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Biomedical subjects

J Volavka

Publications and source records attributed to J Volavka.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
PubMed1988

Pattern reversal visual evoked potential among men at risk for alcoholism.

The biological sons of male alcoholics, deemed to be at high risk (HR) for the development of alcoholism, were compared to control males, aged 18 to 21, using measures of the visual evoked potential elicited by checkerboard pattern reversal. Overall, the HR and control groups were not distinguished on the basis of visual evoked potential measures acquired from the occipital scalp region; however, when comparisons were restricted to right-handed subjects, the HR subjects showed more symmetry in a positive component with approximate latency of 242 ms compared with control subjects. The results are discussed in relation to hemispheric differences and alcoholism.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Videotape recording of inpatient assaults: a pilot study.

Inpatient assaults were videotaped and then characterized by tape reviewers as showing high or low hostility. Over a 2-month period, the videotape reviewers documented more than twice as many high-hostility assaults as were documented by other methods of reporting.

Female↗
PubMed1988

Predicting assaultiveness in psychiatric inpatients: a pilot study.

A sample of 87 psychiatric inpatients known to have been assaultive while in the hospital was contrasted with a matched group of nonviolent patients to identify the personal risk factors that distinguished the two groups. Data were collected using a personal history interview, a neurological examination, and an electroencephalogram. The four risk factors identified--neurological abnormality, history of violent crime, history of violent suicide attempts, and deviant family environment in childhood--were used to develop a statistical model predicting which subjects in a sample of newly admitted patients would become assaultive during the first three months after admission. The predicted classification of patients was found to be significantly related to subsequent assaultive behavior.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

Concurrent lithium administration results in higher haloperidol levels in brain and plasma of guinea pigs.

The effects of lithium (Li) on brain and plasma levels of concurrently administered haloperidol (HAL) were investigated. One group of guinea pigs (n = 12) was also treated with HAL for 11 days, but Li was added during the last 5 days of treatment. At the end of treatment, the HAL + Li group had significantly higher brain and plasma levels of HAL than the group treated with HAL alone. The correlation coefficient between plasma and brain HAL (0.97) indicated that plasma levels of HAL determine brain levels of this drug.

Animals↗
PubMed1987

Multiple-dose pharmacokinetics of clozapine in patients.

After a 2-day buildup, patients were dosed continuously with clozapine solution at three ascending dose levels (37.5, 75, and 150 mg bid for 7 days at each dose level). Following the morning administration on the twenty-third day of dosing a drug holiday was instituted which lasted for a minimum of 48 hr. Serial plasma samples were obtained during each of the periods and during the drug holiday for the calculation of the steady-state parameters AUCSS, CSSmax, and CSSmin at each dose level as well as for the assessment of the terminal elimination rate. Mean parameter values for AUCSS, CSSmax, and CSSmin showed a linearly increasing response with the dose, well described by a straight line passing through the origin. The terminal elimination appeared to follow linear kinetics and had a mean half-life of 15.8 hr (range, 5.8-33 hr).

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

ECT-induced EEG asymmetry and therapeutic response in melancholia: relation to treatment electrode placement.

Six right-unilateral and bilateral ECTs were equally effective in reducing Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression scores in 34 melancholic patients whose EEG symmetry did not change after ECT. However, a substantial therapeutic advantage was recorded for bilateral ECT in those patients whose EEG symmetry changed. Accentuation of ECT-induced EEG slowing over the right hemisphere was associated with right-unilateral ECT and a lesser treatment response, suggesting that the therapeutic advantage reported by some investigators for bilateral over right-unilateral ECT may be attributed to a poor outcome experienced by those unilateral ECT patients who developed right-sided EEG slowing.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

Review of haloperidol blood level and clinical response: looking through the window.

The studies of relationship between haloperidol plasma levels and clinical response in schizophrenia have yielded variable results. A therapeutic window for haloperidol may exist, but the evidence for it is inconsistent. Future studies of this problem using larger patient samples would permit the investigation of interactions between the clinical predictors and the haloperidol plasma levels in the determination of clinical outcome. Although the reduced haloperidol in plasma as well as the red blood cell levels of haloperidol and reduced haloperidol or ratios of the metabolite to parent compound may also be related to clinical outcome, the evidence for this relationship is very tentative. More research is needed before routine clinical monitoring of haloperidol blood levels can be recommended.

Dose-Response Relationship, Drug↗
PubMed1986

Lithium and lecithin in tardive dyskinesia: an update.

Psychiatric inpatients with tardive dyskinesia (TD) were treated with either lithium alone (n = 9) or with a combination of lithium and lecithin (n = 9) for 5 weeks in a double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment. A statistically significant but clinically unimportant improvement of TD occurred during both treatments. The addition of lecithin to lithium had no effect.

Clinical Trials as Topic↗
PubMed1986

Brain responses to sine wave modulated light (SML): reliability and relationship to spontaneous EEG.

Brain activity elicited by sine wave modulated light and spontaneous EEGs were obtained from 11 healthy adult males on two separate occasions. Within-subject correlations (test-retest correlation coefficients) for SML responses were high, and comparable to reliability estimates of spontaneous EEG activity in this sample. Reliability of the spontaneous EEG was evaluated using two measures: absolute and relative power. Although their magnitudes were comparable, the test-retest correlation coefficients for the right occipital were consistently higher than those of the left using absolute measures; this pattern was not reflected by test-retest correlations based on relative EEG measures. Finally, the SML responses to 5, 15, 18 and 24 Hz stimulation frequency rates correlated most highly with absolute measures of spontaneous EEG beta, whereas the SML response to 10 Hz stimulation yielded the highest correlations with spontaneous alpha activity.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

The EEG in persons at risk for alcoholism.

Alcoholics tend to have a relatively small amount of alpha and a large amount of beta activity in their EEG. This pattern may be a consequence or an antecedent of alcoholism. Attempts to demonstrate this EEG pattern in subjects who were at high risk (HR) for alcoholism (because they had alcoholic fathers) have yielded equivocal results. However, electrophysiological changes elicited by a single dose of alcohol differentiated HR subjects from controls. The HR subjects exhibited greater increases of slow-alpha energy and greater decreases of fast-alpha energy after alcohol administration than controls. In another study, the HR subjects showed a greater decrease of a late positive component of the auditory-evoked potential after alcohol than controls. Thus the HR subjects show greater electrophysiological responses to alcohol than controls. These effects are not related to differences in alcohol metabolism, and they may reflect a biologic marker for CNS sensitivity to alcohol. Alternative interpretations of these findings are discussed and suggestions for further research are offered.

Alcoholism↗
PubMed1985

Clomipramine and imipramine in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Twenty-three outpatients with primary obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) were started in a 12-week double-blind clinical trial of clomipramine (CLI) (n = 11) and imipramine (IMI) (n = 12). There was no placebo and no crossover. After 6 weeks of treatment, data on 19 subjects (9 CLI, 10 IMI) were available. After week 12, the sample was reduced to 16 patients (8 CLI, 8 IMI). At both time points, OCD symptoms showed modest reductions (in comparison with the pretreatment baseline) in both CLI and IMI groups. Both drugs showed a major antidepressant effect. Analyses accounting for the differences in the baseline levels indicated a somewhat superior effect of CLI over IMI on OCD as well as depression. The effect of CLI and IMI on OCD was independent of the initial severity of depression. There were no clear differences in the safety of the treatments.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

The EEG after alcohol administration in men at risk for alcoholism.

The biologic sons of alcoholics constitute a group at high risk (HR) for alcoholism. A 0.5-g/kg dose of alcohol was administered to HR and control subjects aged 19 to 21 years. Blood alcohol concentration measurements failed to distinguish HR from control subjects, but quantitative measurements of EEG alpha activity differentiated them. The HR subjects exhibited greater increases in slow alpha energy and greater decreases of fast alpha energy after alcohol administration than controls; the HR subjects also showed greater decreases in mean alpha frequency after alcohol administration. These EEG findings suggest that subjects at high risk for alcoholism are physiologically more sensitive to alcohol than control subjects.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Short-lived effect of (Des-Tyr)-gamma-endorphin in schizophrenia.

Des-tyrosine-gamma-endorphin (DT gamma E) has been reported to alleviate symptoms of schizophrenia. Attempting to replicate those reports, we administered 1 mg of DT gamma E, i.m., for 8 consecutive days to nine patients meeting the DSM-III criteria for schizophrenia. Patients in this double-blind, crossover, and placebo-controlled study showed a statistically significant, but clinically modest improvement. The improvement was detectable during the first several days of the DT gamma E treatment; the symptoms then returned to baseline level in spite of continued doses of DT gamma E. Testing the metabolism of DT gamma E in the patients' plasma, we found a high rate of formation and of degradation, but the metabolic rates were not related to clinical symptoms.

Adult↗