Nine protocols are currently active and conducted out of the Consultation-- Liaison Service-based behavioral medicine research program. These protocols examine the phenomenology and biological correlates of illness or treat- ment-induced mood, behavioral, and cognitive changes. The protocols address such areas as: a) the effects of previous psychiatric history on the psychiatric morbidity associated with certain diseases and their treatment; b) the psychiatric phenomenology of certain diseases and their treatment; c) the treatment response characteristics of psychiatric disorders associated with diseases or their treatment; d) biochemical factors that may serve as predictive diagnostic markers for illness or for treatment-associated mood/behavioral or cognitive syndromes; e) the effects of mood state alterations on immunologic function. Significant findings to date include demonstration of the following: 1) highly correlated secretion of interleukin-1 and interleukin-2 in circadian studies, the first such studies of lymphokine secretion in humans; 2) evidence for marked stability of IL-1 and IL-2 levels in longitudinal studies, with no evidence of influence of menstrual cycle phase; 3) lack of evidence for systematic effect of hypnotically induced affective state on lymphokines; 4) high correlation between Stanford C Scale and Self Absorption Scale but not Dissociative Experiences Scale scores; 5) IL-2 stimulated ACTH secretion in humans appears to predict subsequent cognitive deterioration.
