The present study investigated the sensitivity and specificity of the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (HVLT) for demented patients (n = 82, using NINCDS criteria) and 114 healthy controls – equivalent in age, years of education and gender-ratio – from the Oxford Project to Investigate Memory and Ageing. The HVLT ‘Total Recall’ score had 87% sensitivity and 98% specificity for dementia using a cut-off score of 14.5. Using a ‘Memory’ score (the sum of the ‘Total Recall’ and the ‘Discrimination Index’) with a cut-off score of 24.5 gave a 91% sensitivity and 98% specificity for Alzheimer’s disease cases when compared to controls. Unlike the MMSE, the HVLT has no ceiling effects and does not have to be adjusted for education. We conclude that the HVLT is an easy to administer, quick and well tolerated tool for the screening of dementia.

The most important strategies for suicide prevention in nurses are in prevention, detection and management of psychiatric disorders. In assessing suicide risk a history of DSH and the presence of comorbid psychiatric and personality disorders are particularly important.

The hypothesis that psychosis arises as a part of the genetic diversity associated with the evolution of language generates the prediction that illness will be linked to a gene determining cerebral asymmetry, which, from the evidence of sex chromosome aneuploidies, is present in homologous form on the X and Y chromosomes. We investigated evidence of linkage to markers on the X chromosome in 1) 178 families multiply affected with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder with a series of 16 markers spanning the centromere (study 1), and 2) 180 pairs of left-handed brothers with 14 markers spanning the whole chromosome (study 2). In study 1, excess allele-sharing was observed in brother-brother pairs (but not brother-sister or a small sample of sister-sister pairs) over a region of approximately 20 cM, with a maximum LOD score of 1.5 at DXS991. In study 2, an association between allele-sharing and degree of left-handedness was observed extending over approximately 60 cM, with a maximum lod score of 2.8 at DXS990 (approximately 20 cM from DXS991). Within the overlap of allele-sharing is located a block in Xq21 that transposed to the Y chromosome in recent hominid evolution and is now represented as two segments on Yp. In one of two XX males with psychosis we found that the breakpoint on the Y is located within the distal region of homology to the block in Xq21. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that an X-Y homologous determinant of cerebral asymmetry carries the variation that contributes to the predisposition to psychotic illness.

North et al. (2002) propose a new formula for the empirical estimation of P values by Monte Carlo methods to replace a standard conventional estimator. They claim that their new formula is "correct" and "most accurate" and that the conventional formula is "not strictly correct," repeating this claim many times in their letter. The claim, however, is incorrect, and the conventional formula is the correct one. The North et al. claim arises when a test statistic (called here "t") takes a certain numerical value (called here "t*") when calculated from data from some experiment, and it is required to find an unbiased estimate of the P value corresponding to t* by Monte Carlo simulation. This is done by performing n Monte Carlo simulations, all performed under the null hypothesis tested