Denne artikel handler om en simpel test hvor forskerne forsøger at måle om patienter er deprimeret. Normalt skal der gennemføres et længere interview for at afklare om patienten har en depression.
Biol Psychiatry. 2010 Jul 15;68(2):205-8. Epub 2010 Mar 31. =Seeing gray when feeling blue? Depression can be measured in the eye of the diseased.= Bubl E, Kern E, Ebert D, Bach M, Tebartz van Elst L. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany. ===Abstract===
BACKGROUND: Everyday language relates depressed mood to visual phenomena. Previous studies point to a reduced sensitivity of subjective contrast perception in depressed patients. One way to assess visual contrast perception in an objective way at the level of the retina is to measure the pattern electroretinogram (PERG). To find an objective correlate of reduced contrast perception, we measured the PERG in healthy control subjects and unmedicated and medicated patients with depression. METHODS: Forty patients with a diagnosis of major depression (20 with and 20 without medication) and 40 matched healthy subjects were studied. Visual PERGs were recorded from both eyes. RESULTS: Unmedicated and medicated depressed patients displayed dramatically lower retinal contrast gain. We found a strong and significant correlation between contrast gain and severity of depression. This marker distinguishes most patients on a single-case basis from control subjects. A receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed a specificity of 92.5% and a sensitivity of 77.5% for classifying the participants correctly. CONCLUSIONS: Because PERG recording does not depend on subjective ratings, this marker may be an objective correlate of depression in human beings. If replicated, PERG may be helpful in further animal and human research in depression.
(omtale af artiklen i et andet blad) This unusual brief communication reports a dramatic neurophysiological difference between depressives and healthy controls, a loss of contrast gain in the pattern electroretinogram. There is a huge difference between the two groups (two-fold). The difference is not due to medication use, attentional, memory or motor disturbances and appears to be the first objective physiological trait of this illness, although other psychiatric conditions have not yet been examined. Patients and healthy controls were shown a checker-board black and white pattern in ascending degrees of contrast while the retinogram was recorded from eyeball leads. Depressives were found to have about half the contrast gain of healthy controls. There were high correlations between the degree of depression and the loss of contrast gain. This train would be very interesting in terms of what biological changes produce it and also for a possible objective medical test for depression.
Denne artikel handler om en simpel test hvor forskerne forsøger at måle om patienter er deprimeret. Normalt skal der gennemføres et længere interview for at afklare om patienten har en depression.
Biol Psychiatry. 2010 Jul 15;68(2):205-8. Epub 2010 Mar 31. =Seeing gray when feeling blue? Depression can be measured in the eye of the diseased.=
Bubl E, Kern E, Ebert D, Bach M, Tebartz van Elst L. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany. ===Abstract===
BACKGROUND: Everyday language relates depressed mood to visual phenomena. Previous studies point to a reduced sensitivity of subjective contrast perception in depressed patients. One way to assess visual contrast perception in an objective way at the level of the retina is to measure the pattern electroretinogram (PERG). To find an objective correlate of reduced contrast perception, we measured the PERG in healthy control subjects and unmedicated and medicated patients with depression. METHODS: Forty patients with a diagnosis of major depression (20 with and 20 without medication) and 40 matched healthy subjects were studied. Visual PERGs were recorded from both eyes. RESULTS: Unmedicated and medicated depressed patients displayed dramatically lower retinal contrast gain. We found a strong and significant correlation between contrast gain and severity of depression. This marker distinguishes most patients on a single-case basis from control subjects. A receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed a specificity of 92.5% and a sensitivity of 77.5% for classifying the participants correctly. CONCLUSIONS: Because PERG recording does not depend on subjective ratings, this marker may be an objective correlate of depression in human beings. If replicated, PERG may be helpful in further animal and human research in depression.
(omtale af artiklen i et andet blad)
This unusual brief communication reports a dramatic neurophysiological difference between depressives and healthy controls, a loss of contrast gain in the pattern electroretinogram. There is a huge difference between the two groups (two-fold). The difference is not due to medication use, attentional, memory or motor disturbances and appears to be the first objective physiological trait of this illness, although other psychiatric conditions have not yet been examined. Patients and healthy controls were shown a checker-board black and white pattern in ascending degrees of contrast while the retinogram was recorded from eyeball leads. Depressives were found to have about half the contrast gain of healthy controls. There were high correlations between the degree of depression and the loss of contrast gain. This train would be very interesting in terms of what biological changes produce it and also for a possible objective medical test for depression.
Om PERG :elektroretinografi