoms

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to reveal the relationship of depression with growth factors such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), nerve growth factor (NGF), and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in inpatients diagnosed with alcohol dependence, and to identify candidate growth factors as biological markers to indicate the comorbid of alcohol dependence and depression. METHODS: This study examined demographic factors in 45 alcohol-dependent patients. The ADS (Korean version of the Alcohol Dependence Scale) and BDI (Korean version of Beck's Depression Inventory) were used. BDNF, NGF, and IGF-1 were measured through ELISA. RESULTS: The average drinking quantity and the ADS score were significantly more severe in alcohol-dependent patients with depression than in those without depression. Linearly comparing BDNF, NGF, and IGF-1 with BDI values, IGF-1 was the growth factor significantly correlated with BDI scores. BDI scores were significantly correlated with ADS scores. IGF-1 was significantly higher in alcohol-dependent patients with depression. Alcohol-dependent patients with depression had greater alcohol use and more severe ADS scores. BDNF and NGF showed no significant difference between alcohol-dependent patients with and without depression, but IGF-1 was significantly higher in those with than in those without depression. CONCLUSION: IGF-1 was found to be associated with depression in alcohol-dependent patients, suggesting that IGF-1 in alcohol-dependent patients could be an important biomarker to indicate whether alcohol-dependence is accompanied by depression.

Accept or Refuse? A Pilot Study of Patients' Perspective on Participating as Imaginary Research Subjects in Schizophrenia

OBJECTIVE: The goal of the present study was to evaluate demographic and clinical factors that affect the intention to participate in commonly-conducted research in patients with schizophrenia. METHODS: Thirty-four outpatients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia were enrolled in this study. They were asked whether they would have any intention to participate in four imaginary studies: a simple questionnaire, a genetic study, a study of complex tasks and a risky study. We analyzed the differences in general psychopathology, insight and demographic characteristics of the participants according to their responses (acceptance or refusal) to the four proposed studies. RESULTS: Younger and better-educated patients tended to decline participation in a risky study. Patients with a longer duration of regular psychiatric follow-ups tended to willingly participate in the simple questionnaire. There were no overall statistical differences in general psychopathology and insight between patients who agreed or declined to participate in studies. CONCLUSION: Age and education level may be factors that influence decisions to participate in schizophrenia studies. Further research is needed to confirm and expand on the current findings.

A Development of Computer-Based Examination(CBE) System for Medical Students / 한국의학교육

A Computer-Based Examination(CBE) System is developed to take the effective examination for medical student. The server system is operated with Windows NT(Korean ver. 4.0) and the clients system with Windows 95(later than ver. OSR 2), and the Microsoft SQL server(ver. 7.0) is used for database server, and the Inprise Delphi(ver. 4.02) for development tool. This system consists of five subsystems(item bank, item selection, implementation, item analysis). The CBE system is designed to execute the multimedia data(image, sound, movie), and for professors to build question items, to extract the items for examinations on this system, and for students to conduct the examination on the client computer systems. It will reduce time to mark examination papers and to analyze the items, and can be applied for self-studying(computer assisted learning, CAL) with linking to internet or knowledge-base system.