Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS), which had been designed by Zung in 1965,was first translated into Japanese and fully studied by Fukuda in 1973. After statistical examination of the results, Fukuda concluded that SDS would be also useful for Japanese people.The author, translated SDS into Japanese by himself and has applied it, since 1970 at Toyosato Hospital to 54 out- and in-patients who were in neurotic and/or depressive state. As the result, it was found that the mean values of raw depressive score were almost identical to Fukuda's results in normal control subjects as well as in the patients mentioned above. Statistically no significant difference was found in the results between the author and Fukuda as far as the raw scores were concerned.The raw scores in the normal control group were significantly lower in both the author's and Fukuda's results as compared with those of Zung. A possible explanation of hte difference found in these normal subjects between U.S.A. and Japan, was made by the author exclusively from the transcultural viewpoint. He pointed out that the questions # 17 and # 20 in this scale were not adequate to the Japanese in detecting depressino and that these seemed to be a great difference between Japanese and Ameriacn with regard to their response to the wording such as "enjoy sex" and "suicide" due to their different backgrounds. Furth-ermore, after having madeseveral examinations of his results, the author considered that it was necessary to have a kind of reliability score in SDS such as was generally included in personality inventory.Thus the author concluded that, on the contrary to Fukuda's opinion, the current SDS seemed to be of little use for the Japanese and that a new Self-Rating Depressino Scale should be originated which was more fitting for the Japanese.

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300 mg of γ-Oryzanol a day was administered to 21 patients who complained of autonomic instability including gastrointestinal symptoms, and they were observed for 2 weeks.The results were as follow : 1) An improvement was observed in our subjects with regard to their gastrointestinal symptoms and other complaints. Particularly, in those patients whose symptoms were considered to be mild according to our check for autonomic functioning showed better improvement as compared with those whose symptoms were more serious.2) As for the effectiveness of γ-Oryzanol, our result showed that it was markedly effective in 8 cases, effective in 5 cases, slightly effective in 5 cases and non-effective in 3 cases, indicating that it was either markedly effective or effective in 62% of the subjects.3) In the total assessment, the effectiveness of γ-Oryzanol in the less seriously ill group was greater than that of more seriously ill group. γ-Oryzanol was more effective in the patients who were over 40 years old than those who were less than 40.4) No side effect was observed in any patient.

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As an attempt to analyze the side-effects of antianxiety drugs in various psychological functions, 20 mg of medazepam, 6 mg of diazepam and inactive placebo (luctose) were orally administered to ten male and female student subjects (paid volunteers). The author's discussion was concerned with the effects of these drugs upon self-rating for sleepiness and emotional-somatic condition as well as upon visual and visual-motor functions.In the self-rating scale, the degrees of sleepiness (1 scale) and emotinoal-somatic condition (10 scales) of the subject were measured according to 7 degrees of rating.Eight visual tests were given : (1) flicker, (2) figure-groudnd reversal, (3) digits recognition, (4) reaction time, (5) time estimation, (6) visibility of Landolt's ring. (7) tri-dimensional appearances in plane figure and (8) figure tracing.According to the results obtained, no statistically significant differences on these self-ratings and visual tests were shown between the two drugs with the exception of their reaction time.On the self-rating of emotional-somatic condition, it was found that the subject tended to be calm and loose in his emotional state and dull in his somatic condition, after administration of medazepam and diazepam (but statistically not significant).Reaction time increased after administration of medazepam and decreased after administration of diazepam under this condition. An interesting fact was that, in diazepam condition reaction time decreased to 100 msec. or less in many subjects.At present we are investigating the effect of dasage variation on reaction time, temporal change after drug administration on it, and so forth.

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Four studies were undertaken in order to test the hypothesee concerning the relationship of the definiteness of the body image boundary to the patterns of sensations from exterior and interior body regions. The boundary definiteness was measured by the barrier scores which is derived from the responses to inkblots.In Study I, subjects were asked to report body sensations occurring in two outer (skin, muscle) and two inner (heart, stomach) body sites during a five minute period. The barrier score was, as predicted, positively and significantly related to the excess of exterior over interior sensations.In Study II, subjects were also asked to report body sensations that occurred in two outer and two inner body sites in retrospective recall of a variety of emotional states. It was demonstrated that persons with high barrier scores showed the excess of exterior over interior body sensations in this retrospective situation, although these two were not proven to be statistically significant.In Study III, the barrier score was significantly related to the excess of exterior over interior symptoms or sensations experienced by subjects who swallowed a placebo, which was given as harmless drug with an explation that it would affect one's body in various ways.Study IV was based on the assuption that if selective perception of exterior versus interior body sensations occurs, chronically, there would be an equivalent selectivity in one's recall of a series of verbal references to exterior and interior body sensations which had been learned. As the result, a trend, though not statistically significant, was found that high-barrier persons were inclined to recall verbal references to exterior than interior body sensations.The over-all results indicated a spectrum of inter-relations between barrier score and body experience variables. They support that body image boundary definiteness leads to the shift of predominantly proprioceptive-enteroceptive cathexis toward sensoriperceptive cathexis of the periphery. This means that, in growing body image boundary definiteness, a progressive displacement of libido has to take place from the inside (particularly from the abdominal organ) to the periphery of the body.

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The patient was a 24 year-old female having hyperventilative attacks which were accompanied by arrhythmia. She was diagnosed as hyperventilation syndrome with premature beats which were precipitated by an emotional stress caused by the death of her lover.Her premature beats as well as hyperventilative attacks, were recorded under a stress interview.These results indicate that such an emotional stress could play an important role in the development to hyperventilative attacks with arrhythmia.

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A 42-year old man had a complaint of palpitation and was admitted to our hospital for the purpose of further examination with regard to labile hypertension.His blood pressure was high and it fluctuated on different days. He had no organic disease such as symptomatic hypertension and cardiac failure. In this patient, hyperresponsiveness to isoproterenolo as well marked positive response to beta-blocker were also observed. Therefore we diagnosed him as a hyperdynamic beta-adrenergic circulatory state.Before treatment vegetative dysfunction was observed in the microvibration record However, after the administration of propranolol, the abnormal microvibration pattern disappeared.

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Little is know about ASC mainly because few investigators actually experience them, the language is inadequate to describe the variety of changes in consciousness and only relatively crude techniques are available for measuring physical parameters that might reflect changes in consciousness in man. The most important brain stuctures responsible for consciousness are the neocortex, brain stem, diencephlon and limbic system, but little precise information is available about the relevant pathways or sites within these structures. Although many different techniques are used for inducing ASC, in most cases only three basic processes operate, that is, decreased and/or uniform sensory inputs, motor outputs and cognition. The practice of ASC leads to not only a decrease in various stress-related problems (a results of relaxation) but also to higher-order personality integration. There is a development of a sense of awareness other than that based on ego-consciousness. It is suggested that psychosomatic medicine should regard man not only as a physical body and a mind, but also as consisting of a spirit. The latter can only be understood by experience.

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[in Japanese]

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