Course and outcome of delusional psychoses.

The authors reinvestigated 84 out of a sample of 90 patients with delusional psychoses after an interval of 6-9 years. The results of the follow-up showed a pattern of episodic versus chronic course which compares to follow-up studies on classically diagnosed schizophrenias. The authors found evidence for their hypothesis concerning the nosological heterogeneity of this group of psychoses and propose a syndromatological classification apart from the delusional symptomatology itself. What they call background symptomatology was divided into axial syndromes. The authors feel that this results in subgroups that are more homogeneous for course and outcome than the usual classification systems.

A second order model of the optic generator potential and its relation to Stevens' power function.

The component PIII of the electroretinogram representing the optic generator potential was recorded after stimulation with short stimuli with different light intensity. It is shown that the impulse response function of a linear second order model with intensity-dependent coefficients can be well fit to the recordings. Two of its parameters, after logarithmic transformations, are linearly dependent on the luminance while the third parameter varies only within a small interval. It is therefore possible to describe the relation between PIII and luminance in a linearized second order model. Furthermore, both the type of the function relating the gain of the model to the luminance and its exponent are nearly identical with the psychophysic function relating luminance to subjective brightness. Further physiological implications are also considered.

[A simple procedure to forecast the course of diseases (author's transl)]. / Ein einfaches Verfahren zur Vorhersage des Verlaufes von Krankheiten.

A procedure is presented which enables the physician to forecast the course a disease will take by looking through a list of items with attached numbers, i.e. weights, and simply adding the weights of those items which hold true for a specific patient. The application of this procedure to three different diseases, namely schizophrenia, facial paresis, and aphasia is presented and proves its accuracy. Furthermore, a Monte Carlo Analysis of the procedure underlying this method--multiple linear regression of dichotomous items--leads to recommendations concerning the optimum definitions of items and the structuring of data. The procedure is compared with other methods used in computer diagnosis and its main advantage, apart from its high reliability, i.e. independence of computers in its application, is stressed. Its application to other diseases is encouraged and the presentation of data for processing by this Department is invited.