The prevalence of dementia in elderly people living in the community was compared using data from Zaragoza (Spain) and Liverpool (UK). A standardized interview, the Geriatric Mental State (GMS), was administered to a random sample of 1070 persons in Liverpool and 1080 in Zaragoza. Using diagnoses derived from the GMS-AGECAT package we found no significant difference between the prevalence of dementia in Zaragoza (7·4%) and Liverpool (5·0%). The expected increase in prevalence with age was found, but the two cities did not appear to differ in the relationship between age and prevalence. No sex difference was apparent, and the two cities do not differ in the relationship between sex and prevalence.

To understand anything, it is helpful to know its history. All psychiatrists are confronted by clinical problems that have developed over a large part of their patients' life span. This applies most obviously to the disorders of personality, but it is also true of many disorders arising in adult life. The roots of depression can sometimes be traced back to suffering and loss in childhood. Schizophrenia is often preceded by long periods of cumulative problems in personal relationships; and recent theory has drawn attention to very early signs of abnormality in the perinatal period. Many child psychiatric disorders present as enduring traits. The model of ‘psychiatric illness’ tends to emphasize the change and discontinuity from previous life, but it is also necessary to understand the extent to which an individual's plight can be seen as the product of character and stress.

Social language use (pragmatics) in parents of autistic individuals and controls was compared. Autism parents displayed atypical pragmatic behaviours more often than controls. Preliminary factor analysis suggested three parsimonious groupings of pragmatic abnormalities: Disinhibited Social Communication, Awkward/Inadequate Expression, and Odd Verbal Interaction. The pragmatic features observed in some autism parents are milder but conceptually similar to the social language deficits of autism. Possible reasons for familial aggregation of pragmatic language deficits are discussed.

In this paper background, objectives, methodology and a few preliminary findings of a comparative epidemiological study of mental disorders among four aboriginal groups in Taiwan are presented. The study includes both a cross-sectional sample survey (N = 993) and prospective cohort studies involving psychoses, minor psychiatric morbidity, alcoholism, suicide, and accidental death. The total response rate to the sample survey was 98·3%; respondents were found to be representative. A preliminary analysis found very high rates of death from suicide, accidents and chronic liver and lung disease with a previous history of alcoholism in many of these deaths. Implications of these findings and studies of risk factors of all these health problems and their relationships are discussed.

During the 1988/89 academic year the Department of Neuroscience was formed at the Institute of Psychiatry from the former Departments of Biochemistry and Pharmacology. The University agreed to the establishment of a new Chair of Neuroscience to accompany this academic initiative and to which Professor Brian Anderton was appointed in 1989. In 1989, a new Lecturer in Molecular Biology, Dr John Powell, was appointed as well as a Clinical Senior Lecturer jointly with the Department of Psychiatry, Dr Robert Kerwin; this latter post was a new post under the UFC New Clinical Appointments Scheme. These changes have led to a strengthening of the molecular and cellular neurobiological interests of this new department and will influence the future academic aims of the Department of Neuroscience and Institute of Psychiatry as a whole.