Publications by authors named "Giuseppe Nicolo'"

Background: Recently, we showed that Metacognitive Interpersonal Therapy (MIT) is effective in improving clinical symptoms in borderline personality disorder (BPD). Here, we investigated whether the effect of MIT on clinical features is associated to microstructural changes in brain circuits supporting core BPD symptoms.

Methods: Forty-seven BPD were randomized to MIT or structured clinical management, and underwent a clinical assessment and diffusion-weighted imaging before and after the intervention.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) represents a severe clinical condition with high social and economic costs. Esketamine Nasal Spray (ESK-NS) has recently been approved for TRD by EMA and FDA, but data about predictors of response are still lacking. Thus, a tool that can predict the individual patients' probability of response to ESK-NS is needed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Goal-directed decision-making is a central component of the broader reward and motivation system, and requires the ability to dynamically integrate both positive and negative feedback from the environment in order to maximize rewards and minimize losses over time. Altered decision-making processes, in which individuals fail to consider the negative consequences of their decisions on both themselves and others, may play a role in driving antisocial behaviour.

Aim: The main study aim was to investigate possible differences in loss and risk aversion across matched patients, all with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD), but who varied according to whether they had a history of serious interpersonal violence or not, and a sample of healthy controls with no history of violence.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: There has been a substantial change in the law on the provision of secure health services for offender-patients in Italy, a country currently with the lowest general psychiatry bed availability per head of the population in Europe, raising questions about possible differences in offender-patient admissions between European countries.

Aims: In this multicentre case-control study, our aim was to compare the socio-demographic, clinical and criminological characteristics of a sample of Italian forensic in-patients with schizophrenia or similar psychosis with patients in a similar diagnostic range in specialist in-patient services elsewhere in Europe.

Methods: Secure hospital unit in-patients with psychosis were recruited across five European countries (Italy, Austria, Germany, Poland and England).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Different psychotherapeutic approaches demonstrated their efficacy but the possible neurobiological mechanism underlying the effect of psychotherapy in borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients is poorly investigated. We assessed the effects of metacognitive interpersonal therapy (MIT) on BPD features and other dimensions compared to structured clinical management (SCM). We also assessed changes in amygdala activation by viewing emotional pictures after psychotherapy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aim: The aim is to describe remote multifamily psychoeducational intervention led by REMS "Castore" team (an Italian health care facility for offenders who suffer from mental disorders and socially dangerous) in ASL Roma 5, a local health authority, during covid-19 emergency.

Methods: The applied theoretical models have been the integrated psychoeducational intervention by I. Falloon and the multifamily psychoeducational intervention based on problem solving by F.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Bipolar depression accounts for most of the disease duration in type I and type II bipolar disorder (BD), with few treatment options, often poorly tolerated. Many individuals do not respond to first-line therapeutic options, resulting in treatment-resistant bipolar depression (B-TRD). Esketamine, the S-enantiomer of ketamine, has recently been approved for treatment-resistant depression (TRD), but no data are available on its use in B-TRD.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Treatment-resistant Depression (TRD) represents a widespread disorder with significant direct and indirect healthcare costs. esketamine, the S-enantiomer of ketamine, has been recently approved for TRD, but real-world studies are needed to prove its efficacy in naturalistic settings.

Objectives: Evaluate the effectiveness and safety of esketamine nasal spray in a clinical sample of patients with TRD from several Italian mental health services.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Several studies have identified traumatic history among forensic patients and its association with criminal behaviors and psychiatric diagnoses. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is highly prevalent in forensic settings causing a serious deterioration of the primary psychiatric disorder.

Aims: Our study aims to evaluate the prevalence of PTSD and the role of traumatic experiences and abuse in the development of severe psychiatric disorders in a sample of psychiatric offenders.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) are a phenomenon that occurs in the general population experiencing delusional thoughts and hallucinations without being in a clinical condition. PLEs involve erroneous attributions of inner cognitive events to the external environment and the presence of intrusive thoughts influenced by dysfunctional beliefs; for these reasons, the role played by metacognition has been largely studied. This study investigates PLEs in a non-clinical population and discriminating factors involved in this kind of experience, among which metacognition, as well as psychopathological features, seems to have a crucial role.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Covid-19 is an infective respiratory illness caused by a novel virus, which might present different degrees of severity: from mild or even asymptomatic carriers to severe pneumonia, requiring intubation and intensive care unit (ICU) management. SARS-CoV-2 may cause also central nervous system involvement, including psychiatric manifestations. Some cases of psychosis apparently covid-related have been reported since the start of the pandemic; we will briefly review some of them here, then we will report a case concerning a patient with emerging psychosis during the disease caused by the virus.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: This study aims to explore the long-term efficacy of a psychoeducational family intervention (PFI) in bipolar I disorder at one and five years post-intervention in terms of improvement of: (1) patients' symptoms and global functioning and (2) relatives' objective and subjective burden and coping strategies.

Methods: This is a multicentre, real-world, controlled, outpatient trial. Recruited patients and key-relatives were consecutively allocated to the experimental intervention or treatment as usual.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The management plan of patients with schizophrenia includes a multidimensional and integrated approach, consisting of pharmacological, psychological and psychosocial interventions. Among pharmacological approaches, the development of long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAI) has radically changed the treatment plan of patients with schizophrenia. LAI can be successfully used in patients with multiple episodes, with partial or poor adherence to treatments and are very useful also in first episode patients.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This work aims to explore the relationship between academic performance and voluntary Intellectual Capital (IC) disclosure in the context of Italian Public Universities. This study applies a content analysis to investigate the extent of voluntary Intellectual Capital disclosure (ICD) provided through performance reports by a sample of 59 Italian public universities. Four multivariate regression models are estimated to examine the associations between academic performance and the level of ICD and its sub-components, namely Human Capital, Structural Capital and Relational Capital.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: This study aims to examine the underlying associations between eating, affective and metacognitive symptoms in patients with binge eating disorder (BED) through network analysis (NA) in order to identify key variables that may be considered the target for psychotherapeutic interventions.

Methods: A total of 155 patients with BED completed measures of eating psychopathology, affective symptoms, emotion regulation and metacognition. A cross-sectional network was inferred by means of Gaussian Markov random field estimation using graphical LASSO and the extended Bayesian information criterion (EBIC-LASSO), and central symptoms of BED were identified by means of the strength centrality index.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: The study intends to include the evaluation of family styles while the patients are admitted at a hospital dedicated to the emergency (SPDC).

Methods: The sample of the study involved patients of a SPDC and their families. The clinical assessment has been conducted through the use of ICD-IX, DSM-5 and BPRS.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often persists into adulthood. Although its persistence and relative high prevalence, ADHD in adults is often underdiagnosed and undertreated in Italy, leading to poor clinical and functional outcomes, and higher costs of illness. The aims of the study were to identify the Italian mental health services for ADHD in adults, describe the diagnostic and treatment procedures they follow, and compare this offer with the recommendations of the German and English guidelines.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has gained growing interest for the treatment of major depression (MDD) and treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Most knowledge on rTMS comes from human studies as preclinical application has been problematic. However, recent optimization of rTMS in animal models has laid the foundations for improved translational studies.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Shared decision-making (SDM) is a process in which the doctor provides clear and complete medical information to patients about their treatment, and patients provide information on his/her preferences. Patients and clinicians bring different, but equally important, knowledge to the decision-making process. Through the adoption of SDM, it should be possible to overcome the barriers that hinder the acceptance of long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAIs) by patients, and often also by psychiatrists.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aim: This paper aims to study, evaluate and compare the effectiveness of two group interventions within a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). The outcome indicators of the satisfaction of patients and their families with the ward were evaluated with a Satisfaction Questionnaire on the department, and their satisfaction with the groups were evaluated with the Satisfaction Questionnaire for the groups. The two theoretical orientations examined are the cognitive-behavioural therapy, with group cognitive-behavioural intervention in the context of SPDC, and psychoanalysis, with multifamily psychoanalysis groups, according to the model of Jorge García Badaracco.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: fopen(/var/lib/php/sessions/ci_sessionk5sod06aof7vblsp3976vnt7bqt8d93n): Failed to open stream: No space left on device

Filename: drivers/Session_files_driver.php

Line Number: 177

Backtrace:

File: /var/www/html/index.php
Line: 316
Function: require_once

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: session_start(): Failed to read session data: user (path: /var/lib/php/sessions)

Filename: Session/Session.php

Line Number: 137

Backtrace:

File: /var/www/html/index.php
Line: 316
Function: require_once