November 13, 1984

Mayor Koch, extolling the virtues of New York City with his own irrepressible brand of salesmanship, lectured students and entertained crowds here today. On the second day of an official four-day visit as part of a sister-city program, the Mayor met with Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, was honored by the City of Madrid and repeatedly answered questions from Spaniards about President Reagan's victory in last week's election. Mr. Koch has also witnessed the training of bullfighters, eaten prodigious amounts of the Spanish specialty angulas - tiny eels with garlic - and, in celebration of ''New York Week in Madrid,'' attended an outdoor demonstration of break dancing.

President Reagan's top economic and political advisers agree that he should seek deep domestic spending cuts, despite the likelihood that Congress will reject them, key Administration officials said today. Administration officials said the urgency of the budget situation had been heightened by reports that projections of the Federal deficit had grown because of the slowdown of the economy in recent months. Officials said the latest projections showed the deficit would be at least $190 billion in the current fiscal year and in each of the next four years if there is no action by Congress. These estimates are nearly $20 billion higher than those made by the Administration in August.

THE arrival of Veterans Day seems to trigger the onset or return of mental problems among a growing number of Vietnam veterans, the legacy of unresolved emotional difficulties that stem from hostilities that ended more than a dozen years ago, according to doctors who have been monitoring such cases. Nightmares, vivid flashbacks of painful memories, acute panic attacks, chronic startle reactions and a proclivity toward violent aggressiveness are some of the difficulties reported by thousands of veterans each month. And in the view of several experts, rather than diminishing with time as might be expected, cases serious enough to warrant professional help have yet to peak, and can be expected to rise for another year or two. They say this is because the veterans, who averaged 19.2 years of age when they served, are now reaching the age when other midlife pressures exacerbate their troubling war memories. Although comparative figures on mental stress from past wars are not available, the severity of the fighting in Vietnam, the youth of the combatants and the failure to acknowledge and deal with the possibility that many soldiers were vulnerable to mental stress combined to intensify the problem, the experts said.

FROM now until Dec. 21, residents of the northern latitudes will experience a continuous decrease in a substance that has recently been shown to counter depression, increase alertness, inhibit sleepiness and perhaps stimulate sexual reproduction. That substance is sunlight, worshiped by people since earliest times for reasons that science is just now beginning to understand and extend. Findings described this month to the first wide- ranging scientific conference on the biological and medical effects of light indicate that both real and artificial light can have health benefits far beyond those imagined by science even as recently as four years ago. Researchers at the meeting described pilot studies in people using light to treat seasonal and other types of depression, jet lag and a form of leukemia. These were in addition to already established treatments for psoriasis, jaundice in newborn infants and bone loss resulting from vitamin D deficiency. And they outlined such future possibilities as light therapy to treat autoimmune system diseases, to counter rejection of transplanted organs and to target drug attacks on cancers, as well as using drugs to simulate the effects of natural light on moods and body rhythms.

The three fugitives and their wives and 12 small children lived in Ohio for more than two years, their lives on the lam shielded by carefully stitched subterfuge. Everybody was fooled - teachers, landlords, neighbors. The patterns of deception matched. The men - sought in the murder of a New Jersey state trooper, an attempted murder or bank robberies - were seen around the houses only on weekends. The wives kept to their homes, staying away from schools, shunning chitchat and avoiding neighbors and social commitments except for occasional car pooling.