A controlled study of the effect of therapies aimed at adolescent and family psychopathology in anorexia nervosa.

Ninety patients with severe anorexia nervosa fulfilling DSM-III-R criteria were assessed in depth in terms of their family developmental psychopathology and then randomly allocated to either one of three treatment groups or to no treatment. In three treatment regimes, a behavioural approach to diet and weight gain was coupled with individual and family psychotherapy directed at the adolescent maturational problems. All three treatment regimes were highly significantly effective at one year in terms of weight gain, return of menstruation, and aspects of social and sexual adjustment. Body weights above those at pubertal onset were achieved for the group mean maximum and one-year follow-up weights for all three treatment groups but not the control group.

Cerebral hemisphere function and migraine.

An hypothesis that migraine is the experience of a protective vascular response to cerebral information overload has been explored to a limited extent by examining the association between laterality of the attack and verbal and spatial performances under standard symptom-free conditions. The study was restricted to individuals with unilateral symptoms always presenting on the same side. It emerged that those with classical migraine do not always have prodromata referable to the same side as the pain. Indeed, in the present study, prodromata were almost exclusively referable to the left (dominant) cerebral hemisphere. A subgroup of those with speech disturbances as a feature of the prodromal symptoms was also found to have relatively impaired language abilities on routine testing. It is this finding that lends some support to the hypothesis. The findings also invite the refining proposition that information overload, as defined in the hypothesis, is almost always borne by the dominant (verbal) hemisphere in our species. Such overload might concurrently or sequentially also overtax a suggested limited right hemisphere language capacity, in terms of the hypothesis, accounting for the right-sided pain sometimes presenting in these cases. Otherwise, pain appears to be predominantly left-sided or midline. Perhaps the frequency of this particular syndrome is an indictment of the limitations of language as a basis for communication, as well as reflecting the possibility that most of our stressful transactions and their cerebral processing use a verbal substrate. The results also reveal the need for agreement on rules for classification of laterality in migraine.

Autoxidation of methyl linoleate. Separation and analysis of isomeric mixtures of methyl linoleate hydroperoxides and methyl hydroxylinoleates.

The mixture of conjugated diene hyperperoxide isomers obtained from autoxidation of methyl linoleate was separated by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Four major isomers were obtained from adsorption chromatography and identified as the 9 and 13 positional isomers having the trans-trans and cis-trans configurations. The latter geometrical isomers have the trans double bond adjacent to the hydroperoxide group. The hydroxy compounds (methyl hydroxylinoleates) obtained from the hydroperoxides by NaBH4 reduction were similarly separated but with improved resolution. This is the first instance of the complete separation of these compounds and provides a rapid method for their analysis. Unlike adsorption chromatography, reversed-phase chromatography separates the mixtures only according to the geometrical isomerism of the double bonds and not according to the position of the hydroxy or hydroperoxide function.

Autoxidation of methyl linolenate: Analysis of methyl hydroxylinolenate isomers by high performance liquid chromatography.

The mixture of methyl hydroxylinolenates obtained by reduction of the hydroperoxide isomers formed by autoxidation of methyl linolenate was resolved by high performance liquid chromatography into eight major components. These are positional isomers with the hydroxyl group at positions 9, 12, 13, and 16. Two geometrical isomers of each positional isomer are present; these differ in the configuration of the conjugated double bonds (cis-trans andtrans-trans). Autoxidation of methyl linolenate is regioselective and favors the formation of positional isomers 9 and 16.