Psilocybin-assisted therapy for severe alcohol use disorder: protocol for a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, 7-month parallel-group phase II superiority trial.

Background: A significant number of individuals with alcohol use disorder remain unresponsive to currently available treatments, which calls for the development of new alternatives. In parallel, psilocybin-assisted therapy for alcohol use disorder has recently yielded promising preliminary results. Building on extant findings, the proposed study is set to evaluate the feasibility and preliminary clinical efficacy of psilocybin-assisted therapy when incorporated as an auxiliary intervention during inpatient rehabilitation for severe alcohol use disorder.

Dissociative Identity Disorder: Between History and Culture.

The Dissociative Identity Disorder has undergone significant transformations over the years. Once regarded as a rare condition, it gained popularity in the 1980s in the United States following the publication of a book on the subject, only to subsequently wane due to extensive controversies. Presently, we are witnessing a resurgence of adolescents who believe they may be afflicted by this disorder.

Association Between Bipolar Disorder and Parkinson's Disease.

Bipolar disorder and Parkinson's disease are two distinct neurological conditions that share common features related to dopaminergic dysfunction. This article presents a comprehensive review of the existing literature to investigate the association between bipolar disorder and Parkinson's disease, focusing on the dopaminergic hypothesis and potential therapeutic options. The dopaminergic hypothesis suggests that both bipolar disorder and Parkinson's disease involve impairments in the nigrostriatal or mesolimbic dopaminergic pathways.

Narrating: from Evolutionary to Clinical Advantages.

Human beings constantly narrate reality. They narrate themselves, to themselves and to others. They narrate each other and narrate humanity.

A Comparative Event-Related Potentials Study between Alcohol Use Disorder, Gambling Disorder and Healthy Control Subjects through a Contextual Go/NoGo Task.

(1) Background: Inhibitory and rewarding processes that mediate attentional biases to addiction-related cues may slightly differ between patients suffering from alcohol use (AUD) or gambling (GD) disorder. (2) Methods: 23 AUD inpatients, 19 GD patients, and 22 healthy controls performed four separate Go/NoGo tasks, in, respectively, an alcohol, gambling, food, and neutral long-lasting cueing context during the recording of event-related potentials (ERPs). (3) Results: AUD patients showed a poorer inhibitory performance than controls (slower response latencies, lower N2d, and delayed P3d components).

Transcranial direct current stimulation combined with alcohol cue inhibitory control training reduces the risk of early alcohol relapse: A randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial.

Background: Approximately half of all people with alcohol use disorder (AUD) relapse into alcohol reuse in the next few weeks after a withdrawal treatment. Brain stimulation and cognitive training represent recent forms of complementary interventions in the context of AUD.

Objective: To evaluate the clinical efficacy of five sessions of 2 mA bilateral transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) for 20 min over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) (left cathodal/right anodal) combined with alcohol cue inhibitory control training (ICT) as part of rehabilitation.

The Relationship between Typus Melancholicus and Unipolar Depression: A Literature Review.

Background: The Typus Melancholicus (TM) is the premorbid personality of endogenous depression defined by Tellenbach and Kraus and characterized by orderliness, conscientiousness, norm orientation and intolerance of ambiguity. Tellenbach's hypothesis was to find around 50% of TM in the sample of patients with an Unipolar Depression (UD). The present paper aims to make a literature review on the relationship between the Typus Melancholicus (TM) and Unipolar Depression (UD).

Gastric Bypass and Alcohol Use: A Literature Review.

Background: Obesity is public health issue; bariatric surgery is considered as the most efficient treatment. However, the risk of developing an alcohol use disorder could increase after Roux-en-Y bypass. The purpose of this review is to emphasize the further research needed in this area.

Tobacco Use Cessation in Three Patients Suffering from Psychotic Disorders: The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background: Tobacco use is one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality amoung patients suffering from psychotic disorders. The association between severe COVID-19 and tobacco use is still debated. The aim of this paper is to enhance the importance of providing up to date informations about nicotine and tobacco use in connection with the SARS-CoV-2-related conditions.

Neurophysiological markers of cue reactivity and inhibition subtend a three-month period of complete alcohol abstinence.

Objective: Finding new tools for conventional management of alcohol disorders is a challenge for psychiatrists. Brain indications related to cognitive functioning could represent such an add-on tool.

Methods: Forty alcohol-dependent inpatients undertook two cognitive event-related potential (ERP) tasks at the beginning and at the end of a 4-week detoxification program.

Changes in Pro-Inflammatory Markers in Detoxifying Chronic Alcohol Abusers, Divided by Lesch Typology, Reflect Cognitive Dysfunction.

Aim: To investigate pro-inflammatory markers in the blood and associate with cognitive impairment.

Methods: Il-6 and ferritin were assayed in the blood of 27 patients, divided according to Lesch typology, at the commencement and after 21 days of detoxification, together with a battery of cognitive tests.

Results: A significantly higher mean level of IL-6 was present in the blood of patients with Lesch typology 1 compared to the other typologies 2 and 3 on admission to the Detoxification Ward which did not alter significantly after detoxification.

On the automaticity of response inhibition in individuals with alcoholism.

Background And Objectives: Response inhibition is usually considered a hallmark of executive control. However, recent work indicates that stop performance can become associatively mediated ('automatic') over practice. This study investigated automatic response inhibition in sober and recently detoxified individuals with alcoholism.

Quantification of phosphatidylethanol 16:0/18:1, 18:1/18:1, and 16:0/16:0 in venous blood and venous and capillary dried blood spots from patients in alcohol withdrawal and control volunteers.

Phosphatidylethanol species (PEths) are promising biomarkers of alcohol consumption. Here, we report on the set-up, validation, and application of a novel UHPLC-ESI-MS/MS method for the quantification of PEth 16:0/18:1, PEth 18:1/18:1, and PEth 16:0/16:0 in whole blood (30 μL) and in venous (V, 30 μL) or capillary (C, 3 punches (3 mm)) dried blood spots (DBS). The methods were linear from 10 (LLOQ) to 2000 ng/mL for PEth 16:0/18:1, from 10 (LLOQ) to 1940 ng/mL for PEth 18:1/18:1, and from 19 (LLOQ) to 3872 ng/mL for PEth 16:0/16:0.

On the relationship between emotional state and abnormal unfairness sensitivity in alcohol dependence.

Recent empirical findings suggest that alcohol dependence is characterized by heightened sensitivity to unfairness during social transactions. The present study went a step further and aimed to ascertain whether this abnormal level of sensitivity to unfairness is underlined by an increased emotional reactivity. Twenty-six recently abstinent alcohol-dependent (AD) individuals and 32 controls performed an ultimatum game (UG), in which participants had to respond to take-it-or-leave-it offers, ranging from fair to unfair and made by a fictive proposer.

Neurophysiological correlates of response inhibition predict relapse in detoxified alcoholic patients: some preliminary evidence from event-related potentials.

Background: Alcohol dependence is a chronic relapsing disease. The impairment of response inhibition and alcohol-cue reactivity are the main cognitive mechanisms that trigger relapse. Despite the interaction suggested between the two processes, they have long been investigated as two different lines of research.

Polysubstance dependent patients display a more utilitarian profile in moral decision-making than alcohol-dependent patients, depressive patients and controls.

Background: Addiction has been shown to be associated with the endorsement of utilitarian moral judgments. Ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) dysfunction may explain these findings.

Methods: 100 subjects were recruited: 25 polysubstance dependent patients, 25 alcohol dependent patients, 25 patients with major depressive disorders, and 25 normal controls.

Separating intentional inhibition of prepotent responses and resistance to proactive interference in alcohol-dependent individuals.

Background: Impulsivity is a hallmark of addictive behaviors. Addicts' weakened inhibition of irrelevant prepotent responses is commonly thought to explain this association. However, inhibition is not a unitary mechanism.

On the predictive validity of automatically activated approach/avoidance tendencies in abstaining alcohol-dependent patients.

Background: Prominent addiction models posit that automatically activated approach/avoidance tendencies play a critical role in addiction. Nevertheless, only a limited number of studies have actually documented the relationship between relapse and automatically activated approach/avoidance tendencies. We compared automatically activated approach/avoidance tendencies towards alcohol in 40 abstaining alcohol-dependent patients and 40 controls.

The contribution of executive functions deficits to impaired episodic memory in individuals with alcoholism.

Individuals with alcoholism commonly exhibit impaired performance on episodic memory tasks. However, the contribution of their impaired executive functioning to poor episodic memory remains to be clarified. Thirty-six recently detoxified and sober asymptomatic alcoholic men and 36 matched non-alcoholic participants were tested for processing speed, prepotent response inhibition, mental flexibility, coordination of dual-task and a verbal episodic memory task.

The "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test as a new way to explore complex emotions decoding in alcohol dependence.

It has been repeatedly shown that alcohol dependence is associated with emotional impairments, particularly for emotional facial expression decoding. Nevertheless, most earlier studies focused on basic emotions and did not explore more subtle affective states. In order to obtain a more accurate evaluation, and in view of earlier results showing impaired performance for this task among high-risk children of alcohol-dependent participants, the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test was used here to explore emotional recognition in alcohol dependence.

Dissociation between affective and cognitive empathy in alcoholism: a specific deficit for the emotional dimension.

Background: Emotional impairments constitute a crucial and widely described dimension of alcoholism, but several affective abilities are still to be thoroughly explored among alcohol-dependent patients. This is particularly true for empathy, which constitutes an essential emotional competence for interpersonal relations and has been shown to be highly impaired in various psychiatric states. The present study aimed at exploring empathic abilities in alcoholism, and notably the hypothesis of a differential deficit between emotional and cognitive empathy.

Neurocognitive determinants of novelty and sensation-seeking in individuals with alcoholism.

Aim: Sober alcoholic abusers exhibit personality traits such as novelty-seeking (NS) and sensation-seeking, which overlap to a limited extent. In parallel, they also show impaired executive and decision-making processes. However, little is known about the specific and common cognitive processes associated with NS and sensation-seeking personality traits in detoxified sober alcoholic abusers.

Impaired conditional reasoning in alcoholics: a negative impact on social interactions and risky behaviors?

Aims: To study the 'social brain' in alcoholics by investigating social contract reasoning, theory of mind and emotional intelligence.

Design: A behavioral study comparing recently detoxified alcoholics with normal, healthy controls.

Setting: Emotional intelligence and decoding of emotional non-verbal cues have been shown to be impaired in alcoholics.