Publications by authors named "Ewa Ferensztajn-Rochowiak"

The article provides a review of the sensory processing (SP) phenomenon, its origins, theoretical models, and neurophysiological foundations. Initiated by A. Jean Ayres' research on sensory integration in the 1960s and 70s, this field has evolved, leading to the development of concepts such as Winnie Dunn's four quadrant model and Miller's ecological model of sensory modulation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: The aim of the study was to create a Polish adaptation of the Highly Sensitive Person Scale (HSPS), assess its psychometric properties and conduct factor analysis in a group of adults.

Methods: Five hundred two students of the Poznan University of Medical Sciences, aged 19-40 were studied, assessed by the 27-item HSPS, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and NEO-FFI Questionnaire. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was performed in two subgroups (N = 250 and N = 252, respectively).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The article discusses sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), highlighting its characteristics, assessment methods, and link to psychiatric disorders through a review of literature since 1997.
  • It explores SPS from various perspectives, including evolutionary, socio-cultural, temperamental, and biological factors, with an emphasis on genetic influences and brain activity related to emotional and cognitive processing.
  • SPS affects 20-35% of the population, leading to deeper stimulus processing, vulnerability to overstimulation, heightened emotional responses, and a predisposition to several psychiatric issues like depression, anxiety, and social phobia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The phenomenon of preventing the recurrences of mood disorders by the long-term lithium administration was discovered sixty years ago. Such a property of lithium has been unequivocally confirmed in subsequent years, and the procedure makes nowadays the gold standard for the pharmacological prophylaxis of bipolar disorder (BD). The efficacy of lithium prophylaxis surpasses other mood stabilizers, and the drug has the longest record as far as the duration of its administration is concerned.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Lithium is the primary treatment for bipolar disorder (BD), but how it works and predicts outcomes is not fully understood.
  • A previous study identified key cellular pathways linked to lithium response, including focal adhesion and PI3K-Akt signaling.
  • In this new study, researchers confirmed these pathways in a larger group of 2039 patients but found no connection with the extracellular matrix, suggesting that issues with neuronal growth signaling may impact lithium effectiveness.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is the most common psychiatric disease worldwide with a huge socio-economic impact. Pharmacotherapy represents the most common option among the first-line treatment choice; however, only about one third of patients respond to the first trial and about 30% are classified as treatment-resistant depression (TRD). TRD is associated with specific clinical features and genetic/gene expression signatures.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Lithium is the gold standard treatment for bipolar disorder (BD). However, its mechanism of action is incompletely understood, and prediction of treatment outcomes is limited. In our previous multi-omics study of the Pharmacogenomics of Bipolar Disorder (PGBD) sample combining transcriptomic and genomic data, we found that focal adhesion, the extracellular matrix (ECM), and PI3K-Akt signaling networks were associated with response to lithium.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * Researchers examined 4,925 immune-related genes and their association with lithium treatment response and clinical features in a large bipolar patient sample.
  • * Findings indicate a few genetic associations with treatment response and clinical characteristics, revealing potential biomarkers, but overall support a weak connection between immune factors and bipolar disorder at a genetic level.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Lithium is regarded as the first-line treatment for bipolar disorder (BD), a severe and disabling mental health disorder that affects about 1% of the population worldwide. Nevertheless, lithium is not consistently effective, with only 30% of patients showing a favorable response to treatment. To provide personalized treatment options for bipolar patients, it is essential to identify prediction biomarkers such as polygenic scores.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Sunlight helps our skin make vitamin D through UVB radiation, but some places don't get enough UVB in winter, which can affect brain health.
  • A study looked at 6,972 people with bipolar I disorder from over 70 countries to see if not getting enough UVB was related to when they first had symptoms.
  • The results suggested that people in areas with less UVB tended to show symptoms of bipolar disorder about 1.66 years earlier, but more research is needed to understand the role of vitamin D and UVB in this condition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Lithium is a drug of choice as a mood-stabilizer for the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder. The prophylactic efficacy of lithium can be determined by genetic factors, partially related to a predisposition to bipolar disorder. In the field of psychiatric genetics, the first decade of the 21st century was dominated by the "candidate gene" research.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Lithium is regarded as the first-line treatment for bipolar disorder (BD), a severe and disabling mental disorder that affects about 1% of the population worldwide. Nevertheless, lithium is not consistently effective, with only 30% of patients showing a favorable response to treatment. To provide personalized treatment options for bipolar patients, it is essential to identify prediction biomarkers such as polygenic scores.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Lithium is one of the most important drugs for the treatment of mood disorders. The appropriate guidelines can ensure that more patients benefit from its use in a personalized way.

Areas Covered: This manuscript provides an update on the application of lithium in mood disorders, including prophylaxis of bipolar and unipolar mood disorder, treatment of acute manic and depressive episodes, augmentation of antidepressants in treatment-resistant depression, and use of lithium in pregnancy and the postpartum period.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • - Lithium is the primary medication used to prevent manic and depressive episodes in bipolar disorder, with more extensive experience in its use compared to other mood stabilizers.
  • - While long-term lithium use can lead to various side effects, including serious renal issues after 10-20 years, it also has beneficial effects like reducing suicide risk and possibly protecting against dementia.
  • - The paper reviews recent findings on the side effects and drug interactions related to lithium, offering insights and management strategies to improve its effectiveness in treating bipolar disorder.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Response to lithium varies widely between individuals with bipolar disorder (BD). Polygenic risk scores (PRSs) can uncover pharmacogenomics effects and may help predict drug response. Patients ( = 2,510) with BD were assessed for long-term lithium response in the Consortium on Lithium Genetics using the Retrospective Criteria of Long-Term Treatment Response in Research Subjects with Bipolar Disorder score.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Circadian rhythm disruption is commonly observed in bipolar disorder (BD). Daylight is the most powerful signal to entrain the human circadian clock system. This exploratory study investigated if solar insolation at the onset location was associated with the polarity of the first episode of BD I.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This mini-review aims to show a discrepancy between favorable data of lithium's therapeutic activity and the decreased use of the drug worldwide. The data point to lithium as the best mood stabilizer in the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder for the prevention of manic and depressive recurrences. The second most encouraging psychiatric use of lithium is the augmentation of antidepressants in treatment-resistant depression.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Lithium is the gold standard therapy for Bipolar Disorder (BD) but its effectiveness differs widely between individuals. The molecular mechanisms underlying treatment response heterogeneity are not well understood, and personalized treatment in BD remains elusive. Genetic analyses of the lithium treatment response phenotype may generate novel molecular insights into lithium's therapeutic mechanisms and lead to testable hypotheses to improve BD management and outcomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Bipolar affective disorder (BD) is a severe psychiatric illness, for which lithium (Li) is the gold standard for acute and maintenance therapies. The therapeutic response to Li in BD is heterogeneous and reliable biomarkers allowing patients stratification are still needed. A GWAS performed by the International Consortium on Lithium Genetics (ConLiGen) has recently identified genetic markers associated with treatment responses to Li in the human leukocyte antigens (HLA) region.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF