Genetic factors in conditioned tolerance to the analgesic effects of etonitazene.

Tolerance to the analgesic effects of opioids have been reported to include unconditioned (physiological) and conditioned (associative) components. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the genetic and environmental factors important in the development of tolerance by using three inbred strains of mice with varying opiate receptor concentration and acute behavioral response to opioids: C57BL/6J, CXBK/ByJ, and CXBH/ByJ mice. Each strain was divided into three groups; each group received two injections per day as part of the tolerance development procedure. One group of each strain was administered an opioid (etonitazene) specifically paired with the testing room and a second injection of saline in the home colony (paired). The second group of each strain was administered saline in the testing room and etonitazene in the home colony (unpaired). A third group of each strain was administered saline in both the testing room and home colony (control). Etonitazene and saline were administered in this manner for 4 days. On day 5, animals were tested for hot-plate analgesic response following administration of etonitazene. There was a significant effect of treatment condition (paired, unpaired, control) on etonitazene-induced analgesia. In all strains, only the paired treatment condition demonstrated tolerance to the analgesic effects of etonitazene compared to the control groups. There was no significant effect of genotype or a genotype x condition interaction. Thus, genotype significantly affects the acute analgesic effects of opioids but did not affect the development of conditioned tolerance.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Utilization of a consultation liaison psychiatry service in a general hospital.

This retrospective study was conducted in response to a need to evaluate the overall utilization rates of the psychiatric consultation liaison service by nonpsychiatric units within Howard University Hospital, which deals almost exclusively with a black, inner-city population. The study covers a three-year period (July 1982 to July 1985). During this time only 815 patients (2 percent) were referred for psychiatric evaluation out of the total number of hospital admissions (40,000 patients).Patient characteristics and general attitudes appear to have had a major role in this low ratio of referrals, particularly a lack of awareness and bias against psychiatry. This latter finding is in disparity with other published reports. Diagnostically, depression, organic mental disorders (acute), and substance abuse (mainly PCP) constituted the greater bulk of the patients seen by the consultation liaison psychiatry service. The review of a random sample of psychiatric inpatients (n = 100) revealed that in 50 percent of the cases there was a coexisting physical illness or abnormality.The role of mental health education and the liaison function needs to be emphasized. It is suggested that efforts should be directed toward a wider acceptance and utilization of consultation liaison psychiatry by primary care physicians in general hospitals. The factors listed by physicians and patients that may account for the observed underutilization of consultation liaison services are discussed. The results of 20 interviews and the reasons given by referring physicians as to whether or not they will seek consultation from the consultation liaison services are also reviewed.

Effects of chronic tryptophan loading on serotonin (5-HT) levels in neonatal rat brain.

Several earlier studies reported that the acute administration of L-tryptophan to adult rats caused an increase in brain serotonin levels. This study describes the effects of chronic tryptophan loading on serotonin concentration levels in various regions of the neonatal rat brain. Rats were injected with tryptophan methyl ester hydrochloride (100 mg/kg), intraperitoneally, daily from day 4 to day 24 after birth, and sacrificed on days 8, 19, and 29 after first injection. The brains were immediately dissected into their component regions, and serotonin concentration levels were measured by a radioenzymatic method. Chronic tryptophan loading produced a significant (P < .05) decrease in serotonin levels in all the brain regions as compared with saline-treated controls, except the pons and medulla regions, which showed significant (P < .001) increase on day 8.

Training psychiatric staff to treat a multicultural patient population.

Cultural and linguistic barriers have long been problems in establishing an effective therapeutic alliance between patients and therapists from different cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. The current emphasis on cultural psychiatry has stimulated the inclusion of culturally relevant material in the curricula of American psychiatric residency programs, such as the program at Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C. After a preliminary study of foreign patients treated on the psychiatry service, the department of psychiatry established a program of seminars and didactic sessions intended to familiarize staff and trainees with cultural patterns of the largest groups of foreign students attending the university. The department also participated in a transcultural fellowship program for medical students sponsored by the American Psychiatric Association and the National Institute of Mental Health. After describing the programs, the authors briefly discuss such culturally related issues as foreign patients' return to their original language when they develop psychiatric illnesses.

Biochemical abnormalities in psychiatric outpatients.

This research project was an outgrowth of the observations of the senior author over a period exceeding four decades of practice, teaching, and research as internist and psychiatrist, with primary emphasis on relationships between psyche and soma. Patients at the Outpatient Psychiatric Clinic of the Howard University Hospital, Washington, DC, were given thorough annual physical examinations and laboratory evaluations of blood and urine. The authors found a significantly high incidence of medical illnesses and abnormal laboratory findings not previously suspected. There was a significant and direct correlation between psychopathology as projected in the Lipman Personality Image Projection (LPIP) test and abnormal laboratory and physical findings. The results in this study concur with previous reports that so-called purely psychogenic stress symptoms may be related to unrecognized medical illnesses. These somatic illnesses may remain unrecognized for indefinite periods of time in the traditional psychiatric outpatient setting from which patients are often referred elsewhere for treatment of nonpsychiatric illness. Initial and periodic physical and laboratory examinations should be performed by psychiatrists trained to recognize nonpsychiatric diseases that often present with psychiatric symptoms. A thorough knowledge of the mind-body relationship is essential to the practice of modern psychiatry.

Effects of maternal geophagia on infant and juvenile rats.

Clay eating, a form of geophagia, is often observed in the human population, particularly during pregnancy. The intent of this study was to determine the effects of maternal geophagia on developmental and behavioral characteristics of the offspring. Twelve Sprague-Dawley female rats and their 88 progeny were divided into three groups: control, 20 percent clay, and 35 percent clay. The experimental diets were fed to adult rats during the period of gestation and for 14 days following parturition. Righting reflex, homing response, and activity level tests were administered and hemoglobin concentrations and red blood cell counts were determined. Data suggest that the higher level of maternal clay ingestion during the perinatal period decreased growth and development of motor skills in the infant pups. Homing skills, however, were enhanced.

The NIMH Diagnostic Interview Schedule: a test of its validity in a population of black adults.

This article examines the validity of the National Institute of Mental Health Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) relative to three of its measures: alcoholism, depression, and schizophrenia when compared with the clinical interview. Preliminary results indicate that greater diagnostic agreement was observed for alcoholism and depression than for schizophrenia. Much of the disagreement between the DIS interview and the clinician's ratings regarding schizophrenia seems to have occurred in cases with a mixture of schizophrenic and depressive symptoms.

Frequency of schizophrenia and depression in a black inpatient population.

A retrospective study covering the period 1974-1978 was conducted on the inpatient population at the Department of Psychiatry, Howard University Hospital, for the two major diagnostic categories, major affective disorders (MAD) and the schizophrenias. Among the schizophrenias, the diagnoses of schizophrenia, paranoid type, and schizophrenia, not otherwise specified, account for approximately 73 percent of all schizophrenic diagnoses. The distribution of diagnoses among the MAD category demonstrated that approximately 74 percent of all diagnoses were accounted for by the subcategory depressive neurosis. Further analyses according to age at admission and annual trends were also conducted. The implications of these analyses, conducted on all black patient populations who were diagnosed by nonwhite diagnosticians, are discussed.

Orderly bioelectric phenomena and myelin integrity: an hypothesis.

The classical approach to myelin function, in light of current data, is deemed inadequate. Electron microscopic data is used to support the novel hypothesis of interneuronal communication at nodes of Ranvier in the central nervous system of higher organisms. It is hypothesized that myelin plays a role in imposing order hypothesis, use is made of both developmental and degenerative aspects of myelin.