Predicting depressed patients with suicidal ideation from ECG recordings.

Globally suicidal behavior is the third most common cause of death among patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). This study presents multi-lag tone-entropy (T-E) analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) as a screening tool for identifying MDD patients with suicidal ideation. Sixty-one ECG recordings (10 min) were acquired and analyzed from control subjects (29 CONT), 16 MDD subjects with (MDDSI+) and 16 without suicidal ideation (MDDSI-). After ECG preprocessing, tone and entropy values were calculated for multiple lags (m: 1-10). The MDDSI+ group was found to have a higher mean tone value compared to that of the MDDSI- group for lags 1-8, whereas the mean entropy value was lower in MDDSI+ than that in CONT group at all lags (1-10). Leave-one-out cross-validation tests, using a classification and regression tree (CART), obtained 94.83 % accuracy in predicting MDDSI+ subjects by using a combination of tone and entropy values at all lags and including demographic factors (age, BMI and waist circumference) compared to results with time and frequency domain HRV analysis. The results of this pilot study demonstrate the usefulness of multi-lag T-E analysis in identifying MDD patients with suicidal ideation and highlight the change in autonomic nervous system modulation of the heart rate associated with depression and suicidal ideation.

Identifying depressed patients with and without suicidal ideation by finger photo-plethysmography.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a serious mental disorder that if untreated not only affects physical health but also has a high risk of suicide. While the neurophysiological phenomena that contribute to the formation of Suicidal Ideation (SI) are still ill-defined, clear links between MDD and cardiovascular disease have been reported. The aim of this study is to extract suitable features from arterial pulse signals with a view to predicting SI within MDD and control groups. Sixteen unmedicated MDD patients with a history of SI (MDDSI+), sixteen without SI (MDDSI-) and twenty-nine healthy subjects (CONT) were recruited at a psychiatric clinic in the UAE. Depression severity and SI were assessed using the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale and Beck Depression Inventory. Pulse Wave Amplitude (PWA) was calculated as the difference between the peak (Systole) and the valley (Diastole) of the arterial pulse within each cardiac cycle. Then, 2D Tone-Entropy (TE) features were extracted from the Systole, Diastole and PWA time series. The TE features extracted from Diastole were the best markers for predicting MDDSI+. The overall classification accuracies of Classification and Regression Tree (CART) model by using TE features of Systole, Diastole and PWA were 88.52%, 90.2% and 88.52% respectively. When all TE features were combined, accuracy increased up to 93.44% in identifying MDDSI+/MDDSI-/Control groups.

Study of vibrational spectra of polyaniline doped with sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid.

Vibrational spectra of insulator emeraldine base (EB) form of polyaniline and electrical conductive sulfuric acid- and phosphoric acid-doped emeraldine salts (ES) were studied in the region of 4000-400 cm(-1) at ambient temperature by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Infrared transmittance spectra of EB and ES were investigated to understand the bonding behavior of different organic and inorganic groups present in the polymeric chains and their structural variations on protonation by sulfate or phosphate ion inclusion in the polymer salt network. These studies revealed the para-coupling of deformed disubstituted benzenoid (B) and quinoid (Q) rings with ends capped predominantly by (B4Q1) units. The deformation of B and Q rings was confirmed by the appearance of many weak bands, very weak bands, and satellite structures in strong transmittance peaks of polymeric chain-constituting groups. Protonation takes place at the nitrogen sites of Q rings and forms semiquinone radical ions in ES. The vibrational bands pertaining to B rings, Q rings, B4Q1 units, semiquinone segment, sulfate ions, and phosphate ions were observed and assigned from these measurements. The shift in peak position of some bands with gain or loss in intensity and appearance of some new bands were observed in sulfuric acid- and phosphoric acid-doped ES spectra. These variations are attributed to the formation of new structural groups in ES on protonation and a change in crystalline field by sulfate and phosphate ion doping for crosslinking the polymeric chains.

Is akathisia associated with poor clinical response to antipsychotics during acute hospital treatment?

Previous studies have suggested that akathisia is associated with poor acute clinical response to antipsychotics and that low serum iron levels are associated with emergence of akathisia. To examine these relationships during routine clinical treatment, we studied patients with DSM-IV schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder undergoing hospital treatment for acute psychotic exacerbations with doctor's choice medications. There were 34 subjects observed for at least 2 weeks. They were assessed at baseline and weekly by one rater with the Anchored Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale and by another rater with the Barnes Rating Scale for akathisia, with the two raters blind to each other's ratings. Serum ferritin and transferrin levels were obtained at baseline. Seventeen subjects developed akathisia. Subjects with and without akathisia did not differ in change in thinking disturbance or anxiety-depression scores over 2 weeks, or in serum ferritin or transferrin levels. We conclude that mild akathisia by itself is not strongly associated with initial response to low to moderate doses of antipsychotics in the acute clinical setting. Limitations of the study are discussed.