Functional Connectivity Mechanisms Underlying Symptom Reduction Following Lisdexamfetamine Treatment in Binge-Eating Disorder: A Clinical Trial.

Background: Speculation exists as to whether lisdexamfetamine dimesylate (LDX) acts on the functional connectivity (FC) of brain networks that modulate appetite, reward, or inhibitory control in binge-eating disorder (BED). Better insights into its action may help guide the development of more targeted therapeutics and identify who will benefit most from this medication. Here, we use a comprehensive data-driven approach to investigate the brain FC changes that underlie the therapeutic action of LDX in patients with BED.

Meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials with -acetylcysteine in the treatment of schizophrenia.

Objective: There is accumulating evidence that adjunctive treatment with -acetylcysteine may be effective for schizophrenia. This study aimed to conduct a comprehensive meta-analysis examining the efficacy of randomised control trials investigating -acetylcysteine as an adjunct treatment for schizophrenia and the first to investigate cognition as an outcome.

Methods: We systematically reviewed Medline, EmCare, PsycINFO, Embase, CINAHL Complete, China Knowledge Resource Integrated Database and the Cochrane Clinical Trials online registry for randomised control trials of -acetylcysteine for schizophrenia.

Characterising anxiety in major depressive disorder and its use in predicting antidepressant treatment outcome: An iSPOT-D report.

Objective: Major depressive disorder commonly co-occurs with one or more anxiety disorders or with clinically significant levels of anxiety symptoms. Although evidence suggests that anxious forms of depression are prognostic of poorer antidepressant outcomes, there is no clear definition of anxious depression, and inferences about clinical outcomes are thus limited. Our objective was to compare and evaluate definitions of anxious depression and anxiety-related scales according to clinical and antidepressant outcome criteria.

A comparison between Right Unilateral Ultrabrief electroconvulsive therapy and bilateral electroconvulsive therapy in the elderly: a pilot naturalistic observational study.

Objectives: To compare clinical outcomes and adverse effects between Bitemporal (BT) and Right Unilateral Ultrabrief (RUL(UB)) electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in an elderly population.

Methods: Patients over the age of 65 years admitted to a tertiary referral hospital over a seven month period requiring ECT received RUL(UB) ECT. They were compared with those who received BT ECT over these and the preceding seven months.

Cumulative childhood interpersonal trauma is associated with reduced cortical differentiation between threat and non-threat faces in posttraumatic stress disorder adults.

Objective: Posttraumatic stress disorder and childhood trauma frequently co-occur. Both are associated with abnormal neural responses to salient emotion stimuli. As childhood trauma is a risk factor for posttraumatic stress disorder, differentiating between their neurophysiological effects is necessary to elucidate the neural pathways by which childhood trauma exposure contributes to increased posttraumatic stress disorder risks.

Neurophysiological evidence of efference copies to inner speech.

Efference copies refer to internal duplicates of movement-producing neural signals. Their primary function is to predict, and often suppress, the sensory consequences of willed movements. Efference copies have been almost exclusively investigated in the context of overt movements.

Web-Based Cognitive Remediation Improves Supported Employment Outcomes in Severe Mental Illness: Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Finding work is a top priority for most people; however, this goal remains out of reach for the majority of individuals with a severe mental illness (SMI) who remain on benefits or are unemployed. Supported employment (SE) programs aimed at returning people with a severe mental illness to work are successful; however, they still leave a significant number of people with severe mental illness unemployed. Cognitive deficits are commonly found in SMI and are a powerful predictor of poor outcome.

A quasi-randomized feasibility pilot study of specific treatments to improve emotion recognition and mental-state reasoning impairments in schizophrenia.

Background: Impaired ability to make inferences about what another person might think or feel (i.e., social cognition impairment) is recognised as a core feature of schizophrenia and a key determinant of the poor social functioning that characterizes this illness.

Failure to differentiate between threat-related and positive emotion cues in healthy adults with childhood interpersonal or adult trauma.

Enhanced threat-related processing is associated with both elevated anxiety and childhood exposure to trauma. Given the paucity of evidence regarding the effects of childhood and adult trauma exposure on subsequent psychophysiological processes in the absence of psychopathology, we investigated the relative impacts of childhood interpersonal and non-interpersonal trauma, as well as adult trauma exposure on neural processing of threat in healthy adults. We measured peak amplitudes of the N170 face-sensitive visual ERP component response to non-conscious and conscious Angry (threat) versus Happy (non-threat, positive) and Neutral (non-threat baseline) faces at temporo-occipital sites (right-T6; left-T5) in 489 psychiatrically asymptomatic adults (aged 18-70 years, 54% women, 94% right-handed).

Amygdala Reactivity to Emotional Faces in the Prediction of General and Medication-Specific Responses to Antidepressant Treatment in the Randomized iSPOT-D Trial.

Although the cost of poor treatment outcomes of depression is staggering, we do not yet have clinically useful methods for selecting the most effective antidepressant for each depressed person. Emotional brain activation is altered in major depressive disorder (MDD) and implicated in treatment response. Identifying which aspects of emotional brain activation are predictive of general and specific responses to antidepressants may help clinicians and patients when making treatment decisions.

Efficacy, safety, and impact on hospitalizations of paliperidone palmitate in recent-onset schizophrenia.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy, safety, and impact on hospitalizations of long-acting injectable paliperidone palmitate (PP) treatment, in patients with recent-onset schizophrenia who had not responded satisfactorily to oral antipsychotics.

Methods: In this 18-month, open-label, Phase-IIIb study from Asia-Pacific region, patients (18-50 years) with recent-onset (≤5 years) schizophrenia unsatisfactorily treated with previous oral antipsychotics were initiated on PP 150 mg eq on day 1, 100 mg eq on day 8, followed by flexible once monthly maintenance doses of 50-150 mg eq. The number and duration of hospitalizations were compared using a mirror analysis method between two periods: retrospective (12 months before PP initiation) and prospective (12 and 18 months after PP treatment) periods.

Impairment and distress patterns distinguishing the melancholic depression subtype: an iSPOT-D report.

Background: This study seeks to provide a comprehensive and systematic evaluation of baseline clinical and psychological features and treatment response characteristics that differentiate Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) outpatients with and without melancholic features. Reflecting the emphasis in DSM-5, we also include impairment and distress.

Methods: Participants were assessed pre-treatment on clinical features (severity, risk factors, comorbid conditions, illness course), psychological profile (personality, emotion regulation), functional capacity (social and occupational function, quality of life) and distress/coping (negativity bias, emotional resilience, social skills, satisfaction with life).

Major depressive disorder with melancholia displays robust alterations in resting state heart rate and its variability: implications for future morbidity and mortality.

Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with increased heart rate and reductions in its variability (heart rate variability, HRV) - markers of future morbidity and mortality - yet prior studies have reported contradictory effects. We hypothesized that increases in heart rate and reductions in HRV would be more robust in melancholia relative to controls, than in patients with non-melancholia.

Methods: A total of 72 patients with a primary diagnosis of MDD (age M: 36.

Facial emotion identification in early-onset psychosis.

Facial emotion identification (FEI) deficits are common in patients with chronic schizophrenia and are strongly related to impaired functioning. The objectives of this study were to determine whether FEI deficits are present and emotion specific in people experiencing early-onset psychosis (EOP), and related to current clinical symptoms and functioning. Patients with EOP (n=34, mean age=14.

Emotion circuits differentiate symptoms of psychosis versus mania in adolescents.

The diagnostic boundary between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder can be unclear, particularly with early onset. We assessed if emotion brain circuits differentiate psychosis versus mania symptoms in a series of six early onset patients. Symptoms were dissociated by direction, awareness condition, and brain regions.

Facial emotion identification in early-onset and first-episode psychosis: a systematic review with meta-analysis.

Objective: Patients with chronic schizophrenia are characterized by deficits in identifying facial expressions of emotion, and these deficits relate to impaired social and occupational function. It is not yet known if these deficits are trait-like and present at the onset of psychosis, preceding a subsequent diagnosis of schizophrenia. Our objective was to systematically review and analyze the extant literature to assess if there is a consistent profile of emotion identification problems in early-onset and first-episode psychosis.

Neural processing of facial expressions of emotion in first onset psychosis.

Schizophrenia is characterized by deficits in face and facial emotion processing. This is the first study using event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the corresponding neural activation in first onset psychosis. ERPs for 108 first onset psychosis participants and 108 matched healthy controls were recorded while they viewed facial expressions.

The impact of melancholia versus non-melancholia on resting-state, EEG alpha asymmetry: electrophysiological evidence for depression heterogeneity.

While depression has been associated with relatively greater right than left frontal cortical activity - a neurophysiological marker reflecting greater activation of the withdrawal system - contradictory findings have been reported. It was hypothesised that melancholia would be associated with relative right frontal activation, in comparison to non-melancholia and controls. We collected 2-min of resting-state, eyes closed, electroencephalographic activity from a total of 237 participants including 117 patients with major depressive disorder (57 with melancholia, 60 with non-melancholia) and 120 healthy controls.

Functional dysconnectivity in schizophrenia and its relationship to neural synchrony.

Schizophrenia is a debilitating disorder of unknown cause. There is increasing momentum to consider functional dysconnectivity as an endophenotype of schizophrenia, and in particular, how it relates to cognition as a core feature of the disorder. Here, the authors review the conceptual models of functional dysconnectivity in schizophrenia to date, the evidence they are based on and some of the limitations of these models.

Using multiple methods to characterize the phenotype of individuals with a family history of major depressive disorder.

Background: Unaffected relatives (URs) of individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) are biologically more vulnerable to depression. We compare healthy URs and controls at the level of phenotype (symptoms and functioning) and endophenotype (negative emotion bias), and further investigate the interrelation between these and the contribution of environmental early life stress.

Methods: URs (n=101), identified using Family History Screen interview methods and matched controls completed written and interview questions assessing symptoms of depression and anxiety, negative cognitive style, life functioning and early life stress.

The presentation of early-onset psychotic disorders.

Objective: This study aims to describe the clinical course of psychotic disorders, including the premorbid history, symptoms and level of functioning in a group of children and adolescents treated by paediatric mental health services, mainly as inpatients.

Method: A sample of 45 children and adolescents with a psychotic disorder (mean age 13.2 years) was assessed using questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, parent interviews and file audit.

Early life trauma predicts self-reported levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms in nonclinical community adults: relative contributions of early life stressor types and adult trauma exposure.

Exposure to early life trauma is a known risk factor for depression and anxiety disorders in adulthood. This study aimed to evaluate the relative contributions of early life versus adult trauma in predicting levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms in nonclinical community adults. 1209 nonclinical community adults (18-70 years; 45% male) were assessed for mental health status, early life stressors, lifetime trauma exposure, and self-reported levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms.

The effect of music on brain wave functioning during an acute psychotic episode: a pilot study.

This pilot study compared the differences in the quantified electroencephalogram (qEEG) between two conditions; eyes closed resting and eyes closed listening to music of 15 subjects currently experiencing an acute psychotic episode. The results showed a significant decrease in delta, alpha and beta waves when listening to music compared to resting condition.