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Using radioimmunoassay the authors studied the patterns of plasma levels of cortisol, insulin, triiodothyronine, and thyroxine in patients with acute and protracted reactive depressions. The patients had higher cortisol levels and lower immunoreactivity of the other three hormones as compared to a group of healthy donors. Patients with acute depressions had higher values of cortisol than those with protracted ones. The treatment tended to normalize the hormonal parameters which was parallelled by positive clinical dynamics. Patients with protracted reactive depressions were more resistant to the conducted therapy. Concentrations of plasma hormones (with the exception of insulin) at the end of the treatment remained altered as compared to those in healthy subjects.

The so-called "pure" depressive states in the structure of psychogenic diseases occur less frequently nowadays. Therefore, the pathomorphosis of mental disorders which has been observed recently in clinical manifestations of different mental diseases complicates the differential diagnosis. To obviate this difficulty one of the most important diagnostic methods, namely measurement of the blood levels of neuromediators (noradrenaline, acetylcholine) in patients with reactive depression was used to study the neuromediator metabolism which is most closely related to changes in the emotional sphere. This is of great significance for the understanding of mechanisms of the formation of the clinical pattern of various depressive states and approaches to the disease diagnosis. These characteristics may be of use in selecting the mode of therapy.