The significance of hormone action in psychiatry has been long studied, now including the psychiatric effects of hormones on the aging process. This clinical reference addresses the hormonal basis of mental disorders in older people. Hormones influence a wide range of states and conditions, from pain tolerance and anorexia to attention, mood, immunity, cardiovascular and cognitive function, schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease. Written by an eminent team of psychiatrists, psychologists, geriatricians and neuropharmacologists, this book brings together established information and findings in four sections: • An overview of the basic science of neurosteroids • Sex difference and the roles that cortisol, thyroid hormone, and the sex steroids estrogen, progesterone, dehydroepiandrosterone and testosterone play in common mental disorders and pain sensitivity • Psychoneuroimmunology in relation to age • Sex differences and hormones in psychotropic drug metabolism in the elderly.