The physiological response to stress falls mainly on the cardiovascular system, adrenergic stimulation resulting in peripheral vasoconstriction and an increase in systemic blood pressure. The analogous effects that occur in anxiety-provoking situations immediately suggest an association, whether causal or effectual, between raised blood pressure and anxiety. It has also been suggested that hypertensive individuals exhibit more aggressive traits than others and that these may be hidden or suppressed, becoming manifest by abnormal elevation of the blood pressure (Smirk, 1957).

SynopsisA psychopharmacogenetic strategy was used to investigate a genetic heterogeneity model of schizophrenia. This model consisted of various genetic subtypes represented by patients classified hypothetically according to the types and genealogical (Mendelian) patterns of illnesses in first-degree relatives. The effect of neuroleptics on these subtypes (drug x genetic subtype interactions) were tested for evidence of post-treatment responses which discriminated between them. The findings revealed that schizophrenics who had depressed relatives tended to exhibit (1) depression and more severe pseudoparkinsonism irrespective of types of neuroleptics, and (2) greater remission of paranoid-hostility symptoms when treated with neuroleptics of the aliphatic-piperadine type. Schizophrenics who had schizophrenic relatives failed to show these responses.Interpretation of these findings emphasized the recognition of these responses as arising from neuroleptic-induced alterations of defective neurologic-neurochemical systems underlying this subtype and as ‘pharmacogenetic criteria’ by which it can be discriminated.

Alcoholism in the male relatives of patients with various (nonalcoholic) psychiatric disorders is consistently elevated above population risk. Over the years, this finding has given rise to theories which propose that some forms of alcoholism are attributable to the pleiotropic expression of genes underlying these disorders. This mechanism was tested in the fathers of patients from ethnic groups associated with culturally suppressed alcohol abuse where it was predicted that decreased alcoholism would be substituted for by increased psychiatric disorder. Results, however, failed to support such a mechanism. Other explanations of this elevated alcoholism were considered.