This study deals with the psychophysiological (electrodermal reactivity in a habituation experiment, habituation score) basis of suicidal behaviour. It shows habituation data of 30 suicides with violent method compared to age-and sex-matched control groups with different suicidal expressions, on a large database of a total sample of 504 depressed inpatients.The major finding of a significantly reduced electrodermal reactivity (habituation score) in suicidal action versus suicidal thinking confirms early results but in a comprehensive large sample. Also, it confirms our clinical hypothesis of a biological basis of suicidal action, specially in suicidal acts with violent methods.

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Studies on electrodermal reactivity in a psychophysiological habituation experiment with schizophrenic patients often show a high number of "non" - or "hypo-responsiveness". There is not enough evidence to explain non-response as anticholinergic drug effect of antipsychotic medication; results in the literature suggest that hyporesponsiveness can be regarded more as a psychopathological phenomenon of a distinct subgroup of subsigns of schizophrenia which are called negative symptoms or basic disturbances. For the measurements of so-called basic symptoms we used two German self-report questionnaires, the "Frankfurter Befindlichkeitsskala für schizophren Erkrankte (FBS)" by Süllwold and Herrlich (1987) and the "Günzburger Selbstbeurteilungsskala für Basissymptome bei Schizophrenen (GSBS)" by Schüttler and co-workers (Blumenthal et al., 1989). The FBS includes two factors, a so-called "hyper" - and a "hypo"-syndrome; the GSBS consists of three categories which are named "Potential-reduktion", "kognitive Denkstörungen" and "kognitive Wahrnehmungsstörungen". We expected a relationship between "non" - oder "hypo-responsiveness" of the electrodermal reactivity in a habituation experiment with acoustic stimuli and higher values in the "FBS hypo-syndrome" respectively the "GSBS Potentialreduktion" (reduction of energy, drive, apathy, depressive mood etc.). 40 female inpatients, mean age 35.5 years with the ICD-9 diagnoses 295.x (n = 34) and 397.0 (n = 6) were investigated in this study. All the inpatients were treated with antipsychotic medication at the time of the study (usually the third week of inpatient stay in a closed acute treatment ward for females after reduction of acute psychopathology).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)