Publications by authors named "Carolyn Rodriguez"

Article Synopsis
  • MDMA, also known as Ecstasy or Molly, has been used since the 1970s for both recreational and therapeutic purposes, with the FDA recognizing its potential for treating PTSD as a Breakthrough Therapy in 2017.
  • The effects of MDMA in therapeutic settings are distinct, promoting trust and self-compassion while allowing cognitive clarity, which differentiates it from other psychedelics.
  • Preliminary evidence indicates that MDMA-Assisted Therapy is effective, with 67%-71% of PTSD patients no longer meeting diagnostic criteria after treatment, significantly more than those receiving placebo therapy.
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Objective: The authors critically examine the evidence base for psilocybin administered with psychological support/therapy (PST) in the treatment of psychiatric disorders and offer practical recommendations to guide future research endeavors.

Methods: PubMed was searched for English-language articles from January 1998 to November 2023, using the search term "psilocybin." A total of 1,449 articles were identified and screened through titles and abstracts.

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Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a highly prevalent psychiatric disorder that can become chronic and debilitating when left untreated. The most commonly recommended first-line treatments for PTSD among adults are individual trauma-focused psychotherapies. Other evidence-based treatments include specific antidepressant medications and non-trauma-focused psychotherapies.

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Informal caregivers of people with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) are at risk of poor mental health. This study aimed to investigate the feasibility and validity of studying caregivers' mental stressors using online caregiving forum data (March 2018-February 2022) and natural language processing and machine learning (NLP/ML). NLP/ML topic modeling generated eight prominent topics, which we compared with qualitatively defined themes and the existing caregiving framework to assess validity.

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Despite the promising capacity of large language model (LLM)-powered chatbots to diagnose diseases, they have not been tested for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). We assessed the diagnostic accuracy of LLMs in OCD using vignettes and found that LLMs outperformed medical and mental health professionals. This highlights the potential benefit of LLMs in assisting in the timely and accurate diagnosis of OCD, which usually entails a long delay in diagnosis and treatment.

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Objective: The Buried in Treasures (BIT) workshop is a promising treatment for hoarding disorder (HD), though many participants struggle with home uncluttering. This randomized waitlist-controlled trial investigated the efficacy of a version of BIT, augmented with in-home uncluttering practice (BIT+).

Method: Adults (N = 41) with hoarding disorder were recruited from the community and randomly assigned to BIT+ or waitlist.

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Hoarding disorder (HD) is marked by difficulty discarding possessions. Many refuse treatment or drop out, which may be due to treatment's incorporation of in-home decluttering, which is feared and avoided. Thus, strategies to prepare patients for decluttering/discarding are needed.

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Background: Poorer mental health was found early in the COVID-19 pandemic, yet mental health in the third year of COVID-19 has not been assessed on a general adult population level in the United States.

Methods: We used a nationally representative cross-sectional survey (Health Information National Trends Survey, HINTS 5 2020 n = 3,865 and HINTS 6 2022 n = 6,252). The prevalence of poor mental health was examined using a Patient Health Questionnaire-4 scale in 2020 and 2022.

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Article Synopsis
  • OCD is a mental health disorder that affects around 2% of the world but not much is known about its causes.
  • Most genetic studies on OCD so far have mainly focused on people of European ancestry, which could lead to unfair treatment options for those from other backgrounds.
  • The LATINO project is collecting DNA and health information from 5,000 people with OCD from Latin America to improve understanding of the disorder and develop better treatments for everyone.
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Ketamine commonly and rapidly induces dissociative and other altered states of consciousness (ASCs) in humans. However, the neural mechanisms that contribute to these experiences remain unknown. We used functional neuroimaging to engage key regions of the brain's affective circuits during acute ketamine-induced ASCs within a randomized, multi-modal, placebo-controlled design examining placebo, 0.

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Hoarding disorder is common and debilitating, especially in older adults, and novel treatment approaches are needed. Many current treatments emphasize skills related to discarding and decision-making about possessions, which can be practiced in the patient's home. However in many cases, in-home visits are unfeasible, or real-life discarding is too difficult.

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Article Synopsis
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) affects about 2% of people around the world, but we don’t know exactly what causes it.
  • Most research so far has focused mainly on people of European descent, which can leave out important information for people from other backgrounds.
  • The LATINO initiative aims to include 5,000 people with OCD from Latin America and other countries, helping to gather more diverse data to improve our understanding and treatment of OCD globally.
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Insight impairment contributes significantly to morbidity in psychiatric disorders. The neurologic concept of anosognosia, reflecting deficits in metacognitive awareness of illness, is increasingly understood as relevant to psychopathology, but has been little explored in psychiatric disorders other than schizophrenia. We explored anosognosia as an aspect of insight impairment in n = 71 individuals with DSM-5 hoarding disorder.

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Objective: The aim of this study was to catalog and evaluate response biomarkers correlated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptoms to improve clinical trials.

Methods: A systematic review of MEDLINE, Embase, and Scopus was conducted in April 2020. Seven criteria were applied to focus on original research that includes quantifiable response biomarkers measured alongside ASD symptoms.

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Serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SRI) medications are well established as first-line pharmacotherapeutic treatment for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). However, despite the excellent safety profile and demonstrated efficacy of these medications, a substantial proportion of individuals with OCD fail to attain sufficient benefit from SRIs. In this narrative review, we discuss clinical features of OCD that have been associated with poorer response to SRIs, and we present pharmacotherapeutic interventions that have been explored as augmenting or alternative treatments for treatment-resistant OCD.

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Technology is ubiquitous in society and is now being extensively used in mental health applications. Both assessment and treatment strategies are being developed and deployed at a rapid pace. The authors review the current domains of technology utilization, describe standards for quality evaluation, and forecast future developments.

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Abnormalities in valence processing - the processing of aversive or appetitive stimuli - may be an underrecognized component of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Preclinical rodent models have been critical in furthering pathophysiological understanding of OCD, yet there is a dearth of investigations examining whether rodent models of compulsive behavior show alterations in valence systems congruent with those seen in individuals with OCD. In this study, we sought to assess valence processing in a preclinical rodent model of compulsive behavior, the SAPAP3 knockout (KO) mouse model, and compare our preclinical findings to similar behavioral phenomena in OCD patients.

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Introduction: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by a range of phenotypic expressions. Gender may be a relevant factor in mediating the disorder's heterogeneity. The aim of the present report was to explore a large multisite clinical sample of OCD patients, hypothesizing existing demographic, geographical and clinical differences between male and female patients with OCD.

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Hoarding disorder (HD) involves extreme difficulties discarding possessions and significant clutter in living areas. Although hoarding occurs worldwide, cross-cultural research remains in nascent stages, hampered in part by a lack of validated measures in non-English languages. We aimed to validate a Spanish translation of the Hoarding Rating Scale (HRS), a widely used measure of core HD symptoms.

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