Parental criticism affects adolescents' mood and ruminative state: Self-perception appears to influence their mood response.

Feeling and/or being criticized is a known risk factor for various psychiatric disorders in adolescents. However, the link between the experience of social stressors and the development of psychopathological symptoms is not yet fully understood. Identifying which adolescent subgroups are more vulnerable to parental criticism could be of great clinical relevance.

[A young man with schizophrenia and Brugada syndrome].

We treated a 34-year-old male patient with a diagnosis of both schizophrenia and Brugada syndrome (BrS). In the literature we found clues for ion channel defects as a possible common pathophysiological mechanism in these disorders. Awareness of the link with BrS can improve cardiac assessment and cardiac mortality in patients with schizophrenia, whereas the ion channel defects provide an interesting area for future research into pharmacotherapeutic possibilities.

Psychosis in an adolescent girl: a common manifestation in Niemann-Pick Type C disease.

Niemann-Pick disease type C (NP-C) is a rare autosomal-recessively inherited lysosomal storage disorder. It is caused by mutations in the NPC1 (95%) or NPC2 gene. It is a progressive and highly heterogeneous disease, characterized by the presentation of visceral, neurological, and psychiatric symptoms.

Acidification of forested podzols in North Belgium during the period 1950-2000.

Acidification of forest soils in Europe and North America has been an important concern over the last decades. The last area-covering survey of forest soil acidification in Flanders (North Belgium) goes back to 1985 [Ronse A, De Temmerman L, Guns M, De Borger R. Evolution of acidity, organic matter content, and CEC in uncultivated soils of North Belgium during the past 25 years.