Cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers for major depression confirm relevance of associated pathophysiology.

Individual characteristics of pathophysiology and course of depressive episodes are at present not considered in diagnostics. There are no biological markers available that can assist in categorizing subtypes of depression and detecting molecular variances related to disease-causing mechanisms between depressed patients. Identification of such differences is important to create patient subgroups, which will benefit from medications that specifically target the pathophysiology underlying their clinical condition.

Association of auditory hallucinations and anticonvulsant hypersensitivity syndrome with carbamazepine treatment. A case report.

Carbamazepine is effective in the treatment of acute mania and in the prevention of episodes in bipolar disorder, and it may also be useful in depression, impulse-control disorder and withdrawal from alcohol and benzodiazepine dependence. A potentially life-threatening side effect is the anticonvulsant hypersensitivity syndrome. Here, we describe a patient who developed severe auditory hallucinations followed by a distinct hypersensitivity syndrome most likely induced by carbamazepine treatment.

Crisis intervention after the Tsunami in Phuket and Khao Lak.

After the Tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia, India, Sri Lanka, and Africa, the German government set up a crisis task force that implemented crisis-intervention teams covering Thailand (Phuket and Khao Lak), Sri Lanka, and Sumatra. Two crisis teams were sent to Phuket; the first one on 28 December 2004, and the second one on 3 January 2005, each for an average of 1 week. This intervention was primarily for the benefit of German citizens and their expatriates and relatives caught up in a major catastrophe as well as the German helpers.

Restless legs syndrome probably induced by risperidone treatment.

Background: According to some reports, patients treated with risperidone may develop akathisia. Restless legs syndrome (RLS), which shares some clinical features with akathisia, is a distinct movement and sleep disorder that may be induced by various drugs that act on the CNS.

Methods: We studied a 31-year-old patient suffering from a schizoaffective disorder including auditory hallucinations who developed symptoms typical of the RLS during treatment with risperidone, using polysomnography to objectify sleep disturbances and associated periodic leg movements during sleep (PLMS).