Szuba M P, Yager A, Guze B H, Allen E M, Baxter L R
Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA School of Medicine.
Psychiatry Res. 1992 Jun;42(3):221-30. doi: 10.1016/0165-1781(92)90114-i.
While dysregulations of physiological circadian rhythms are common findings in depression and have been posited to be involved in the mediation of depressive episodes, only recently has the role of social circadian rhythms in the pathogenesis of depression been a focus of interest. The Social Rhythm Metric (SRM), designed to describe the regularity of a human subject's social circadian rhythms, was used in this study to compare the social rhythms of depressed patients with those of normal controls and to determine the relationship between SRM scores and depression severity. Depressed patients' SRM scores were significantly lower than those of normal controls. The SRM negatively correlated with scores on the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression. Overall social activity was negatively correlated with a Hamilton item, social activity impairment. The results of this preliminary study support the hypothesis that social zeitgebers are disrupted in major depression.
虽然生理昼夜节律失调在抑郁症中是常见现象，且被认为参与了抑郁发作的介导过程，但直到最近，社会昼夜节律在抑郁症发病机制中的作用才成为研究热点。本研究使用旨在描述人类受试者社会昼夜节律规律性的社会节律指标（SRM），比较抑郁症患者与正常对照组的社会节律，并确定SRM评分与抑郁严重程度之间的关系。抑郁症患者的SRM评分显著低于正常对照组。SRM与汉密尔顿抑郁量表评分呈负相关。总体社交活动与汉密尔顿量表中的一项指标——社交活动障碍呈负相关。这项初步研究的结果支持了以下假设：在重度抑郁症中，社会时间线索被打乱。
