[Role of the age factor in the pathogenesis of manic-depressive psychosis]

It was established that young patients in the depressive phase of manic-depressive psychosis (MDP) display the homogeneity of functional changes at various levels of the body auto-regulation system. In advanced age (45-65 years), due to uneven involutional changes, the body exhibits an increase in the activity of the central and, particularly peripheral links of the sympathetico-adrenal homeostatic system, which explains a considerable elevation in the number of patients with pronounced anxious symptomatology and hypersympathicotonia at the periphery. High affective tension with agitation phenomena in patients with the disease onset in advanced age is maintained by fairly high blood levels of catecholamines (particularly noradrenaline) due to the stimulation of their synthesis.