Abstract
Reply by the current author to the comments made by S. Kumar (see record 2004-20509-014) on the original article (see record 2004-16407-004). We agree that there is a large degree of variation in the morphology of the pituitary. However, we have minimised the influence of morphology on the volume measurement by tracing all coronal slices where the pituitary was visualised. He showed that intra-individual changes in the brightness of the posterior bright signal, representing vasopressin released in the posterior lobe for fluids control. We did not analyse the brightness of the posterior bright signal, as we were not interested in the regulation of fluids control in our sample. In our study there were significant differences in age and gender between the groups. We agree that the association between increased pituitary volume and HPA axis hyperactivity is speculative, and we clearly stated this in our paper. Finally, we support the author's view that hyperactivity of the HPA axis occurs in a large number of conditions associated with stress. We agree that our study would have been more complete if we had measured the adrenal gland size. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved)
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 437 - 438 |
| Number of pages | 2 |
| Journal | British Journal of Psychiatry |
| Volume | 185 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| Publication status | Published - 2004 |