The benzodiazepines as drugs of abuse.

Benzodiazepines are rarely used as "party" or "good time" drugs. Recent studies of drug abuse liability have found that benzodiazepines are minor euphoriants: they are neither sought nor valued on the same level as cocaine, methaqualone, or even alcohol. Although they do have mild to moderate euphoriant effects in recreational drug users, detoxified chronic alcoholics and, at very high dosages, detoxified sedative "addicts", only a small proportion of patients entering drug abuse treatment programs cite benzodiazepine use as their primary drug problem. However, it is difficult to estimate the extent to which benzodiazepines are primary drugs of abuse, i.e. the extent of their ability to induce euphoria with psychic dependence and active drug-seeking behavior. This may be due in part to inconsistent or ambiguous reporting terminology and reliance on laboratory studies without comparisons with actual street use. In addition, it is unclear if patients admitted to emergency rooms for non-medical use of benzodiazepines are typical of all patients who abuse these drugs. This article will examine the current data available on benzodiazepine abuse and will assess the extent to which benzodiazepines are used as primary drugs of abuse.

The use of psychostimulants in general psychiatry. A reconsideration.

A half century after the introduction of amphetamine sulfate (benzedrine), there remains active interest in the use of the major psychostimulants (ie, methylphenidate hydrochloride and pemoline) for the treatment of psychiatric disorders. In the absence of any recent review of the literature on the clinical uses of psychostimulants, we assessed the existing data on the adult psychiatric indications for these agents. Generally, the existing studies are old and inadequate. However, there is some evidence to support the judicious use of psychostimulants in selected clinical instances of several adult psychiatric syndromes.

A new scale for assessing patients' psychosocial adjustment to medical illness.

The Psychosocial Adjustment to Illness Scale (PAIS) was administered to 37 Hodgkin's disease patients and 38 parents of children with Hodgkin's disease or solid tumour, and the scores were analysed for inter-rater reliability as well as construct and criterion validity. A significant inter-rater reliability coefficient was obtained for the total scale score, and also for 6 of the 7 subscale scores. The 7 subscale scores were shown to be relatively independent of each other, with 5 contributing strongly to the total score. Subscales analysed for criterion validity were shown to correlate significantly with independent assessments of their domains of adjustment. Results indicate that the PAIS can be administered by a diverse group of interviewers with an acceptable degree of reliability and with initial confidence in its validity.

Cerebral dominance in musicians and nonmusicians.

Musically experienced listeners recognize simple melodies better in the right ear than the left, while the reverse is true for naive listeners. Hence, contrary to previous reports, music perception supports the hypothesis that the left hemisphere is dominant for analytic processing and the right hemisphere for holistic processing.