NEUROENDOCRINOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRIC-ILLNESS

Evidence for a role of neurohormones in psychiatric disease is greatest for illnesses in the affective disorder spectrum, which we argue includes melancholic and atypical depression, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, posttraumatic stress disorder, and panic disorder. These illnesses are associated with signs of hypothalamic dysfunction and have similar profiles of neuroendocrine dysregulation. In contrast, the data are much less clear for an intrinsic role of neuroendocrine dysregulation in schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or other anxiety disorders. This difference may reflect the fact that schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder represent more "structural" abnormalities, or it may reflect greater diagnostic heterogeniety, which makes the elucidation of specific alterations in neurohormonal systems impossible.