Biomedical subjects
T Zoëga
Publications and source records attributed to T Zoëga.
Psychopharmacoepidemiology in Iceland: effects of regulations and new medications.
The sale of psychotropic medications in Iceland has waxed and waned during the past 20 years with approximately 5 years between peak and bottom quantities sold. Apparently, it has decreased following restrictions imposed by the public health authorities and increased again following the introduction of new drug. In order to study this further, all prescriptions for psychotropic medications to non-hospitalized inhabitants of the capital city (Reykjavík) and dispensed by pharmacists there during 1 month in 1984, 1989 and 1993 were analysed in order to estimate the 1-month prevalence of psychopharmacological use. The results support the hypothesis partly as prescriptions for tranquillizers decreased in 1989 as well as the amount of tranquillizers and hypnotics prescribed following new restrictions, whereas the prevalence odds ratio of obtaining prescriptions for hypnotics remained unchanged. The proportion of patients receiving excessive amounts of tranquillizers and/or hypnotics decreased. The prevalence of excessive use of these drugs (i.e. > 90 DDD/month) was 0.5% in 1993. In 1993 the prevalence of the use of antidepressants as well as the amount prescribed had increased substantially following the introduction of the new selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor medications. Thus, the prevalence of patients obtaining any psychotropic medication remained unchanged from 1984 to 1993.
Candidate gene study of eight GABAA receptor subunits in panic disorder.
OBJECTIVE: gamma-Aminobutyric acid type A (GABAA) receptor subunit genes are candidate genes for panic disorder. Benzodiazepine agonists acting at this receptor can suppress panic attacks, and both inverse agonists and antagonists can precipitate them. The human GABAA receptor subtypes are composed of various combinations of 13 subunits, each encoded by a unique gene. The authors tested eight of these subunits in a candidate gene linkage study of panic disorder. METHOD: In 21 U.S. and five Icelandic multiplex pedigrees of panic disorder, 104 individuals had DSM-III-R panic disorder (the narrowly defined affected phenotype) and 134 had either this diagnosis or subsyndromal panic disorder characterized by panic attacks that failed to meet either the criterion of attack frequency or the number of criterion symptoms necessary for a definite diagnosis (the broadly defined affected phenotype). The authors conducted lod score linkage analyses with both phenotypes using both a dominant and a recessive model of inheritance for the following loci: GABRA1-GABRA5 (alpha 1-alpha 5), GABRB1 (beta 1), GABRB3 (beta 3), and GABRG2 (gamma 2). RESULTS: The results failed to support the hypothesis that any of these genes cause panic disorder in a majority of the pedigrees. CONCLUSIONS: Within the limitations of the candidate gene linkage method, panic disorder does not appear to be caused by mutation in any of the eight GABAA receptor genes tested.
Excluding linkage between panic disorder and the gamma-aminobutyric acid beta 1 receptor locus in five Icelandic pedigrees.
The GABAA receptor subunits are candidate genes for panic disorder because the receptor is the site of action for the anxiolytic effects of the benzodiazepines. We tested for linkage between a tetranucleotide repeat polymorphism at the GABAA beta 1 locus, located on chromosome 4p13-p12, and panic disorder defined by DSM-III-R criteria in 5 Icelandic pedigrees. Both a narrow affection status (definite panic disorder and agoraphobia) and a broad one (including probable cases of these disorders) were tested. With the narrow definition, at a recombination fraction of 0.00, the lod scores in the 5 pedigrees ranged from -3.240 to +0.063, the total score across all 5 pedigrees being -8.299. With the broad definition at the same recombination fraction, the individual lod scores ranged from -2.614 to -0.489, with the total being -8.089. Thus, linkage between panic disorder/agoraphobia and the GABAA beta 1 locus in these pedigrees is exceedingly unlikely.