Mood-independent aberrancies of word responses and action of lithium on their repetition in manic depressed illness.
Following a preceding study, two samples of patients, one French (N = 20) and one American (N = 29), from two affective disorders clinics, were given free word-association tests consisting of two successive presentations of the same list of stimulus words separated by a 15 minute interval. On the one hand, commonness of word responses was not affected by changes of mood, and consequently aberrancies in associative processes may be a trait of persons with bipolar affective disorders. On the other hand, repetition of responses was directly correlated with lithium concentration in plasma, which allowed a prediction of the success of lithium therapy.
Pons
L
L
Université de Caen, France.
Nurnberger
J
J
Murphy
D
D
Jouvent
R
R
Rips
C
C
Widlocher
D
D
D000328:Adult; D001244:Association / Q000187:drug effects*; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008094:Lithium / Q000097:blood / Q000494:pharmacology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012660:Semantics; D014936:Word Association Tests
D008094:Lithium