Psychosomatic Medicine 24:267-273 (1962)
© 1962 American Psychosomatic Society

Autonomic Functions in Patients with Gastrointestinal and Dermatological Disorders

¹ Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, Calif.

This is the first report of a study designed to test the hypothesis that patients with different psychosomatic disorders demonstrate different response patterns for variables innervated by the autonomic nervous system. The subjects were 100 hospitalized males whose diagnostic groupings were: ulcer of stomach or duodenum, 31; nonulcerative gastrointestinal disorders (mainly gastritis), 36; neurodermatitis, 17; and other skin disorders (mainly psoriasis and urticaria), 16. All were tested by a standard procedure involving 15 min. of rest and the insertion of the right foot into iced water for 1 min. Heart rate, respiration rate, palmar conductance, finger pulse volume, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, and finger, face, and axillary temperatures were recorded. Most patients underwent additional initial measurements for determinations of scores of autonomic balance and patterns of resting autonomic function.

The mean composite score of autonomic balance of each patient group differed significantly from that of a normative sample of 93 university students and custodians and indicated an apparent relative dominance of sympathetic nervous system activity. Additionally, both gastrointestinal and dermatological patients tended to demonstrate most frequently a particular form of mixed physiological pattern, previously reported for other psychosomatic groups, in which certain variables show relative sympathetic dominance and others relative parasympathetic dominance.

In reactivity to cold pressor stimulation, there were no significant differences among the patient groups, but the neurodermatitis and nonulcerative gastrointestinal patients showed significantly less increase in diastolic blood pressure and greater increase in heart rate than the normative subjects. Before cold pressor stimulation, these two patient groups showed significantly higher axillary temperatures, and all patient groups showed significantly higher face and finger temperatures in comparison to the normative group.