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TOWARD A BIOCHEMICAL CLASSIFICATION OF DEPRESSIVE-DISORDERS .2. APPLICATION OF MULTIVARIATE DISCRIMINANT FUNCTION ANALYSIS TO DATA ON URINARY CATECHOLAMINES AND METABOLITES ARCHIVES OF GENERAL PSYCHIATRY Schildkraut, J. J., Cole, J. O., ROHDE, W. A., Gudeman, J. E., Schatzberg, A. F., Orsulak, P. J., LaBrie, R. A. 1978; 35 (12): 1436-1439

Abstract

The previous article in this series reported on the differences in urinary excretion of 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (MHPG) in patients with various clinically defined subtypes of depressive disorders. We now report that further biochemical discrimination among depressive subtypes is provided by the following equation, derived empirically by applying multivariate discriminant function analysis to data on urinary catecholamine metabolits: Depression-type (D-type) score = C1(MHPG) + C2(VMA) + C3(NE) +C4(NMN + MN)/VMA + C0. In the original derivation of this equation, low scores were related to bipolar manic-depressive depressions, and high scores were related to unipolar nonendogenous (chronic characterological) depressions. Findings from a series of depressed patients whose biochemical data had not been used to derive this equation confirmed these differences in D-type scores among subtypes of depressions. The findings presented in this report further suggest that we can discriminate three biochemically discrete subgroups of depressive disorders.

View details for Web of Science ID A1978GB74600004

View details for PubMedID 727879