The Journal of Neuropsychiatry
& Clinical Neurosciences

This issue's Windows to the Brain series describes this heterogeneous condition, in which demyelinization occurs because of nutritional or electrolyte stress, that is, imbalance due to overly-rapid correction of hyponatremia, often in the presence of alcoholism, liver disease, immunosuppression after transplantation, malnutrition, renal disease, cancer, pregnancy, and in high-endurance exercise. The authors describe evaluation procedures and the considerable variation in clinical course and outcome.

Crying as a response to emotionally-charged situations varies among individuals, genders, and cultures. The authors assessed crying-proneness, as expressed by the score on the “crying easily” item of the SCL-90 questionnaire, in 65 men and 105 women subjects undergoing neurological exams. (None of the subjects showed pathological laughing or crying.) Subjects with high crying-proneness showed significantly lower levels of metabolites of noradrenaline than those with low crying-proneness. More women showed higher crying-proneness, and this behavior was associated with the Interpersonal Sensitivity item on the SCL-90.

The authors measured levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and its soluble receptor in the serum of a small series of MS patients in relapse, patients in remission, and control subjects, co-measuring levels of depression. Results indicated that depression is not only very common during relapses of MS, but also that levels of IL-6 increase during the acute phase of the disease, especially when depression is detected.