The influence of anhedonia on feedback negativity in major depressive disorder.

Anhedonia is associated with reward-processing deficits of the dopamine system, which may increase the risk of depression. Nevertheless, few previous studies have examined the influence of hedonic tone on event-related potential (ERP) measures of reward processing in major depressive disorder. A simple gambling task was used to elicit feedback negativity (FN), an ERP component elicited by feedback indicating gain versus loss, in 27 patients with major depression and 27 healthy participants.

Developmental trajectories of schizotypal personality disorder-like behavioural manifestations: a two-year longitudinal prospective study of college students.

Background: Previous evidence has shown that schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) is part of the schizophrenia spectrum. Few studies have examined latent classes in the developmental trajectories of SPD features over time in individuals with SPD features.

Methods: We adopted a longitudinal prospective study design to follow up a cohort of 660 college students during a two-year period.

The nature and extent of working memory dysfunction in schizophrenia.

This study aimed to examine verbal and visual-spatial working memory (WM) dysfunction in patients with schizophrenia. We compared 60 patients with schizophrenia with 57 healthy controls (matched for age, educational level, and IQ) on three WM tasks. Patients with schizophrenia performed significantly more poorly than healthy controls on verbal, visual, and spatial WM tests.

An ecologically valid performance-based social functioning assessment battery for schizophrenia.

Psychiatrists pay more attention to the social functioning outcome of schizophrenia nowadays. How to evaluate the real world function among schizophrenia is a challenging task due to culture difference, there is no such kind of instrument in terms of the Chinese setting. This study aimed to report the validation of an ecologically valid performance-based everyday functioning assessment for schizophrenia, namely the Beijing Performance-based Functional Ecological Test (BJ-PERFECT).

Common variants on Xq28 conferring risk of schizophrenia in Han Chinese.

Schizophrenia is a highly heritable, severe psychiatric disorder affecting approximately 1% of the world population. A substantial portion of heritability is still unexplained and the pathophysiology of schizophrenia remains to be elucidated. To identify more schizophrenia susceptibility loci, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on 498 patients with schizophrenia and 2025 controls from the Han Chinese population, and a follow-up study on 1027 cases and 1005 controls.

Metabolic regulation by p53 family members.

The function of p53 is best understood in response to genotoxic stress, but increasing evidence suggests that p53 also plays a key role in the regulation of metabolic homeostasis. p53 and its family members directly influence various metabolic pathways, enabling cells to respond to metabolic stress. These functions are likely to be important for restraining the development of cancer but could also have a profound effect on the development of metabolic diseases, including diabetes.

Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia share a similar deficit in semantic inhibition: a meta-analysis based on Hayling Sentence Completion Test performance.

Bipolar disorder (BD) is associated with deficits in executive function similar to that found in schizophrenia (SZ). However, very few studies have examined whether a specific component of executive function, namely, semantic inhibition, is differentially impaired in BD and SZ. The present study reports the results of a meta-analysis of performance on a theory-driven test of semantic inhibition, namely, the Hayling Sentence Completion Test (HSCT), in patients with BD and SZ, and to examine differential group impairments.

Neurological soft signs are not "soft" in brain structure and functional networks: evidence from ALE meta-analysis.

Background: Neurological soft signs (NSS) are associated with schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders. NSS have been conventionally considered as clinical neurological signs without localized brain regions. However, recent brain imaging studies suggest that NSS are partly localizable and may be associated with deficits in specific brain areas.

Facial emotion perception abnormality in patients with early schizophrenia.

Background: Deficit in facial emotion perception is an important social cognitive impairment in schizophrenic patients, and it is one of the key determinants of functional outcome in schizophrenia. However, the moderating effect of social context and the boundary of perceptual categories of facial emotion perception remain unclear.

Method: A total of 36 schizophrenic outpatients in their early stage of illness and 43 healthy controls were recruited for evaluation of social and clinical characteristics, neurocognitive profiles, and facial emotion categorization (FEC) performance.

Prospective memory predicts medication management ability and correlates with non-adherence to medications in individuals with clinically stable schizophrenia.

Background: Prospective memory (PM), the ability to remember to carry out an intended action in the future, is thought to relate closely to everyday functioning, such as medication adherence. PM impairment in schizophrenia may contribute to unintentional medication non-adherence. This study aimed to examine the relationship between PM, medication management and medication adherence.

Cognitive empathy partially mediates the association between negative schizotypy traits and social functioning.

The present study aimed to examine empathy in individuals with schizotypy and to explore whether empathy mediates the associations between schizotypy traits and social functioning in college students. 1083 (376 males, mean age 18.78 ± 0.

The prevalence of metabolic syndrome amongst patients with severe mental illness in the community in Hong Kong--a cross sectional study.

Background: Patients with severe mental illness are at increased risk of developing metabolic disorders. The risk of metabolic syndrome in the Hong Kong general population is lower than that observed in western countries; however the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in patients with severe mental illness in Hong Kong is unknown.

Method: This cross-sectional study aimed to estimate the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in patients with severe mental illness in Hong Kong and to identify the relationships between metabolic syndrome and socio-demographic, clinical and lifestyle factors.

Happy facial expression processing with different social interaction cues: an fMRI study of individuals with schizotypal personality traits.

In daily life facial expressions change rapidly and the direction of change provides important clues about social interaction. The aim of conducting this study was to elucidate the dynamic happy facial expression processing with different social interaction cues in individuals with (n=14) and without (n=14) schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) traits. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), dynamic happy facial expression processing was examined by presenting video clips depicting happiness appearing and disappearing under happiness inducing ('praise') or reducing ('blame') interaction cues.

Neurological soft signs discriminate schizophrenia from major depression but not bipolar disorder.

Background: Neurological soft signs (NSS) are minor neurological abnormalities, including motor, sensory, and inhibitory dysfunction. Schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric disorders are associated with a higher prevalence of NSS. However, the relationships between NSS and schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression are unclear.

Mitochondrial localization of TIGAR under hypoxia stimulates HK2 and lowers ROS and cell death.

The p53-inducible protein TIGAR (Tp53-induced Glycolysis and Apoptosis Regulator) functions as a fructose-2,6-bisphosphatase (Fru-2,6-BPase), and through promotion of the pentose phosphate pathway, increases NADPH production to help limit reactive oxygen species (ROS). Here, we show that under hypoxia, a fraction of TIGAR protein relocalized to mitochondria and formed a complex with hexokinase 2 (HK2), resulting in an increase in HK2 activity. Mitochondrial localization of TIGAR depended on mitochondrial HK2 and hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF1α) activity.

Brain structural abnormalities in obsessive-compulsive disorder: converging evidence from white matter and grey matter.

Introduction: Specific cortico-striato-thalamic circuits are hypothesised to underlie the aetiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, findings from neuroimaging studies have been inconsistent. In the current study, we attempted to provide a complete overview of structural alterations in OCD by conducting signed differential mapping (SDM) meta-analysis on grey matter and white matter studies of patients with OCD based on voxel-based morphometry (VBM) studies and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies.

Semantic processing impairment in individuals with schizotypal personality disorder features: a preliminary event-related potential study.

Objective: This study aimed to examine semantic processing features in individuals with and without schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) features.

Methods: An implicit semantic task was used to examine the automatic spreading semantic activation process which is relatively free from the influence of attention. An explicit semantic task was used to examine the controlled semantic processing which requires high involvement of attention.

Experience of pleasure and emotional expression in individuals with schizotypal personality features.

Difficulties in feeling pleasure and expressing emotions are one of the key features of schizophrenia spectrum conditions, and are significant contributors to constricted interpersonal interactions. The current study examined the experience of pleasure and emotional expression in college students who demonstrated high and low levels of schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) traits on self-report questionnaires. One hundred and seventeen subjects with SPD traits and 116 comparison controls were recruited to participate.

Coherent combining of pulsed fiber amplifiers in the nonlinear chirp regime with intra-pulse phase control.

Two high pulse contrast (> 95 dB) polarization maintaining all-fiber amplifier chains were coherently combined to generate 0.42 mJ, 1 ns 25 kHz pulses with 79% efficiency despite 38 radians of intra-pulse phase distortion. A recursive intra-pulse phase compensation method was utilized to correct for the large nonlinear chirp providing a path for improved coherent waveform control of nanosecond pulse trains.

Recovery in Hong Kong: service user participation in mental health services.

This article provides an overview of mental health services (MHS) and the application of the recovery concept in Hong Kong, focusing on user participation. It presents stakeholders' views of the recovery movement in a round-table discussion format, demonstrating agreement that user participation merits more public and official attention. Some of the present difficulties with the movement are also reviewed.

Effects of resin ligand density on yield and impurity clearance in preparative cation exchange chromatography. I. Mechanistic evaluation.

The effects of resin ligand density on cation exchange chromatography performance in preparative monoclonal antibody purification processes were evaluated. A set of agarose-based cation exchange resins spanning a relatively wide range of ligand densities was tested using three different monoclonal antibodies with unique impurity profiles. Experiments were performed in bind-and-elute mode using gradient elution at both intermediate protein loadings and near saturation capacity.

Semantic processing disturbance in patients with schizophrenia: a meta-analysis of the N400 component.

Background: Theoretically semantic processing can be separated into early automatic semantic activation and late contextualization. Semantic processing deficits have been suggested in patients with schizophrenia, however it is not clear which stage of semantic processing is impaired. We attempted to clarify this issue by conducting a meta-analysis of the N400 component.