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Biological classification of depressive illness.
Author(s) -
Coppen A.,
Wood K.
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
british journal of clinical pharmacology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.216
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1365-2125
pISSN - 0306-5251
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2125.1983.tb05861.x
Subject(s) - depression (economics) , antidepressant , medicine , endogenous depression , endogeny , hormone , major depressive disorder , endocrinology , economics , amygdala , hippocampus , macroeconomics
1 A number of biological criteria have been used for refining clinical classification to identify patients who will respond to antidepressant treatment. 2 Subtypes of depressive illness have been postulated to occur depending on whether there is a relative deficiency of central noradrenaline or 5‐hydroxytryptamine. However, antidepressants having selective effects on amine systems have similar therapeutic effects and inhibition of re‐uptake of these amines does not correlate with clinical outcome. 3 An abnormal response to thyrotrophin‐releasing hormone has not been confirmed as specific for depressive illness. Failure to control for age and sex may account for some of the discordant findings. 4 It has been suggested that depressed patients secrete less growth hormone to a variety of stimuli. It appears that the predictive value of a growth hormone response for the diagnosis of endogenous depression is 53%. 5 The dexamethasone suppression test appears to have high sensitivity for the diagnosis of endogenous depression but low specificity and should therefore be used only in conjunction with clinical assessments.