EFFICACY OF THE CLONIDINE REM SUPPRESSION TEST (CREST) TO SEPARATE PATIENTS WITH MAJOR DEPRESSION FROM CONTROLS - A COMPARISON WITH 3 CURRENTLY PROPOSED BIOLOGICAL MARKERS OF DEPRESSION

We have shown that clonidine, infused i.v. during the second non-REM p eriod, was significantly less REM sleep suppressant in depressed patie nts than in control subjects. We have named this procedure the 'clonid ine REM suppression test (CREST)'. In this report, we compare in the s ame sample (15 patients with primary major affective illness, 10 norma l controls, 15 patients with minor depression and 15 patients with gen eralized anxiety) the efficacy of the CREST to separate the major depr essed patients from the control subjects with the efficacy of three cu rrently proposed biological markers of depression, i.e., the latency o f REM sleep, the dexamethasone suppression test and the clonidine grow th hormone stimulation test. We found that the CREST had the highest e fficacy and suggest that further studies with independent and larger s amples of patients and controls are needed to confirm those preliminar y results and establish if the CREST could provide a new biological ma rker of major affective disorders.