RESUMEN
[ABSTRACT]There is a set of disorders known as the « depressive spectrum » Winnocour, in line with the distinction of depressions in primaries and secondaries, distinguished as follows: a) a group he called ?depressive spectrum? (DSD), where first-grade relatives suffer from alcoholism, an anti-social personality, or both; b) another group of patients with ?pure family depressive illness? (FPDD), where first-grade relatives have a history of depression; c) a third group of patients with what is known as ?sporadic depressive illness? (SDD) with no family history. Much work has also been carried out using symptom analysis techniques, and Craig Nelson and Charnev used phenomenological criteria to question the abovementioned works. However, this distinguishment may still be of interest to other types of research, mainly biological, which seeks particularly pure samples with a common set of biological characteristics, established using neuroimaging techniques Supprian and colls. found some differences in the MRI for depressions (although not in bi-polar) with respect to controls. The normal practice was to make distinctions between recurring major depressive disorders and bipolar disorders. The bipolar/single polar distinction introduced by Leonhad (1957) and then independently developed by Angst and Perris (1966) distinguishes patients with depressions and manic episodes, and correlates them with genetic, clinical and therapeutic variables. The entity of the bipolar disorders is well established. There is a tendency nowadays to subdivide them into two (bipolar I and bipolar II) or more subtypes. Bipolar II disorder is characterised clinically because it shows hypomanic episodes which are not intense enough or of sufficient duration to be considered manic, as is the case with bipolar I. There are other substantial differences between bipolar I and bipolar II, from the biological viewpoint. This differentiates between patients with depression and manic episodes and patients suffering only from recurring depression, and correlates them with genetic, clinical and therapeutic variables. The entity of the bipolar disorders is well established. The modern tendency is to subdivide these into two subtypes (bipolar I and bipolar II) or more. These disorders have clear biological correlations. Fallin and colls. have encountered significant susceptibility to schizophrenia in the 10q22z chromosome and linkages in chromosomes 1, 3, 11 and 18 for bipolar disorders I and II in Ashkenazim Jews.En los últimos años, en el contexto de las tendencias dimensionales en las clasificaciones psiquiátricas, que hemos comentado en dos números anteriores de esta
revista, se ha descrito un llamado ?espectro depresivo?, cuya extensión y límites voy a
describir en las siguientes páginas.
Palabras clave: Dimensiones diagnósticas, Espectro depresivo
