[Fatigue and depression].

Fatigue is characterised in an overview of the literature as a specific phenomenon of depression. Its differential diagnosis is discussed. Distinctions and correspondences to burnout are elaborated.

Rapid cerebral hemodynamic modulation during set shifting: evidence of time-locked associations with cognitive control in females.

Set shifting provokes specific alterations of cerebral hemodynamics in basal cerebral arteries. However, no gender differences have been reported. In the following functional transcranial Doppler study, we introduced cerebral hemodynamic modulation to the aspects of set shifting during Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST).

Segregated neural representation of psychological and somatic-vegetative symptoms in severe major depression.

Objective: The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) is probably the most widely used depression scale. It has been suggested that it contains a two-factor structure measuring cognitive-affective (i.e.

Increased self-focus in major depressive disorder is related to neural abnormalities in subcortical-cortical midline structures.

Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) often show a tendency to strongly introspect and reflect upon their self, which has been described as increased self-focus. Although subcortical-cortical midline structures have been associated with reflection and introspection of oneself in healthy subjects, the neural correlates of the abnormally increased attribution of negative emotions to oneself, i.e.

Deliberate self-harm in female patients with affective disorders: investigation of personality structure and affect regulation by means of operationalized psychodynamic diagnostics.

This study investigated psychodynamically relevant dimensions in female depressive patients with and without deliberate self-harm (DSH). DSH is often observed in depressive patients and frequently shows a correlation with personality disorders. Forty female depressive patients with and without DSH were investigated after recovery from acute depressive pathology by means of "operationalized psychodynamic diagnostics" (OPD).

Altered negative BOLD responses in the default-mode network during emotion processing in depressed subjects.

Studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) show predominant negative blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) responses (NBRs) in regions of the default-mode network such as the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and the posterior cingulate cortex. Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) show emotional-cognitive disturbances, which have been associated with alterations within the default-mode network. However, it remains unclear whether these default-mode network alterations are related to abnormalities in NBRs.

Imbalance between left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in major depression is linked to negative emotional judgment: an fMRI study in severe major depressive disorder.

Background: Although recent neuroimaging and therapeutic transcranial magnetic cortex stimulation (TMS) studies suggest imbalance between left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in major depressive disorder (MDD) the fundamental neuropsychological characterization of left DLPFC hypoactivity and right DLPFC hyperactivity in MDD remains poorly understood.

Methods: We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate neural activity in left and right DLPFC related to unattended (unexpected) and attended (expected) judgment of emotions. Participating in the study were 20 medication-free patients with MDD and 30 healthy subjects.

Is there a common resilience mechanism underlying antidepressant drug response? Evidence from 2848 patients.

Objectives: Timing issues of antidepressant drug response are of major clinical relevance, given our current inability to predict when a particular patient will respond to a particular treatment.

Method: We detailed the time characteristics of recovery in a study of 2848 patients (diagnosed according to DSM-III-R/DSM-IV criteria as having major depressive disorder or major depressive episode) who were treated with 7 different anti-depressants and placebo. A 2-dimensional cure model was used to disentangle the 2 central aspects of psychotropic drug response: the proportion of patients in whom a therapeutic response is induced ( incidence) and the time to onset of improvement ( latency).

Rapid cerebral hemodynamic modulation during mental planning and movement execution: evidence of time-locked relationship with complex behavior.

Objective: Although there is evidence of specific associations between neuronal activity and early cerebral blood flow (CBF), little is known on a logical furtherance of this linkage, namely the association between early measures of cerebral hemodynamics and complex behavior. The present study examined the linkage between hemodynamic modulation in basal cerebral arteries and performance in a non-routine planning task by means of functional transcranial Doppler sonography (fTCD).

Methods: The Stockings of Cambridge (SOC) was employed as planning paradigm.

Impaired rapid modulation of cerebral hemodynamics during a planning task in schizophrenia.

Objective: Patients with schizophrenia show deficits in planning, and the Stockings of Cambridge (SOC) is a task that assesses planning performance. This study was undertaken to investigate rapid changes of cerebral hemodynamics during separate phases of SOC in schizophrenia and normals by means of functional transcranial Doppler sonography (fTCD).

Methods: We included 21 patients with chronic schizophrenia and a control group of 20 healthy subjects in the study.

Association between two distinct executive tasks in schizophrenia: a functional transcranial Doppler sonography study.

Background: Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder involving impairments in executive functioning, which are important cognitive processes that can be assessed by planning tasks such as the Stockings of Cambridge (SOC), and tasks of rule learning/abstraction such as the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). We undertook this study to investigate the association between performance during separate phases of SOC and WCST, including mean cerebral blood flow velocity (MFV) measurements in chronic schizophrenia.

Methods: Functional transcranial Doppler sonography (fTCD) was used to assess bilateral MFV changes in the middle (MCA) and anterior (ACA) cerebral arteries.

Effects of psilocybin on time perception and temporal control of behaviour in humans.

Hallucinogenic psilocybin is known to alter the subjective experience of time. However, there is no study that systematically investigated objective measures of time perception under psilocybin. Therefore, we studied dose-dependent effects of the serotonin (5-HT)2A/1A receptor agonist psilocybin (4-phosphoryloxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine) on temporal processing, employing tasks of temporal reproduction, sensorimotor synchronization and tapping tempo.

Affective judgment and beneficial decision making: ventromedial prefrontal activity correlates with performance in the Iowa Gambling Task.

Damasio proposes in his somatic marker theory that not only cognitive but also affective components are critical for decision making. Since affective judgment requires an interplay between affective and cognitive components, it might be considered a key process in decision making that has been linked to neural activity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC). Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we examined the relationship between VMPFC, emotionally (unexpected)- and cognitively (expected)-accentuated affective judgment, and beneficial decision making (Iowa Gambling Task; IGT) in healthy subjects.

Voluntary vs. involuntary hospital admission in acute mania of bipolar disorder: results from the Swiss sample of the EMBLEM study.

Background: Patients with acute mania in bipolar disorder require pharmacological treatment to reduce symptoms. In addition, it is recognised that admission status is a clinically relevant aspect of bipolar disorder. There is, however, a lack of published data assessing the association of admission status with clinical or functional outcomes.

Segregated neural representation of distinct emotion dimensions in the prefrontal cortex-an fMRI study.

Emotions are frequently characterized by distinct dimensions such as valence, intensity, and recognition. However, the exact neural representation of these dimensions in different prefrontal cortical regions remains unclear. One of the problems in revealing prefrontal cortical representation is that the very same regions are also involved in cognitive functions associated with emotion processing.

Early treatment-induced improvement of negative symptoms predicts cognitive functioning in treatment-naive first episode schizophrenia: a 2-year followup.

Studying neuroleptic-naive first episode schizophrenia is a strategy for investigating clinical and neuropsychological abnormalities at a very early phase of the disease without confounding influences of illness duration and medication effects. We examined the clinical and neuropsychological time course over 2 years in 32 neuroleptic-naive first episode patients (20 males, 12 females) and 21 healthy individuals with similar sociodemographic characteristics. Early treatment-induced reduction of negative symptoms predicted superior cognitive performance throughout followup in the domains of verbal fluency, attention, and non-verbal learning and memory.

Lateralization of cerebral hemodynamics during Wisconsin Card Sorting Test: a functional transcranial Doppler sonography study.

Objective: Studies on lateralization of cerebral metabolism during Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), a well-known paradigm of category learning, have shown mixed results. Moreover, sorting dimension (number, color and shape) is a cofounder of laterality in WCST. Functional transcranial Doppler sonography (fTCD) has a high temporal resolution and allows the measurement of mean cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV) in the middle (MCA) and anterior cerebral arteries (ACA), which supply lateral and medial parts of the frontal and parietal lobes, respectively.

Modulating the rate and rhythmicity of perceptual rivalry alternations with the mixed 5-HT2A and 5-HT1A agonist psilocybin.

Binocular rivalry occurs when different images are presented simultaneously to corresponding points within the left and right eyes. Under these conditions, the observer's perception will alternate between the two perceptual alternatives. Motivated by the reported link between the rate of perceptual alternations, symptoms of psychosis and an incidental observation that the rhythmicity of perceptual alternations during binocular rivalry was greatly increased 10 h after the consumption of LSD, this study aimed to investigate the pharmacology underlying binocular rivalry and to explore the connection between the timing of perceptual switching and psychosis.

NMDA hypofunction in the posterior cingulate as a model for schizophrenia: an exploratory ketamine administration study in fMRI.

Background: Based on animal data, NMDA receptor hypofunction has been suggested as a model for positive symptoms in schizophrenia. NMDA receptor hypofunction affects several corticolimbic brain regions, of which the posterior cingulate seems to be the most sensitive. However, empirical support for a crucial role of posterior cingulate NMDA hypofunction in the pathophysiology of positive symptoms is still missing in humans.

Cerebral hemodynamics and processing speed during category learning.

The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) is a commonly used paradigm of category learning with two alternating and distinct processes, maintaining set and set shifting that have been characterized by functional transcranial Doppler sonography (fTCD) of the basal cerebral arteries. Further, repeated WCST administrations resulted in improved speed of solution. This study addressed the question of whether optimised speed during maintaining set or set shifting is associated with changes of cerebral hemodynamics as measured by bilateral fTCD.

Long-term course of schizophrenic illness: Bleuler's study reconsidered.

Objective: The influential 1972 study by Manfred Bleuler on the long-term course of schizophrenic illness has been reconsidered. The authors tested the diagnosis of schizophrenia in all patients and investigated how the distribution of the types of illness course and outcome would change after exclusion of patients whose diagnosis of schizophrenia could not be confirmed by modern diagnostic standards.

Method: Clinical charts and Bleuler's research notes on the original sample were assessed, and all patients were rediagnosed with the help of DSM-IV, DSM-III-R, ICD-10, the Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDC), Schneider's criteria, and an operationalized version of the criteria of Eugen Bleuler.

Eugen Bleuler and forensic psychiatry.

The list of Eugen Bleuler's writings shows that he grappled with forensic issues quite early, even before he became a full professor in 1898. Bleuler regularly prepared forensic criminal expert's reports himself until emeritus status was conferred on him in 1927. Analysis of his writings indicates that his position remained explicitly deterministic.

[Self-esteem and partner relationships of patients with bipolar affective disorder: a study of the interval personality with the Giessen-test].

The self-concept and the partner relationships of patients with bipolar affective disorder in remission were investigated with the Giessen-Test (GT, Beckmann et al. ) comparing the bipolar patients with unipolar depressive patients, a control group of orthopedic patients and the standard sample of the Giessen-Test. The new dimensions "self-esteem" and "near-to-object" were developed by means of the Giessen-Test items.

Visual object working memory function and clinical symptoms in schizophrenia.

Objective: The presence of working memory deficits suggests abnormalities of prefrontal cortex (PFC) in schizophrenia. Although much is known about spatial working memory deficits in schizophrenia, including its potential as a phenotypic marker, it is unclear whether object working memory is similarly affected. Our goal was to examine nonspatial, object working memory function in relation to clinical symptoms.