scholarly journals SKINREMS—A New Method for Assessment of the Niacin Skin Flush Test Response in Schizophrenia

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 1848
Author(s):  
Hanna Karakula-Juchnowicz ◽  
Joanna Rog ◽  
Piotr Wolszczak ◽  
Kamil Jonak ◽  
Ewa Stelmach ◽  
...  

Schizophrenia has been considered a disorder linked with faulty lipid homeostasis, and the proposed tool for assessment of these disruptions is the niacin skin flush test. The aims of the study were: 1. Create a new tool to analyze results of the niacin skin flush test more precisely and objectively. 2. Verify the utility of a self-created tool for differentiating between schizophrenia (SZ; n = 56), bipolar disorder (BD; n = 29) and healthy control (HC; n = 45) individuals. The proposed developed method, based on the Skin Reaction Measurement Computer System (SKINREMS), allows one to evaluate the response to the niacin skin flush test quickly and objectively. SKINREMS showed good accuracy in discriminating SZ from BD (with sensitivity 91% and specificity 72%), and SZ from HC (71% and 66%, respectively), and sufficient but not excellent accuracy in discriminating BD from HC (55% and 54%, respectively). The pathophysiological pathways and features shared by schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may be the reason for difficulties in fully discriminating between these two mental disorders using the niacin challenge test. The management of disruptions in the phospholipid metabolism and the inflammatory process could potentially become an individualized form of therapy in a subgroup of psychiatric patients.

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (Supplement_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
C A Barcella ◽  
G H Mohr ◽  
K Kragholm ◽  
D M Christensen ◽  
C Polcwiartek ◽  
...  

Abstract Introduction Patients with psychiatric disorders are at high risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality; yet, the risk of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) compared to the general population remains unknown. Purpose We investigated whether the presence and severity of different psychiatric disorders were associated with a higher risk of OHCA. Methods We conducted a case-control study matching all adult patients with OHCA of presumed cardiac cause between 2001 and 2014 with up to nine controls from the entire Danish population on age, sex and ischemic heart disease (IHD). Patients with psychiatric disorders were identified using in- and out-patient hospital diagnoses – both primary and secondary - before index date. We identified six mutually exclusive psychiatric disorders that were separately examined: personality disorders, anxiety, substance-related mental disorders, depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. The risk of OHCA associated with the six psychiatric disorders was evaluated by conditional logistic regression adjusting for comorbidities, concomitant pharmacotherapy, socioeconomic status and marital status. Results We included 32,447 OHCA cases matched with 291,999 controls from the general population. Overall, the median age was 72 years, 67% were male and 29% had IHD prior to index date. All the six psychiatric disorders examined were more common among cases than controls; depression was the most common psychiatric disorders in both groups: 5.0% among cases and 2.8% among controls. Concurrently, all six psychiatric disorders were associated with significantly higher odds of OHCA: personality disorders (odds ratio (OR) 1.30 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.06–1.60], anxiety OR 1.26 [95% CI 1.15–1.39], substance induced-mental disorders OR 2.36 [95% CI 2.17–2.57], depression OR 1.27 [95% CI 1.19–1.35], bipolar disorder OR 1.32 [95% CI 1.16–1.50] and schizophrenia OR 1.80 [95% CI 1.58–2.05] (Figure). The association persisted unaffected when we studied psychiatric patients neither exposed to antipsychotics nor to antidepressants. We observed a trend towards a stronger association when we stratified according to the severity of the psychiatric disorder (Figure). Severe disorders where classified as at least one hospitalization for the specific psychiatric illness as primary diagnosis during the five years prior to index date. Conclusions Common psychiatric disorders including personality disorders, anxiety, substance-related mental disorders, depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia are significantly associated with higher odds of OHCA. These findings provide a rationale for early cardiovascular risk factor screening and, potentially, management among psychiatric patients to identify patients at high risk of OHCA. Acknowledgement/Funding ESCAPE-NET project


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Simon Schmitt ◽  
Tina Meller ◽  
Frederike Stein ◽  
Katharina Brosch ◽  
Kai Ringwald ◽  
...  

Abstract Background MRI-derived cortical folding measures are an indicator of largely genetically driven early developmental processes. However, the effects of genetic risk for major mental disorders on early brain development are not well understood. Methods We extracted cortical complexity values from structural MRI data of 580 healthy participants using the CAT12 toolbox. Polygenic risk scores (PRS) for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, and cross-disorder (incorporating cumulative genetic risk for depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder) were computed and used in separate general linear models with cortical complexity as the regressand. In brain regions that showed a significant association between polygenic risk for mental disorders and cortical complexity, volume of interest (VOI)/region of interest (ROI) analyses were conducted to investigate additional changes in their volume and cortical thickness. Results The PRS for depression was associated with cortical complexity in the right orbitofrontal cortex (right hemisphere: p = 0.006). A subsequent VOI/ROI analysis showed no association between polygenic risk for depression and either grey matter volume or cortical thickness. We found no associations between cortical complexity and polygenic risk for either schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or psychiatric cross-disorder when correcting for multiple testing. Conclusions Changes in cortical complexity associated with polygenic risk for depression might facilitate well-established volume changes in orbitofrontal cortices in depression. Despite the absence of psychopathology, changed cortical complexity that parallels polygenic risk for depression might also change reward systems, which are also structurally affected in patients with depressive syndrome.


Author(s):  
Thomas Hartvigsson

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to present a solution to a problem that arises from the fact that people who commit crimes under the influence of serious mental disorders may still have a capacity to refuse treatment. Several ethicists have argued that the present legislation concerning involuntary treatment of people with mental disorder is discriminatory and should change to the effect that psychiatric patients can refuse care on the same grounds as patients in somatic care. However, people with mental disorders who have committed crimes and been exempted from criminal responsibility would then fall outside the scope of criminal justice as well as that of the psychiatric institutions if they were to refuse care. In this paper, I present and develop a solution to how society should deal with this group of people, called Advance criminal responsibility. The basic idea being that if a person with a potentially responsibility exempting psychiatric condition refuses care, that person is responsible for any future criminal acts which are due to the mental disorder.


Author(s):  
Christian E. Deuter ◽  
Moritz Duesenberg ◽  
Julian Hellmann-Regen ◽  
Sophie Metz ◽  
Stefan Roepke ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The gonadal hormone testosterone not only regulates sexual behavior but is also involved in social behavior and cognition in both sexes. Changes in testosterone secretion in response to stress have been reported. In addition, stress associated mental disorders such as borderline personality disorder (BPD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are characterized by alterations in basal testosterone metabolism. However, testosterone changes to stress have not been investigated in mental disorders such as BPD and PTSD so far. Methods In the study described, we investigated testosterone reactivity to an acute psychosocial stressor, the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). Our sample consisted of young adult women with BPD (n = 28), PTSD (n = 22) or both disorders (n = 22), and healthy control (n = 51). Based on previous studies on basal testosterone secretion in these disorders, we expected the stress-associated testosterone reactivity to be higher in the BPD group and lower in the PTSD group, when compared to the healthy control group. Results The study could demonstrate an increase in testosterone after acute stress exposure across all groups and independent of BPD or PTSD status. Different possible explanations for the absence of a group effect are discussed. Conclusions From the results of this study, we conclude that stress-related changes in testosterone release are not affected by BPD or PTSD status in a female patient population. This study expands the knowledge about changes in gonadal hormones and stress reactivity in these disorders.


2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 129-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cosmin Carasca ◽  
Annamaria Magdas ◽  
Ioan Tilea ◽  
Alexandru Incze

Abstract Background: The aim was to assess endothelial function with photoplethysmography (PPG), by post-occlusive reactive hyperaemia (PORH) combined with alprostadil challenge test in patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD). Methods: Forty-nine PAD patients stage II-III Fontaine (39 male, 10 female, mean age 68.45±5.86 years) and a control group of 49 healthy individuals (24 male, 25 female; mean age 25.1±3.8 for a young subgroup; 71.0±0.16 years for an elderly subgroup) were included. Ankle-brachial index (ABI) was assessed at baseline, peripheral perfusion (PP) and PORH were assessed at baseline and after the 30 minutes administration of parenteral alprostadil. Results: After 3 minutes of arterial occlusion, peripheral perfusion increased from 0.69±0.94 mV/V to 2.27±2.42 mV/V (p<0.0001). After alprostadil challenge, peripheral perfusion increased from 0.84±1.24 mV/V to 4.52±3.52 mV/V (p<0.0001). In controls PP was 2.4±1.7 mV/V versus 3.8±1.5 mV/V, p<0.0001. Conclusion: In patients with PAD, an increase in PORH after alprostadil challenge due to the release of nitric oxide (NO), provides information on the endothelial function and could reflect the presence of collaterals. In the healthy control group, the increase in PORH could reflect the integrity of main arterial branch. In PAD patients with an increase in PORH, conservative therapy should be preferred over surgical revascularisation.


2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (S1) ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
N. Sartorius

The classification of mental disorders in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) will be revised in the course of the next three years and its publication (as the 11th Revision of the ICD) will be published, after the approval of the World Health Assembly in 2014. In parallel, the American Psychiatric Association created a Task Force which has begun work on the proposals for the revision of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual which is to be published as the DSM 5th Revision, in 2012. The World Health Organization has established a special advisory group that should assist it in developing proposals for the classification of mental disorders for the 11th Revision of the ICD and this group collaborates closely with the APA Task Force creating the DSM5 proposals.Numerous ethical issues arise in this process and need to be discussed now so as to inform the process of agreeing on the proposals for the new classifications. They include the importance of an internationally accepted classification as a protection against abuses of psychiatric patients; the need to set the threshold for the diagnosis of a mental disorder at a level ensuring that people with such disorders receive help, the need to avoid imposition of diagnostic systems or categories without sufficient evidence and others. The presentation will briefly discuss the process of constructing the proposals for the new classifications and ways in which the groups established by the WHO and the APA handle these ethical questions.


CNS Spectrums ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 120-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan B. Douglass

AbstractDoes narcolepsy, a neurological disease, need to be considered when diagnosing major mental illness? Clinicians have reported cases of narcolepsy with prominent hypnagogic hallucinations that were mistakenly diagnosed as schizophrenia. In some bipolar disorder patients with narcolepsy, the HH resulted in their receiving a more severe diagnosis (ie, bipolar disorder with psychotic features or schizoaffective disorder). The role of narcolepsy in psychiatric patients has remained obscure and problematic, and it may be more prevalent than commonly believed. Classical narcolepsy patients display the clinical “tetrad”—cataplexy, hypnagogic hallucinations, daytime sleep attacks, and sleep paralysis. Over 85% also display the human leukocyte antigen marker DQB10602 (subset of DQ6). Since 1998, discoveries in neuroanatomy and neurophysiology have greatly advanced the understanding of narcolepsy, which involves a nearly total loss of the recently discovered orexin/hypocretin (hypocretin) neurons of the hypothalamus, likely by an autoimmune mechanism. Hypocretin neurons normally supply excitatory signals to brainstem nuclei producing norepinephrine, serotonin, histamine, and dopamine, with resultant suppression of sleep. They also project to basal forebrain areas and cortex. A literature review regarding the differential diagnosis of narcolepsy, affective disorder, and schizophrenia is presented. Furthermore, it is now possible to rule out classical narcolepsy in difficult psychiatric cases. Surprisingly, psychotic patients with narcolepsy will likely require stimulants to fully recover. Many conventional antipsychotic drugs would worsen their symptoms and make them appear to become a “chronic psychotic,” while in fact they can now be properly diagnosed and treated.


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