Background: Eating disorders (EDs) are serious, often chronic, conditions associated with pronounced morbidity, mortality, and dysfunction increasingly affecting young people worldwide. Illness progression, stages and recovery trajectories of EDs are still poorly characterised. The STORY study dynamically and longitudinally assesses young people with different EDs (restricting; bingeing/bulimic presentations) and illness durations (earlier; later stages) compared to healthy controls.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMemory acquisition, formation and maintenance depend on synaptic post-translational machinery and regulation of gene expression triggered by several transduction pathways. In turns, these processes lead to stabilization of synaptic modifications in neurons in the activated circuits. In order to study the molecular mechanisms involved in acquisition and memory, we have taken advantage of the context-signal associative learning and, more recently, the place preference task, of the crab .
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe COVID-19 pandemic has increased rates of psychological distress and burnout in healthcare staff. How can we understand our experiences of the pandemic? We reflect on the experiences of psychiatry trainees in two north London mental health trusts. From a psychoanalytic understanding, states of extreme anxiety can lead to a manic defence and functioning in the paranoid-schizoid position.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Antipsychotic medication can reduce psychotic symptoms and risk of relapse in people with schizophrenia and related disorders, but it is not always effective and adverse effects can be significant. We know little of patients' views about continuing or discontinuing antipsychotic treatment.
Aims: To explore the views of people with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders about continuing their antipsychotic medication or attempting to reduce or discontinue this medication with clinical support.
This paper examines the evidence behind the use and decline of insulin coma therapy as a treatment for schizophrenia and how this was viewed by the psychiatric profession. The paper demonstrates that, from the time of its introduction, there was considerable debate regarding the evidence for insulin treatment, and scepticism about its purported benefits. The randomized trials conducted in the 1950s were the result, rather than the origins, of this debate.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Royal College of Psychiatrists' antiquarian book collection originated from the library of psychiatrist Daniel Hack Tuke (1827-1895). A proposal to name the collection after him led us to investigate aspects of his life and work, particularly related to his attitudes concerning race, gender and homosexuality. We juxtaposed his ideas with those of some of his contemporaries.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFContemp Clin Trials Commun
June 2021
We aimed to explore the clinical relevance of a multicentre, pragmatic randomised trial of antipsychotic reduction in people diagnosed with schizophrenia or psychosis The sample recruited for the antipsychotic reduction study (n = 69 people) was compared with the population of patients with an eligible diagnosis undergoing treatment in the same service (n = 3067 people), using routinely-collected, anonymised data. The trial sample was found to resemble the wider population in terms of the number of past admissions, the likelihood of having been subject to legal detention and the level of risk the patient was perceived to pose to themselves or others. There was a lower proportion of people from minority ethnic backgrounds in the trial sample.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the wild, being able to recognize and remember specific locations related to food sources and the associated attributes of landmarks is a cognitive trait important for survival. In the present work, we show that the crab Neohelice granulata can be trained to associate a specific environment with an appetitive reward in a conditioned place preference task. After a single training trial, when the crabs were presented with a food pellet in the target quadrant of the training arena, they were able to form a long-term memory related to the event.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe General Medical Council has introduced a generic professional capabilities framework. It includes the need to develop the professional values, actions and aspirations fundamental to becoming a 'dedicated doctor'. The history of psychiatry has potential to facilitate this learning, both by an understanding of content and the ability to think historically.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims: We examined the effectiveness of a service innovation, Three Dimensions for Diabetes (3DFD), that consisted of a referral to an integrated mental health, social care and diabetes treatment model, compared with usual care in improving biomedical and health economic outcomes.
Methods: Using a non-randomized control design, the 3DFD model was offered in two inner-city boroughs in London, UK, where diabetes health professionals could refer adult residents with diabetes, suboptimal glycaemic control [HbA ≥ 75 mmol/mol (≥ 9.0%)] and mental health and/or social problems.
NF-kappa B is a transcription factor whose activation has been shown to be necessary for long-term memory consolidation in several species. NF-kappa B is activated and translocates to the nucleus of cells in a specific temporal window during consolidation. Our work focuses on a one trial learning tasks associated to the inhibitory avoidance (IA) setting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of the present study was to analyze the surface expression of the NMDA-like receptors during the consolidation of contextual learning in the crab Neohelice granulata Memory storage is based on alterations in the strength of synaptic connections between neurons. The glutamatergic synapses undergo various forms of N-methyl-D aspartate receptor (NMDAR)-dependent changes in strength, a process that affects the abundance of other receptors at the synapse and underlies some forms of learning and memory. Here we propose a direct regulation of the NMDAR.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTranscriptional regulation is an important molecular process required for long-term neural plasticity and long-term memory (LTM) formation. Thus, one main interest in molecular neuroscience in the last decades has been the identification of transcription factors that are involved in memory processes. Among them, the nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) family of transcription factors has gained interest due to a significant body of evidence that supports a key role of these proteins in synaptic plasticity and memory.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSince the discovery that long-term memory is dependent on protein synthesis, several transcription factors have been found to participate in the transcriptional activity needed for its consolidation. Among them, NF-kappa B is a constitutive transcription factor whose nuclear activity has proven to be necessary for the consolidation of inhibitory avoidance in mice. This transcription factor has a wide distribution in the nervous system, with a well-reported presence in dendrites and synaptic terminals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) of protein degradation has been evaluated in different forms of neural plasticity and memory. The role of UPS in such processes is controversial. Several results support the idea that the activation of this system in memory consolidation is necessary to overcome negative constrains for plasticity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSeveral transcription factors are present at the synapse, and among these are the Rel-NF-kappa B pathway components. NF-kappa B is a constitutive transcription factor, with a strong presence in the brain of which a considerable part is located in the neuropiles. This localization of the transcription factor, plus evidence pointing to different functions, is what gave place to two general hypotheses for synaptic NF-kappa B: (a) The transcription factor plays a role in the synapse to nucleus communication, and it is retrogradely transported from polarized localizations to regulate gene expression; (b) The transcription factor modulates the synaptic function locally.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFN-Methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) are involved in learning and memory processes in vertebrates and invertebrates. In Neohelice granulata, NMDARs are involved in the storage of associative memories (see references in text). The aim of this work was to characterize this type of glutamate receptor in Neohelice and to describe its distribution in the central nervous system (CNS).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aim of the present work is to provide an anatomical description of the cardiac system in the crab Neohelice granulata and evidence of the presence of GABA by means of immunohistochemistry. The ganglionic trunk was found lying on the inner surface of the heart's dorsal wall. After dissection, this structure appeared as a Y-shaped figure with its major axis perpendicular to the major axis of the heart.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn fear conditioning, aversive stimuli are readily associated with contextual features. A brief reexposure to the training context causes fear memory reconsolidation, whereas a prolonged reexposure induces memory extinction. The regulation of hippocampal gene expression plays a key role in contextual memory consolidation and reconsolidation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Human β-amyloid, the main component in the neuritic plaques found in patients with Alzheimer's disease, is generated by cleavage of the β-amyloid precursor protein. Beyond the role in pathology, members of this protein family are synaptic proteins and have been associated with synaptogenesis, neuronal plasticity and memory, both in vertebrates and in invertebrates. Consolidation is necessary to convert a short-term labile memory to a long-term and stable form.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInitially, memory is labile and requires consolidation to become stable. However, several studies support that consolidated memories can undergo a new period of lability after retrieval. The mechanistic differences of this process, termed reconsolidation, with the consolidation process are under debate, including the participation of hippocampus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNF-kappaB is an evolutionarily conserved family of transcription factors (TFs) critically involved in basic cellular mechanisms of the immune response, inflammation, development and apoptosis. In spite of the fact that it is expressed in the central nervous system, particularly in areas involved in memory processing, and is activated by signals such as glutamate and Ca2+, its role in neural plasticity and memory has only recently become apparent. A surprising feature of this molecule is its presence within the synapse.
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