[Psychotherapy of patients with personality disorders with predominance of hypochondria].

A standard of psychotherapeutic help to patients with hypochondriac disorder developed in paranoid, schizoid, anxiety and dependent personality disorders is worked out. In this case, hypochondria is inseparable from the personality structure. Patients of investigated group (61 people) received traditional medical treatment, individual differential symptomatic psychotherapy and a short group course with a variant of the therapy by means of creative sell-expression (TCSEB) worked out by M. Burno. This course aimed at preventing new hypochondriac symptoms and acquiring spiritual creative ways to overcome themselves. The control group (70 people) differed from the index-group by not receiving CSEB. A statistical analysis revealed a significant therapeutic efficacy of the mentioned new clinical psychotherapeutic standard compared to the psychotherapeutic tactics without TCSEB.

Identification of a human 5-HT6 receptor variant produced by alternative splicing.

The complexity of the 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) (serotonin) receptor family has been increased by the findings that isoforms or splice variants exist for subtypes such as the 5-HT2B, 5-HT2C, 5-HT4 and 5-HT7 subtypes. Further molecular biological studies in our laboratory have demonstrated that a splice variant of the 5-HT6 receptor exists in the human brain. Experiments performed using a degenerate PCR approach from human caudate cDNA revealed a 5-HT6 receptor clone with a 289 bp deletion of the region coding for transmembrane IV through the third intracellular loop. This deletion produces a frameshift creating a downstream stop codon which results in a truncated protein containing 10 unique amino acids at its carboxyl end. The variant transcript occurs as a result of alternative splicing using an upstream donor site and the acceptor site from the first intron in the 5-HT6 receptor gene. The splicing pattern seen for this transcript was not detected in rat or mouse whole brain cDNA by PCR due to the lack of a consensus 5' donor site. Coexpression of the variant 5-HT6 transcript and the full length 5-HT6 transcript was observed in caudate and substantia nigra but not in hippocampus, cortex, cerebellum and thalamus. Transient transfection of a 5-HT6 variant construct into Cos-7 cells demonstrated that a truncated receptor was translocated to the membrane but appeared nonfunctional.

[Psychotherapy of psychopathic patients and patients with slowly progressing schizophrenia with defensive manifestations using a method of creative self-expression]. / Psikhoterapiia patsientov s psikhopatiei i bol'nykh maloprogredientnoi shizofreniei s defenzivnymi proiavleniiami metodom tvorcheskogo samovyrazheniia.

Summarized is a several years' experience of the out-patient psychotherapy of 312 psychopathologic patients of different clinical groups manifesting defensive disorders (psychasthenic, asthenic, defensive cycloid, schizoid, epileptoid, defensive hysterical psychopathic, anankastic personalities) and patients with defensiveness due to slowly progressing schizophrenia. The described technique allowed steady remissions and compensation in 80.1% of the cases. The results of the 2-5-year therapy included the psychotherapeutically raised creative inspiration and capacity of seriously and efficiently coping with the patients' own pathology and everyday life problems through the knowledge of life and human nature.

["Simple-minded" personality variant among chronic alcoholic patients]. / O "prostodushnom" variante lichnosti bol'nykh khronicheskim alkogolizmom.

The author describes a frequently encountered variant of alcoholic patients' personality with non-psychopathic premorbid features (phlegmatic kind-heartedness, faultlessness, cordiality, conscientiousness, vulnerability). The "pivot" of these features is "simple-mindedness". The peculiarities of alcoholism hypnotic states ("obliterated" somnambulism) and treatment in these patients according to their individual protective-psychological mechanisms are shown. The clinical material covers 1315 cases.

[Forms of hypnotic somnambulism according to their clinical basis]. / O formakh gipnoticheskogo somnambulizma soobrazno klinicheskoi pochve.

Three forms of hypnotic somnambulism were distinguished clinically: classical somnambulism in patients with hysterical neurosis on a juvenile-unstable basis (42 cases); sensual-lucid somnambulism in patients with hysterical neurosis on a primitive personality basis (46 cases) and sensual-split somnambulism in patients with pseudoneurotic schizophrenia with a hysteroid clinical picture (58 cases). The differential diagnostic importance of such forms of somnambulism is stressed.

[A clinico-neurophysiologic study of psychasthenic psychopathies]. / Kliniko-neirofiziologicheskoe issledovanie psikhastenicheskikh psikhopatov

The authors studied 25 patients with psychasthenic psychopathy who according to the clinical picture were divided into 2 groups: psychasthenics proper and anankasts. The results of the study permitted to detect some correlations between the clinical traits and neurophysiological interconnections between the cortex and nonspecific subcortical structures. Such correlations were made on the basis of a multicomponent structure of the orientation reaction (especially the EEG reactions and SGR) to stimula of different modality and background bioelectrical activity of the brain.