Ten 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 treatment-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) confirmation of earlier described significant neuropsychological cognitive impairment in patients with AIDS compared with seropositive patients or controls; 2) evidence of stimulation of ACTH, beta-endorphin, and cortisol by IL-2 administration, with profound sensitization of endocrine stimulation following an absence of IL-2; 3) preliminary confirmation of alpha-delta intrusion in patients with fibromyalgia; 4) absence of evidence of increased prevalence of suicidal acts or ideation in patients with Darier's disease.
