scholarly journals Information Processing in Mood Disorders

Author(s):  
Jonathan Roiser ◽  
Barbara J. Sahakian

This article discusses the central role of information processing in mood disorders, distinguishing “cold” (emotion-independent) from “hot” (emotional-dependent) cognition. Impaired cold cognition, which appears in the core diagnostic criteria for both depressive and manic episodes, is a reliable finding in mood disorders. There is good evidence that cold cognitive abnormalities remain in remission, predict poor response to treatment, and are present in unaffected first-degree relatives of patients with mood disorders, suggesting that they are not simply epiphenomena of extreme mood states. Abnormal hot cognition is also a consistent finding in mood disorders. Mood-congruent affective biases and disrupted reward-processing have commonly been reported; the latter is especially relevant for understanding anhedonia. This pattern of disrupted hot and cold cognition is consistent with a cognitive neuropsychological model of depression, which proposes a central role for fundamental information-processing abnormalities in generating symptoms.

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (4_suppl) ◽  
pp. 218-218
Author(s):  
A. J. McRee ◽  
S. Chen ◽  
B. H. O'Neil ◽  
K. Rathmell

218 Background: Cholangiocarcinoma (CC) is an aggressive malignancy that often presents in advanced stages with poor response rates to conventional chemotherapy. Recent studies of CC have uncovered several oncogenes and tumor suppressors implicated in the transition from biliary hyperplasia to malignancy. We have developed a mouse model of intrahepatic CC that results from deletion of the phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) gene and the von Hippel Lindau (VHL) gene, a tumor suppressor that regulates hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) expression. Immunohistochemical (IHC) analysis of the liver tumors revealed strong staining of p-AKT and HIF-1α. This study aims to determine the expression of the same downstream targets p-AKT and HIF1α in a dataset of human CC tumors. Methods: Archived samples from 33 CC patients were sectioned and stained via IHC for p-AKT and HIF1α expression. Samples were evaluated using a proportion score (PS) for neoplastic cells on a scale of 0 to 5, and an intensity score (IS) expressed on a scale of 0 to 3. Normal liver samples were used as controls. Results: Using a combined score of at least 5 to determine positive expression, 18% of the 33 evaluated samples displayed positive p-AKT expression and 61% displayed positive HIF1α expression. 15% of cases displayed concomitant expression of both p-AKT and HIF1α, while 39% of evaluated samples had expression of neither protein. Conclusions: Delineating the molecular pathways that lead to CC formation is crucial in developing novel therapeutics for a disease in drastic need of more effective therapies. Our group has developed a mouse model of intrahepatic CC that suggests a synergistic role of PTEN and VHL in the tumorigenesis of CC with upregulation of p-AKT and HIF1α. A modest percentage of a cohort of human samples demonstrates a similar expression pattern, potentially defining a distinct molecular subtype of this cancer with implications for tumor behavior and response to treatment. Future studies will correlate these molecularly-defined subtypes to the clinicopathologic characteristics of the tumors with the ultimate aim of establishing biomarkers of disease prognosis as well as potential predictive indicators of treatment activity. No significant financial relationships to disclose.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (Supplement_6) ◽  
pp. vi25-vi25
Author(s):  
Peggy Harris ◽  
Amber Kerstetter-Fogle ◽  
Anthony Sloan ◽  
Alankrita Raghavan ◽  
Harry Hoffman ◽  
...  

Abstract INTRODUCTION Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary malignant brain tumor with a median overall survival of 12-15months. GBM aggressiveness and poor response to treatment are often attributed to a small population of stem-like cells referred to as glioma stem cells (GSCs). Human Beta-Defensins (HBDs), a family of small molecules initially thought to function as anti-microbials, have been implicated in various cancers with functions that are cancer type specific, including proinflammatory and immunosuppressive roles. GOAL: This study aimed to elucidate HBDs expression in GSCs and differentiated gioma cells (DGSs). METHODS We identified HBD2 and HBD3 in glioma and GSCs and DGSs by immunofluorescence (IF) and immunohistochemistry (IHC). We also assessed the role HBD2/3 play in GBM oncogenesis by investigating their effects on the self-renewal capacity of GSCs. RESULTS HBD2 and HBD3 are found in both bulk tumor and GSCs by IHC and IF. Expression of HBD2 and HBD3 mRNA levels are elevated in GBM patient tissue in comparison to lower grade gliomas by 16.2 & 1.9 fold (respectively; p < 0.0001). Additionally, transcriptional expression of HBD2 and HBD3 are increased by 0.68 and 1.15 fold respectively in GSCs versus autologous DGCs (p < 0.05; p< 0.005 respectively), suggesting a role for HBD 2/3 in oncogenesis. Interestingly however, HBD2 and HBD3 pretreatment of GSC cell lines showed decreased self-renewal capacity by 34.2 and 66.4% (p < 0.001), determined by the reduced number of large neurospheres ( >250mm). CONCLUSIONS Our results demonstrate the presence of HBD2/3 in GBM samples by IHC and IF with increased HBD2/3 mRNA expression in GBM samples. Interestingly DGCs contain less HBD2/3 than their GCS counterparts, and clonogenicity assays demonstrate a decrease in oncogenesis, suggesting that HBD’s role in proliferation and clonogenicity of DGCs and GSCs may be context dependent, leading to additional questions and future studies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. R1-R7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greta B Raglan ◽  
Louis A Schmidt ◽  
Jay Schulkin

The stress response has been linked to the expression of anxiety and depression, but the mechanisms for these connections are under continued consideration. The activation and expression of glucocorticoids and CRH are variable and may hold important clues to individual experiences of mood disorders. This paper explores the interactions of glucocorticoids and CRH in the presentation of anxiety and depressive disorders in an effort to better describe their differing roles in each of these clinical presentations. In addition, it focuses on ways in which extra-hypothalamic glucocorticoids and CRH, often overlooked, may play important roles in the presentation of clinical disorders.


2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sindhuja Sankaran ◽  
Joanna Grzymala-Moszczynska ◽  
Agnieszka Strojny ◽  
Pawel Strojny ◽  
Malgorzata Kossowska

Diabetes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 1758-P
Author(s):  
HUGO MARTIN ◽  
SÉBASTIEN BULLICH ◽  
FABIEN DUCROCQ ◽  
MARION GRALAND ◽  
CLARA OLIVRY ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 436-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel A. Rosloff ◽  
Kunal Patel ◽  
Paul J. Feustel ◽  
Jocelyn Celestin

Background: Undifferentiated somatoform (US) idiopathic anaphylaxis (IA) is considered a psychogenic disorder characterized by a lack of observable physical findings and poor response to treatment. Although failure to diagnose true anaphylaxis can have disastrous consequences, identification of US-IA is crucial to limit unnecessary expenses and use of health care resources. Objective: To better define the presentation and understand the potential relationship between US-IA and underlying psychiatric comorbidities. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 110 visits by 107 patients to our institution for evaluation and management of anaphylaxis over a 1-year period. The patients were classified as having either criteria positive (CP) or criteria negative (CN) anaphylaxis based on whether they met Second National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease/Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network Symposium criteria for the clinical diagnosis of anaphylaxis. Patient characteristics, including objective and subjective signs and symptoms, and the presence of psychiatric diagnoses were collected and analyzed. Statistical significance was assessed by using the Fisher exact test. A literature review of US-IA and other psychogenic forms of anaphylaxis was performed. Results: Patients with CP anaphylaxis were more likely to present with hypotension, wheezing, urticaria, and vomiting than were patients with CN anaphylaxis. The patients with CN anaphylaxis were more likely to present with subjective symptoms of sensory throat tightness or swelling compared with patients with CP anaphylaxis. No significant difference was detected in the prevalence of psychiatric conditions between the two groups. Conclusion: Patients who met previously established diagnostic criteria for anaphylaxis were more likely to present with objective physical findings than those who did not meet criteria for true anaphylaxis. CN patients who presented for treatment of anaphylaxis were more likely to present with subjective symptoms. Formal diagnostic criteria should be used by clinicians when evaluating patients with suspected anaphylaxis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 46-62
Author(s):  
Suren T. Zolyan

We discuss the role of linguistic metaphors as a cognitive frame for the understanding of genetic information processing. The essential similarity between language and genetic information processing has been recognized since the very beginning, and many prominent scholars have noted the possibility of considering genes and genomes as texts or languages. Most of the core terms in molecular biology are based on linguistic metaphors. The processing of genetic information is understood as some operations on text – writing, reading and editing and their specification (encoding/decoding, proofreading, transcription, translation, reading frame). The concept of gene reading can be traced from the archaic idea of the equation of Life and Nature with the Book. Thus, the genetics itself can be metaphorically represented as some operations on text (deciphering, understanding, code-breaking, transcribing, editing, etc.), which are performed by scientists. At the same time linguistic metaphors portrayed gene entities also as having the ability of reading. In the case of such “bio-reading” some essential features similar to the processes of human reading can be revealed: this is an ability to identify the biochemical sequences based on their function in an abstract system and distinguish between type and its contextual tokens of the same type. Metaphors seem to be an effective instrument for representation, as they make possible a two-dimensional description: biochemical by its experimental empirical results and textual based on the cognitive models of comprehension. In addition to their heuristic value, linguistic metaphors are based on the essential characteristics of genetic information derived from its dual nature: biochemical by its substance, textual (or quasi-textual) by its formal organization. It can be concluded that linguistic metaphors denoting biochemical objects and processes seem to be a method of description and explanation of these heterogeneous properties.


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