[The long-range analysis of the chrombiological structure of some cases of manic-depressive illness (author's transl)].

Within the group of endogenous psychoses manic-depressive illness is a subgroup which can be explicitly described. The psychopathologic phenomena of their current status (Momentagefüge) are disorders of drive and mood. The time structure generally exhibits the characteristic sequence of acute phases and "free" intervals, while in detail there are numerous variations of intensity, such as siurnal variation of mood etc. An essential of the definition of endogenous psychoses has always been their periodicity. However, in the majority of cases that periodicity was not conclusively proved. On the basis of one representative case factor analyses of a long and complete series of daily self-rating scales were performed. A dichotomy of time series of mood scores and of drive scores was used for autocorrelation. Thereby two different multiday periods were established. Two periods of this type combine to produce an interferential period, which does not generally occur on a continual scale, but only in a systematic selection. This was the subject of investigation. From 100 phase schedules (Phasenkalender) of manic-depressive psychoses 18 cases with long periods were selected by means of a special technique of cross-correlation, which were re-analyzed under methodologically more stringent conditions. Such re-analyses confirmed the initial hypothesis. The entire phase schedule is composed of interferential periods...