Publications by authors named "David Herzog"

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of intracervical injection of liposomal bupivacaine for postoperative pain control among women undergoing minimally invasive supracervical hysterectomy.

Methods: A randomized double-blinded placebo-controlled trial of intracervical injection of combination liposomal bupivacaine and bupivacaine for postoperative pain among patients undergoing laparoscopic and robotic supracervical hysterectomy. Patients were enrolled between October 1, 2018 and April 30, 2019.

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Eggs of acipenseriform fish infected with the parasite Polypodium hydriforme become enlarged during later stages of development. This study examined if the increase in size is due to the increase in nutrients or water in the infected eggs and if the polypodium eggs affect the nutrient levels of the neighbouring eggs in the ovary. Infected and uninfected eggs were collected from parasitized Paddlefish, Polyodon spathula, hosts and unparasitized individuals.

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Objectives: Previous studies indicated a relationship between aldosterone, the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR), and antidepressant treatment outcome. Physiological indicators of MR function (blood pressure and electrolytes) are easily accessible and may therefore serve as useful predictors. Thus, our aim was to investigate the predictive value of peripheral MR-related markers for antidepressant treatment outcomes.

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Delayed onset of antidepressant action is a shortcoming in depression treatment. Ketamine and its metabolite (2R,6R)-hydroxynorketamine (HNK) have emerged as promising rapid-acting antidepressants. However, their mechanism of action remains unknown.

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Bilateral tubal ectopic pregnancies (BTP) are the rarest form of ectopic pregnancy. They are difficult to diagnose preoperatively, and an evidence-based guideline for management does not exist. In this report, we discuss a 35-year-old patient who presented with suspected right tubal ectopic pregnancy.

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The precise mechanisms underlying the detrimental effects of early life adversity (ELA) on adult mental health remain still elusive. To date, most studies have exclusively targeted neuronal populations and not considered neuron-glia crosstalk as a crucially important element for the integrity of stress-related brain function. Here, we have investigated the impact of ELA, in the form of a limited bedding and nesting material (LBN) paradigm, on a glial subpopulation with unique properties in brain homeostasis, the NG2+ cells.

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Article Synopsis
  • Major depressive disorder (MDD) shows variability in treatment response, prompting research into the influence of depression onset on treatment outcomes and physiological markers like blood pressure and electrolytes.
  • In a study with 889 patients categorized by early, intermediate, and late onset of depression, early onset patients exhibited more severe conditions and were more prone to recurrent depression and suicidality, but treatment outcomes did not significantly differ from other groups despite faster responses in late onset patients.
  • The findings suggest that early onset patients who do not show improvement within two weeks have a higher likelihood of not responding to treatment, highlighting the need for personalized treatment approaches that consider these onset differences and autonomic regulation factors.
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Major depressive disorder is the most prevalent mental illness worldwide, still its pharmacological treatment is limited by various challenges, such as the large heterogeneity in treatment response and the lack of insight into the neurobiological pathways underlying this phenomenon. To decode the molecular mechanisms shaping antidepressant response and to distinguish those from general paroxetine effects, we used a previously established approach targeting extremes (i.e.

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Background: Within a single depressive episode, most patients receive different antidepressants because of an inadequate response to the first-line antidepressant. A commonly used strategy is to switch from a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor to a selective serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. However, little is known about the tolerability of this switch with consideration of dose and drug concentration in blood.

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Recent interest in the role of microbiota in health and disease has implicated gut microbiota dysbiosis in psychiatric disorders including major depressive disorder. Several antidepressant drugs that belong to the class of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have been found to display antimicrobial activities. In fact, one of the first antidepressants discovered serendipitously in the 1950s, the monoamine-oxidase inhibitor Iproniazid, was a drug used for the treatment of tuberculosis.

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Objective: The suggested link between major depression disorder (MDD) and blood-brain barrier (BBB) alterations supports an impact on the neurovascular unit in this disease condition. Here we investigate how pericytes, a major component in the neurovascular unit, respond to stress, stress hormones, proinflammatory cytokine and depression.

Method: Hippocampal sections of chronic unpredictable stressed (CMS) rats, MDD patients and respective controls were immuno-stained against NG2, where the number of NG2+ pericytes in the molecular layer was counted.

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Ocular vascular dysfunction is a major contributing factor to the pathogenesis of glaucoma. In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the role of angiotensin II (Ang II) in mediating the disease progression. Despite its (patho)physiological importance, the molecular mechanisms underlying Ang II-mediated oxidative stress remain largely unexplored in the ocular vasculature.

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Background: Rapid-acting antidepressants ketamine and (2R,6R)-hydroxynorketamine ((2R,6R)-HNK) have overcome some of the major limitations of classical antidepressants. However, little is known about sex-specific differences in the behavioral and molecular effects of ketamine and (2R,6R)-HNK in rodents.

Methods: We treated mice with an intraperitoneal injection of either saline, ketamine (30 mg kg) or (2R,6R)-HNK (10 mg kg).

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Background: There is evidence that symptomatology in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) changes with age. However, studies comparing depressive symptomatology between different age groups during antidepressant therapy are rare. We compared demographic and clinical characteristics in depressed patients of different age groups at baseline and during treatment.

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Objective: Outcome states, such as remission and recovery, include specific duration criteria for which individuals must be asymptomatic. Ideally, duration criteria provide predictive validity to outcome states by reducing symptom-return risk. However, available research is insufficient for deriving specific recommendations for remission or recovery duration criteria for eating disorders.

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Context: Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a psychiatric illness with considerable morbidity and no approved medical therapies. We have shown that relative androgen deficiency in AN is associated with greater depression and anxiety symptom severity.

Objective: To determine whether low-dose testosterone therapy is an effective endocrine-targeted therapy for AN.

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Gender differences play a pivotal role in the pathophysiology and treatment of major depressive disorder. This is strongly supported by a mean 2:1 female-male ratio of depression consistently observed throughout studies in developed nations. Considering the urgent need to tailor individualized treatment strategies to fight depression more efficiently, a more precise understanding of gender-specific aspects in the pathophysiology and treatment of depressive disorders is fundamental.

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Background: Psychiatric comorbidity is common in eating disorders (EDs) and associated with poor outcomes, including increased risk for relapse and premature death. Yet little is known about comorbidity following ED recovery.

Methods: We examined two common comorbidities, major depressive disorder (MDD) and substance use disorder (SUD), in adult women with intake diagnoses of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa who participated in a 22-year longitudinal study.

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There are two important gaps of knowledge in depression treatment, namely the lack of biomarkers predicting response to antidepressants and the limited knowledge of the molecular mechanisms underlying clinical improvement. However, individually tailored treatment strategies and individualized prescription are greatly needed given the huge socio-economic burden of depression, the latency until clinical improvement can be observed and the response variability to a particular compound. Still, individual patient-level antidepressant treatment outcomes are highly unpredictable.

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Response to antidepressant treatment in major depressive disorder (MDD) cannot be predicted currently, leading to uncertainty in medication selection, increasing costs, and prolonged suffering for many patients. Despite tremendous efforts in identifying response-associated genes in large genome-wide association studies, the results have been fairly modest, underlining the need to establish conceptually novel strategies. For the identification of transcriptome signatures that can distinguish between treatment responders and nonresponders, we herein submit a novel animal experimental approach focusing on extreme phenotypes.

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Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate predictors of long-term recovery from eating disorders 22 years after entry into a longitudinal study.

Method: One hundred and seventy-six of the 228 surviving participants (77.2%) were re-interviewed 20-25 years after study entry using the Longitudinal Interval Follow-up Evaluation to assess ED recovery.

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Numerous studies throughout North America allege deleterious associations among invasive Asian Carp and native fishes; however, no empirical evidence on a system-wide scale exists. We used Mississippi River Basin fish community data collected by the Long Term Resource Monitoring program and the Missouri Department of Conservation to evaluate possible interaction between Asian Carp and native fishes. Results from two decades of long-term monitoring throughout much of the Mississippi River suggest that Silver Carp relative abundance has increased while relative abundance (Bigmouth Buffalo [F 3, 8240 = 6.

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Early improvement of depressive symptoms during the first two weeks of antidepressant treatment has been discussed to be a resilience signal predicting a later positive treatment outcome in patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). However, the predictive value of early improvement varies between studies, and the use of different antidepressants may explain heterogeneous results. The objective of this review was to assess the predictive value of early improvement on later response and remission and to identify antidepressants with the highest chance of early improvement.

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Little is known about guideline adherence of naturalistic antidepressant drug therapy in outpatients with major depressive disorder (MDD). The aim of the study was to analyze guideline adherence, especially regarding treatment length, treatment evaluation and medication change strategies. We investigated 889 patients with MDD who had been admitted for inpatient treatment and were enrolled in the early medication change trial (ClinicalTrials.

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Objective: For some, fat phobia or fear of uncontrollable weight gain is diagnostic of eating disorders, often inhibiting treatment engagement and predicting symptom relapse. Prior research has reported weight changes at infrequent or long intervals, but rate, shape, and magnitude of long-term changes remain unknown. Our study examined 22-year longitudinal trajectories of body mass index (BMI) in women with anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN).

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