Anorexia Nervosa in Comorbidity With Borderline Personality Disorder in Adolescence: A Specific Clinical Endophenotype?

Objective: Anorexia nervosa and borderline personality disorder are often associated and share some core elements, including emotional dysregulation and affective instability. Nevertheless, the association of these two conditions in adolescence is still little studied.

Method: The present study aims at investigating, through a multidimensional assessment, the psychopathological characteristics of adolescents affected by anorexia nervosa in comorbidity with borderline personality disorder on a sample of 127 female adolescents, through the comparison with adolescents with borderline personality disorders and adolescents with anorexia nervosa.

Risk Factors for the Development of Eating Disorders in Adolescents with Early-Onset Inflammatory Bowel Diseases.

Individuals with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) have an increased risk of developing psychiatric comorbidities, including eating disorders (EDs). We aimed to investigate the potential association between key disease characteristics, including psychological features, and the development of EDs in a clinical sample of adolescents with IBDs. We enrolled 52 adolescents with IBDs, 83% of whom were in clinical remission, and systematically collected additional information on disease duration, the total number of relapses, the use of steroids, and the number of hospital admissions.

Gilles de la Tourette syndrome as a rare co-morbidity of Klinefelter syndrome.

Background: Klinefelter syndrome (47, XXY) is the most common sex chromosome aneuploidy. In addition to male hypergonadotropic hypogonadism, a wide range of neurodevelopmental disorders, anxiety and affective symptoms have been reported in a substantial proportion of cases.

Case Description: We document the rare case of a 43-year-old man diagnosed with Klinefelter syndrome and co-morbid Gilles de la Tourette syndrome.

Association between Physical Activity and Menstrual Cycle Disorders in Young Athletes.

Our study aims to evaluate clinical predictors of menstrual cycle disorders in female athletes who compete in running disciplines. This is a prospective observational study. Women were recruited between January and May 2022.

Co-morbid tics and stereotypies: a systematic literature review.

Background: Tics and stereotypies are childhood-onset repetitive behaviours that can pose significant diagnostic challenges in clinical practice. Both tics and stereotypies are characterised by a complex co-morbidity profile, however little is known about the co-occurrence of these hyperkinetic disorders in the same patient population.

Objective: This review aimed to assess the relationship between tics and stereotypies when these conditions present in co-morbidity.

Effects of social and sensory deprivation in newborns: A lesson from the Covid-19 experience.

Background: Infancy is a complex period of human life, in which environmental experiences have a fundamental role for neurodevelopment. Although conditions of social and sensory deprivation are uncommon in high income countries, the Covid-19 pandemic abruptly modified this condition, by depriving people of their social stimuli of daily life.

Aim: To understand the impact of this deprivation on infants' behaviour, we investigated the short-term effects of isolation and use of individual protective systems by mothers during the first two weeks of life.

Neurodevelopmental versus functional tics: A controlled study.

Background: An unprecedented increase in newly developed functional tics, mainly in young females, has been reported during the COVID-19 pandemic. We set out to complement existing case series with the largest controlled study to date on the clinical phenomenology of functional tics versus neurodevelopmental tics.

Methods: Data from 166 patients were collected at a specialist clinic for tic disorders during a three-year period overlapping with the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2023).

Functional tics: Expanding the phenotypes of functional movement disorders?

Background And Purpose: Until the outbreak reported during the COVID-19 pandemic, functional tics were considered to be a relatively rare clinical phenotype, as opposed to other functional movement disorders such as functional tremor and dystonia. To better characterize this phenotype, we compared the demographic and clinical characteristics of patients who developed functional tics during the pandemic and those of patients with other functional movement disorders.

Methods: Data from 110 patients were collected at the same neuropsychiatry centre: 66 consecutive patients who developed functional tics without other functional motor symptoms or neurodevelopmental tics and 44 patients with a mix of functional dystonia, tremor, gait, and myoclonus.

Psychological features in male and female adolescents with eating disorders: is it the same condition?

Purpose: Eating disorders (EDs) are psychiatric disorders with a typical prevalence in adolescence. EDs have long been wrongly considered female gender-bound disorders, resulting in a systematic underrepresentation of males in EDs research. The main goal of the present study is exploring the clinical and psychological characteristics of adolescent males with EDs in comparison with females.

New-onset functional tics during the COVID-19 pandemic: Clinical characteristics of 105 cases from a single centre.

Background And Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has been associated amongst other things with a sharp increase in adolescents and young adults presenting acutely with functional tics. Initial reports have suggested clinically relevant differences between functional tics and neurodevelopmental tics seen in primary tic disorders such as Tourette syndrome. We aimed to provide confirmatory findings from the largest single-centre cohort to date.

Investigating Functioning Profile of Adolescents with Anorexia before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study on Mentalizing, Alexithymia, and Impulsiveness.

Anorexia nervosa (AN) usually emerges in adolescence when important changes occur in cognitive, emotional, and social processes. Mentalizing, alexithymia, and impulsiveness represent key dimensions for the understanding and interpretation of psychological difficulties in AN. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted adolescents with AN, showing a worsening of the disease.

The Western origins of mindfulness therapy in ancient Rome.

Stoic philosophy has multiple parallels with cognitive behavioural therapy interventions. In their ancient texts, the Roman Stoics present a set of theoretical principles and behavioural strategies that are directly relevant to the clinical care of patients with a wide range of neuropsychiatric conditions. Mindfulness is a key component of the 'third wave' of modern psychotherapy that closely resembles the ancient Stoic practice of attention or 'concentration on the present moment'.

Eating Disorders in Children and Adolescent Males: A Peculiar Psychopathological Profile.

(1) Background: Eating Disorders (EDs) are severe psychiatric disorders with high rates of mortality, multiple medical and psychiatric comorbidities associated, and often chronic illness. Historically, EDs are among the most gendered of psychiatric illnesses, and male presentations have been perceived as rare and unusual. This perception resulted in the systematic underrepresentation of males in research on Eds, and as consequence, in a scarcity of research investigating clinical and psychological features in this population.

Increase in admission rates and symptom severity of childhood and adolescent anorexia nervosa in Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic: data from specialized eating disorder units in different European countries.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic, associated with confinement and social isolation, seems to have impacted the course of many mental disorders in children and adolescents. An increase in hospital admission rates for juvenile anorexia nervosa (AN) has been documented in many regions of the world. However, data from Europe are scarce.

The Italian version of the Reflective Functioning Questionnaire: Validity within a sample of adolescents and associations with psychological problems and alexithymia.

Objectives: This study aims to test the psychometric proprieties of the Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (RFQ) applied to younger (13-16 years) and older (17-20 years) Italian adolescents examining (1) the factorial structure of RFQ; (2) its invariance across age and sex; (3) correlations between RFQ subscale scores, as well as the associations of the RFQ with (4) psychological problems and alexithymia dimensions.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 593 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 20 years old recruited from the community within Italy. These participants completed the RFQ, Symptom Checklist-90, and Toronto Alexithymia Scale.

Renal dysfunctions and clinical correlates in adolescents with restrictive anorexia nervosa.

Background And Aims: The alteration of kidney function in adolescents with anorexia nervosa (AN) is a frequent, but still poorly investigated, consequence of AN. In this study, we analyzed glomerular filtration rate with the Cockroft-Gault formula in a group of 148 adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa and correlated it to clinical and biochemical data collected at admission.

Methods: A retrospective study was conducted on 148 patients hospitalized from 2016 to 2019 for severe malnutrition due to restrictive AN.

High levels of physical activity in female adolescents with anorexia nervosa: medical and psychopathological correlates.

Purpose: While overexercise is commonly described in patients who experience anorexia nervosa (AN), it represents a condition still underestimated, especially in the paediatric population.

Method: The present study aims at assessing the possible associations between levels of physical activity (PA) and clinical features, endocrinological data and psychopathological traits in a sample of 244 female adolescents hospitalised for AN subdivided into two groups according to PA levels (high PA vs. no/low PA).

Language-Related Skills in Bilingual Children With Specific Learning Disorders.

The purpose of this study is to better understand the characteristics of the language-related skills of bilingual children with specific learning disorders (SLD). The aim is achieved by analyzing language-related skills in a sample of bilingual (Italian plus another language) and Italian monolingual children, with and without SLD. A total of 72 minors aged between 9 and 11 were recruited and divided into four groups: 18 Italian monolingual children with SLD, 18 bilingual children with SLD, 18 Italian monolingual children without SLD, and 18 bilingual children without SLD.

Attachment representation to caregivers and mentalizing ability in early adolescents with primary headache.

Primary headache (PH) is a common somatic disorder in childhood with a strong impact in terms of quality of life. There are several risk factors related to the development of this disorder including environmental factors as attachment bonds. However, studies in this direction are relatively few and have often used self-report or semi-projective measures looking at the only maternal attachment.

Clinical features of adolescents diagnosed with eating disorders and at risk for psychosis.

Background: The presence of subthreshold psychotic symptoms in adolescents with eating disorders is poorly described. This study provides a detailed characterization of adolescents affected by eating disorders in the absence or presence of subthreshold psychotic symptoms, taking into account a wide set of sociodemographic, psychological, and clinical variables.

Methods: Ninety-four adolescents diagnosed with eating disorders were interviewed, focusing on clinical anamnesis and sociodemographic data collection.

QTc dispersion and interval changes in drug-free borderline personality disorder adolescents.

Emotional instability and dysregulation represent a core feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and abnormal patterns of sympathetic/parasympathetic activity have been repeatedly investigated in individuals with this disorder. Such abnormalities may represent the substrate for an arrhythmogenic risk that could materialize the following specific drug exposure. In this work, we decided to assess basal-corrected QT interval and dispersion (QTc and QTcd) for estimating such risk in a sample of drug-free adolescents with diagnosis of BPD.