Loperamide overdose-induced catatonia: potential role of brain opioid system and P-glycoprotein.

Objective: Catatonic features are observed in several psychiatric illnesses but can also be found following substance misuse. Loperamide is an anti-diarrhoeal medication that acts on opioid receptors in the intestine, reducing peristalsis. It is normally unable to pass through the intestinal wall or the blood-brain barrier; however, high dosages can in fact induce the effects on the central nervous system.

Urinary incontinence and diarrhoea associated with the switch from oral to injectable risperidone.

Objective: Urgency, urinary incontinence and bowel disturbances are distressing side effects that have been observed during treatment with risperidone and other antipsychotics probably due to the receptor affinity profile. This occurrence can lead to poor compliance and therefore impair clinical outcome.

Method: We report the case of a 50 year-old lady, who experienced urinary incontinence and diarrhoea, when switching from oral to injectable risperidone, which ceased when discontinuing the drug.

Reduced neuron density, enlarged minicolumn spacing and altered ageing effects in fusiform cortex in schizophrenia.

Structural and functional MRI studies report reduced volume and activation of the fusiform gyrus in schizophrenia. The fusiform cortex is involved in object naming and face recognition. Neuron cell size, shape and density, glial cell density and minicolumn spacing in layers III and V of the fusiform cortex were assessed following systematic random sampling from 13 controls and 11 schizophrenic patients.

Axon bundle spacing in the anterior cingulate cortex of the human brain.

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is implicated in neuropsychiatric disorders. Post-mortem axon bundle data will be important to complement novel MRI methods for analysing cortical diffusion data. [Jespersen SN, Kroenke CD, Ostergaard L, et al.