[Psychosomatic and humoral correlations of persons in late middle age]

Comprehensive examination of psychoemotional personality characteristics, electropolygraphic examination during night sleep and in various states of day-time wakefulness, as well as determination of the circadian rhythm of urinary catecholamine excretion were carried out in elderly patients versus control subjects. A correlational analysis of the findings obtained revealed certain changes of the studied indicators in the elderly patients. Nocturnal sleep was associated with elevated functional activity of the ascending activating system of the brain and with increased noradrenaline excretion. In day-time wakefulness the dynamics of physiologic, psychologic and biochemical changes were of the unidirectional nature: a decrease in reactivity of alpha-index was logically combined with decrease in reactive anxiety and in noradrenaline and dopamine secretion.