The effects of recent stressful life events on outcomes in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis: results from the longitudinal EU-GEI high-risk study.

Background: Recent stressful life events (SLE) are a risk factor for psychosis, but limited research has explored how SLEs affect individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis. The current study investigated the longitudinal effects of SLEs on functioning and symptom severity in CHR individuals, where we hypothesized CHR would report more SLEs than healthy controls (HC), and SLEs would be associated with poorer outcomes.

Methods: The study used longitudinal data from the EU-GEI High Risk study.

Polygenic and Polyenvironment Interplay in Schizophrenia-Spectrum Disorder and Affective Psychosis; the EUGEI First Episode Study.

Background: Multiple genetic and environmental risk factors play a role in the development of both schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and affective psychoses. How they act in combination is yet to be clarified.

Methods: We analyzed 573 first episode psychosis cases and 1005 controls, of European ancestry.

The impact of schizophrenia genetic load and heavy cannabis use on the risk of psychotic disorder in the EU-GEI case-control and UK Biobank studies.

Background: The association between cannabis and psychosis is established, but the role of underlying genetics is unclear. We used data from the EU-GEI case-control study and UK Biobank to examine the independent and combined effect of heavy cannabis use and schizophrenia polygenic risk score (PRS) on risk for psychosis.

Methods: Genome-wide association study summary statistics from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium and the Genomic Psychiatry Cohort were used to calculate schizophrenia and cannabis use disorder (CUD) PRS for 1098 participants from the EU-GEI study and 143600 from the UK Biobank.

Alzheimer's disease-specific transcriptomic and epigenomic changes in the tryptophan catabolic pathway.

Background: Neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), have been linked to alterations in tryptophan (TRP) metabolism. However, no studies to date have systematically explored changes in the TRP pathway at both transcriptional and epigenetic levels. This study aimed to investigate transcriptomic, DNA methylomic (5mC) and hydroxymethylomic (5hmC) changes within genes involved in the TRP and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) pathways in AD, using three independent cohorts.