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Biography 2009; 30(6): 675-676 PubMed PMID: 20038930 Citation  Keywords:  Chronobiology Discipline:history, History, 20th Century, History, 21st Century, Molecular Biology:history, Neuroendocrinology:history, Romania, United States,.   

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Historical Article 2008; 29(Suppl 1): 5-9 PubMed PMID: 19029880 Citation  Keywords:  Atropine:pharmacology, Clinical Trials as Topic:history, Coma:chemically induced, Convulsants:pharmacology, Convulsive Therapy, History, 20th Century, Humans, Mental Disorders:therapy, Muscarinic Antagonists:pharmacology, Pentylenetetrazole:pharmacology, .   

: Biological treatment of mental disorders has obviously strong links to psychopharmacology. It is no wonder that the greatest expectations for progress in the treatment of mental conditions are focused on new drugs or molecules that share interesting properties of pharmacological mechanisms of action. However, nowadays the development of non-pharmacological options, including transcranial magnetic stimulation or vagus nerve stimulation, indicates the need for more efficacious and better tolerated treatment modalities. Before the age of modern psychopharmacology, which began in the 1950s, treatment of mental disorders was rather limited to only a few methods that had proved to be of some efficacy. In the absence of other, more efficacious treatment methods, these therapies-such as insulin coma or atropine coma-brought at least some relief to those who suffered from serious mental disorders. Obviously, at present we are aware that these therapies should be considered far less efficient than modern psychotropic drugs; however, at the time when these methods were used, no other efficient treatment methods were available....

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Historical Article 2008; 29(Suppl 1): 11-32 PubMed PMID: 19029876 Citation  Keywords:  Clinical Trials as Topic, Electroconvulsive Therapy:adverse effects, Ethics, Medical, History, 20th Century, Humans, Mental Disorders:therapy, Practice Patterns, Physicians', Psychiatry:methods, Treatment Outcome,.   

: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is largely historical but is still in use. Modern psychiatry requires careful selection of patients in whom ECT will be performed. The indications for ECT treatment are limited, and the selection criteria should be strictly followed. The advantages and the disadvantages of the methods are discussed here. Despite the limitations, ECT seems to have real value in selected mental conditions in which it can even be considered a life-saving procedure....

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Historical Article 2008; 29(Suppl 1): 161-201 PubMed PMID: 19029874 Citation  Keywords:  Clinical Trials as Topic, Electroconvulsive Therapy, Ferrosoferric Oxide:therapeutic use, History of Medicine, History, 15th Century, History, 16th Century, History, 17th Century, History, 18th Century, History, 19th Century, History, 20th Century, Histor.   

: Since antiquity, the phenomenon of magnetism has been known, and it has been tried for therapeutic purposes. Through history, people have made use of both natural sources of magnetic fields (magnetic iron ore) and artificial ones (magnets, electromagnets). It was as late as the 19th century that we started to produce time-varying magnetic fields, making numerous observations about its impact on humans, the nervous system included. A majority of these observations were cognitive in nature. There are, however, studies aimed at assessing the therapeutic results of the influence of magnetic fields, particularly of low frequencies. In terms of magnetotherapy with the use of a low-induction magnetic field, there are serious doubts concerning its effectiveness in general, including therapy for mental disorders. The year 1985 witnessed the introduction of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) into medical practice as a diagnostic tool in neurology as well as in basic neurophysiologic and neuropsychological investigations. The 1990s began the epoch of investigations into possible applications of TMS in therapy of mental disorders, particularly depression. This work presents critical remarks and limitations of TMS, such as findings that its effectiveness is not particularly high. The traditional fixed stimulation of a definite area of the patient's head may lead to irritation of structures that, in a specific patient, may not be responsible for the symptoms of depression. The effectiveness could be improved only with the use of neuronavigation and prestimulation via functional neuroimaging diagnostics of the brain, which, however, would make TMS expensive and less practical....

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Historical Article 2008; 29(Suppl 1): 105-122 PubMed PMID: 19029873 Citation  Keywords:  Brain:anatomy & histology, History, 20th Century, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Mental Disorders:surgery, Neurosurgical Procedures:methods, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:therapy, Poland, Psychosurgery:history,.   

: Surgical intervention to the brain has a long history, but contemporary psychosurgery started in the mid-1930s. The first psychosurgical operation was a prefrontal leucotomy. In this chapter, a history of psychosurgery is described with a special focus on so-called "ablation" procedures such as anterior cingulotomy, anterior capsulotomy, subcaudate tractotomy, and limbic leucotomy. The expectations that psychiatrists linked to the surgical intervention have grown along with the progress of diagnostic neuroimaging procedures used in brain research. In recent years, the introduction of neuromodulation techniques seemed to produce a qualitative progress in modern psychosurgery. However, the controversies about these surgical interventions to the brain among psychiatrists still restrict the indications for psychosurgery to highly selected cases....

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Historical Article 2008; 29(Suppl 1): 147-160 PubMed PMID: 19029871 Citation  Keywords:  Clinical Trials as Topic, History, 19th Century, History, 20th Century, Humans, Schizophrenia:physiopathology, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation:history,.   

: Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive and painless way of stimulating the neural tissue (cerebral cortex, spinal roots, and cranial and peripheral nerves). The first attempts at stimulating the neural tissue date back to 1896 by d'Arsonval; however, it was successfully carried out by Barker and colleagues in Sheffield, UK, in 1985. It soon became a useful tool in neuroscience for neurophysiologists and neurologists and psychiatrists. The original single-pulse TMS, largely used as an investigative tool, was further refined and developed in the early 1990s into what is known as repetitive TMS (rTMS), having a frequency range of 1-60 Hz. The stimulation by both TMS and rTMS of various cortical regions displayed alteration of movement, mood, and behavior, leading researchers to investigate a number of psychiatric and neuropsychiatric disorders, as well as to explore its therapeutic potential. There is now a large amount of literature on the use of TMS/rTMS in depression; however, its use in schizophrenia, both as an investigative and certainly as a therapeutic tool is relatively recent with a limited but increasing number of publications. In this article, we will outline the principles of TMS/rTMS and critically review their use in schizophrenia both as investigative and potential therapeutic tools....

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Historical Article 2007; 28(6): 749-756 PubMed PMID: 18063926 Citation  Keywords:  Behavior:radiation effects, Cultural Characteristics, Dissent and Disputes:history, Electromagnetic Fields, History, History, 15th Century, History, 16th Century, History, 17th Century, History, 18th Century, History, 19th Century, History, 20th Century, .   

BACKGROUND: Russian astronomer A.L. Tchijevsky published in the twenties of 20th century a study comparing the approximately 11-year cycling of "sunspot activity" and "historical process", analyzed globally since the 5th century B.C. to the 19th century A.D. According to him, phenomena of societal "excitation", as revolutions, occurred synchronously with the solar maxima, and, oppositely, those of peaceful activities of masses, as science and arts, with the solar minima. Recently, Slovak philosopher E. Páles describes periodic fluctuation of historical events in mutually distant geographic areas during more than three millennia. The period lengths, however, are longer, one of the most pronounced being around 500 years. THE QUESTION was therefore posed: does a similar correlation with sunspot activity, as found for 11-year cycles, exist also in the 500-year cycling?

MATERIAL AND METHODS: The historical data consisted of two time series concerning revolutions in Europe and China, and of eight time series from activities in science and arts registered from five geographic areas. For the comparison, parallel time series of sunspot (Wolf) numbers, available since IInd century B.C., were constructed. Using periodic regression function, the times of peaking were estimated for each data set.

RESULTS: In agreement with Tchijevsky's hypothesis, revolutions culminated near to solar maxima while cultural flourishing usually distinctly near to solar minima. This conclusion is based on the level of statistical significance alpha=0.05.

CONCLUSION: Solar impact on geomagnetic field could be one of elucidating mechanisms. Recently, electromagnetic influencing of brain function has been realized artificially....

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Biography 2007; 28(3): 219-220 PubMed PMID: 17627252 Citation  Keywords:  History, 20th Century, History, 21st Century, Italy, Physiology,.   

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