Changes of psychophysiological reactivity in affective disorders

Summary

Proceeding from a theoretical conception, it was attempted to classify intuitively—on the basis of skin resistance level (SRL) and skin resistance reaction (SRR)—depressive and depressive-anxious patients into four psychophysiological types. This was done in different settings of psychophysiological tests which measured activation or inhibition of the phasic activation system and lability or stability of the tonic activation system.

In a sample of 232 psychophysiological first examinations which permitted the rating of orientation reaction, habituation, and conditioning, scales for 18 variables were developed through factor analysis, which made it possible to define scores for each patient's degree of activation or lability.

Two methods for describing and measuring changes in the variables of SRL and SRR are presented.

There is a positive correlation between the changes of activation and self-rating in a follow-up study on depressive patients who were reexamined one year after admission. After four weeks of application, Amitriptylin significantly improved the subjective feelings of depressive patients and also significantly lowered activation in these patients. The hierarchical grouping in which patients are automatically divided into dimensional types according to their factor scores confirms empirically our conception of four psychophysiological types.