Anxiety, irritability, and interpersonal friction, in addition to specific depressive symptoms, appear to be common residual symptoms. The rollback phenomenon and state-trait dichotomy Detre and Jarecki92 provided a model for relating prodromal and residual symptomatology, defined

as the rollback phenomenon: as the illness remits, it progressively recapitulates (though in a reverse order) many of the stages and symptoms that were seen during the time it, developed. According to the rollback model, there Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical is also a temporal relationship between the time of development of a disorder and the duration of the phase of recovery. For example, if an illness begins with occasional anxiety attacks that are superseded some weeks Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical later by depressive symptoms

which then become progressively more severe until, after several months, the patient develops total insomnia and confusion, the symptoms tend, as the condition improves, to remit in reverse order, the confusion and insomnia diminishing first, and the depressed mood next. After the depression lifts, the patient may again experience anxiety attacks for several weeks, until finally these symptoms, too, disappear. “92 The rollback phenomenon-or, at least, a strong relationship between prodromal and residual symptomatology-has been substantiated in the treatment of major depression.84 Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical In one study,84 almost 70% of the residual symptoms that were found to occur in 40 remitted depressed patients were also present at, the prodromal phase of illness. This percentage increased to almost, 90% of cases Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical for residual

generalized anxiety and irritability. These results achieved independent, replication,93 and are also supported by several lines of evidence. In a prospective study94 which examined the possibility that, episodes of major depression result, in lasting find more personality changes that persist beyond recovery (the scar hypothesis), there was no evidence of negative change Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical from premorbid to postmorbid assessment. These findings were replicated by Ormel et al.78 Further, a 10-year follow-up study after severe depression93 suggested that residual symptoms were common and persistent, with considerable fluctuations. This would Chlormezanone suggest continuity-whether we rate it in characterological or symptomatological terms-between the prodromal and residual phases. Another line of evidence is based on recognition of specific temporal courses of change during treatment of depression.96-99 Different types of treatment may affect the temporal course of change in depression,100 and the use of pattern analysis may differentiate true drug and placebo responses early in treatment.101 Patients do not suddenly become well, but tend to gradually lose their depressive symptoms over the months following treatment.