The catatonic dilemma expanded

Catatonia is a common syndrome that was first described in the literature by Karl Kahlbaum in 1874. The literature is still developing and remains unclear on many issues, especially classification, diagnosis, and pathophysiology. Clinicians caring for psychiatric patients with catatonic syndromes continue to face many dilemmas in diagnosis and treatment. We discuss many of the common problems encountered in the care of a catatonic patient, and discuss each problem with a review of the literature. Focus is on practical aspects of classification, epidemiology, differential diagnosis, treatment, medical comorbidity, cognition, emotion, prognosis, and areas for future research in catatonic syndromes

Pavlovian Conditioning in Awake and Pentobarbital Anesthetized Rats

Program year: 1996/1997Digitized from print original stored in HDRPrior research shows that very intense noises can produce antinociception in awake rats. Experiment 1 examined the antinociceptive effects of a tone and a noise at various intensity levels on awake and pentobarbital anesthetized rats. Both the tone and noise reduced reactivity to a noxious thermal stimulus applied to the tail in both awake and anesthetized subjects. Experiment 2 examined whether Pavlovian conditioning can be established in pentobarbital anesthetized rats. Half of the subjects experienced an auditory cue (the conditioned stimulus, or CS) paired with an aversive tailshock (the conditioned stimulus, or US). The remaining subjects experienced the CS and US in an unpaired fashion. US intensity was set to a value known to induce a strong antinociception in both awake and anesthetized rats. CS intensity was set, based on the results from Experiment I, to a level that generated a weak antinociception. Rats trained while awake exhibited longer tail-flick responses in the presence of the context, but they did not appear to exhibit any conditioning to the auditory cues. Rats trained under anesthesia did not exhibit conditioning to the context, but did display reduced tail-flick latencies (conditioned hyperalgesia) to the paired auditory cues. Implications of the results are discussed

Comprehensive Review of Psychiatry

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