Publications by authors named "Hellerstein D"

Objective: To determine the relationships between psilocybin dose, psychedelic experiences, and therapeutic outcome in treatment-resistant depression.

Methods: For treatment-resistant depression, 233 participants received a single dose of 25, 10, or 1 mg of COMP360 psilocybin (a proprietary, pharmaceutical-grade synthesized psilocybin formulation, developed by the sponsor, Compass Pathfinder Ltd.) with psychological support.

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Purpose: Depression is among the most common comorbid psychiatric disorders of patients with breast cancer. Depression decreases patient quality of life and, if untreated, can adversely affect cancer treatment. We sought to identify treatment barriers for women with breast cancer receiving psychotherapy for depression.

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Rationale: Therapeutic administration of psychedelics has shown significant potential in historical accounts and recent clinical trials in the treatment of depression and other mood disorders. A recent randomized double-blind phase-IIb study demonstrated the safety and efficacy of COMP360, COMPASS Pathways' proprietary synthetic formulation of psilocybin, in participants with treatment-resistant depression.

Objective: While the phase-IIb results are promising, the treatment works for a portion of the population and early prediction of outcome is a key objective as it would allow early identification of those likely to require alternative treatment.

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Objective: Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is an often-severe condition in which individuals are preoccupied by misperceptions of their appearance as defective or ugly. Only serotonin reuptake inhibitors and cognitive-behavioral therapy have been demonstrated efficacious in randomized controlled trials. Psilocybin is a psychedelic drug with growing evidence for safety and efficacy in treatment of depression.

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The anatomical changes that antidepressant medications induce in the brain and through which they exert their therapeutic effects remain largely unknown. We randomized 61 patients with Persistent Depressive Disorder (PDD) to receive either desvenlafaxine or placebo in a 12-week trial and acquired anatomical MRI scans in 42 of those patients at baseline before randomization and immediately at the end of the trial. We also acquired MRIs once in 39 age- and sex-matched healthy controls.

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Article Synopsis
  • COMP360 is a synthetic psilocybin formulation being tested for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) in a major clinical trial with 233 participants.
  • The trial involved different doses of psilocybin (25 mg, 10 mg, and a 1 mg control) combined with therapy, assessing various mental health indicators over three weeks.
  • Results showed that the 25 mg dose significantly improved depression and anxiety symptoms compared to the 1 mg dose, with some positive effects from the 10 mg dose; however, the study had limitations, including the lack of an active comparators.
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Article Synopsis
  • * Participants in the 25 mg group showed a significant reduction in depression scores after 3 weeks, with a mean change of -12.0, compared to -7.9 for 10 mg and -5.4 for the control group.
  • * Although the higher dose showed benefits, many participants experienced adverse effects, including headache and nausea, and some reported suicidal thoughts, underscoring the need for further research.
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Previous studies have found an inverse association between religiosity and mortality. However, most of these studies were carried out with Christian participants. This longitudinal study aimed to determine whether a composite variable based on self-reported religious education and religious practices is associated with coronary heart disease (CHD) and all-cause mortality in 9237 Jewish men aged 40-65 years at baseline, over a 32-year follow-up.

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Context: With aging, cognition declines, leading to functional limitations and a loss of independence. Yoga is a particular kind of physical activity that can have a positive influence on cognition in older adults, because it aims to improve physical skills and to enhance the ability to focus and to neutralize external mental stimulation.

Objective: The literature review intended to evaluate the effects of different types of yoga interventions and to examine which cognitive functions were affected by them for healthy people aged 60 years and older.

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Previous neuroimaging studies have shown that serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor antidepressants alter functional activity in large expanses of brain regions. However, it is not clear how these regions are systemically organized on a connectome level with specific topological properties, which may be crucial to revealing neural mechanisms underlying serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor treatment of persistent depressive disorder. To investigate the effect of serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor antidepressants on brain functional connectome reconfiguration in persistent depressive disorder and whether this reconfiguration promotes the improvement of clinical symptoms, we combined resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans acquired in two randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial studies of serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor antidepressant treatment of patients with persistent depressive disorder.

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Rationale: A broad reassessment of the potential benefits of psychedelic drugs has led to the initiation of multiple major clinical trials in an effort to advance their status to become FDA-approved medications, as well as local legislative efforts to legalize or decriminalize their use.

Objectives: To use recently published data to assess potential risks and benefits of psychedelic drugs as therapeutics, as well as to synthesize what is currently known in order to generate fruitful future research directions.

Methods: A review of studies conducted since 1991 identified 14 clinical trials of classical psychedelics, including 11 of psilocybin (N = 257 participants), 1 of lysergic acid diethylamide (N = 12 participants), and 2 of ayahuasca (N = 46 participants).

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Aim: To examine the effect of a once-a-week group physiotherapy session in addition to a once-a-month individual physiotherapy treatment, in comparison to a monthly individual physiotherapy treatment.

Methods: Fifty children and adolescents aged 10-18 years with poor back posture, some of whom had LBP, met individually with a physiotherapist once a month. The intervention group received an additional once-a-week group physiotherapy session for 12 weeks.

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Article Synopsis
  • Triple chronotherapy, involving a wake night, sleep phase advance, and early morning bright light exposure, showed quicker efficacy in bipolar depression, but its effects on unipolar depression are less understood.
  • In the study, unipolar depressed adults were randomly assigned to either triple chronotherapy or an alternative protocol, with symptoms assessed daily. The Week 1 remission rate was higher in the triple chronotherapy group (25.0% vs. 6.7%), but the difference was not statistically significant.
  • The small pilot study suggests that triple chronotherapy is feasible and tolerable for unipolar depression, highlighting the need for larger trials to better assess its effectiveness.
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Using land already enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) in the eastern region of the U.S. for producing energy crops for bioenergy while reducing land rental payments offers the potential for lowering the program costs, increasing returns to CRP landowners, and displacing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil fuels.

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Brain gray matter is organized in a manner with interconnected brain regions, resulting in a notable covariance pattern that recapitulates either the functional coactivation or structural connectivity of brain regions, which is believed to underpin psychiatric disorders such as depression. This study aimed to investigate whether and how antidepressants took effect in treating depression and reducing symptoms by altering the gray matter covariance pattern. We combined structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans acquired in two randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial (RCT) studies of the treatment using serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) antidepressant medications in patients with persistent depressive disorder (PDD).

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Objective: To compare white matter integrity (WMI) in bipolar disorder (BD) relative to healthy volunteers (HVs) and major depressive disorder (MDD). To determine the relationship of bipolar-specific differences in WMI to cerebral perfusion, body mass index (BMI), and blood pressure as indices of cardiovascular function.

Methods: Thirty-two participants with BD, 44 with MDD, and 41 HV were recruited.

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Background: Cardiovascular diseases are considered a leading factor in mortality and morbidity. The older adult population with cardiovascular diseases has a higher risk of falls as compared to a matched age healthy population.

Objective: To investigate the effect of stability and coordination training within a cardiac rehabilitation programme on fall risk in older adults with cardiovascular diseases enrolled in cardiac rehabilitation.

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Background: To assess whether patients with Persistent Depressive Disorder (PDD) have abnormal levels of N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA) and whether those levels normalize following treatment with the antidepressant medication duloxetine. Furthermore, we conducted post hoc analyses of other important brain metabolites to understand better the cellular and physiological determinants for changes in NAA levels.

Methods: We acquired proton (1H) magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) data on a 3 Tesla (3T), GE Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner in 41 patients (39.

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Background: Antidepressant medications offer an effective treatment for depression, yet nearly 50% of patients either do not respond or have side-effects rendering them unable to continue the course of treatment. Mechanistic studies might help advance the pharmacology of depression by identifying pathways through which treatments exert their effects. Toward this goal, we aimed to identify the effects of antidepressant treatment on neural connectivity, the relationship with symptom improvement, and to test whether these effects were reproducible across two studies.

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Introduction: Pharmacotherapy of non-major persistent depressive disorder (PDD) is little studied. We report a study of the serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) desvenlafaxine (DVLX) for PDD.

Method: Non-psychotic, non-bipolar outpatients aged 20-65 having PDD without concurrent major depression (MDD) were randomized double-blind to desvenlafaxine or placebo for 12 weeks.

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Purpose: Breast cancer (BC) is a risk factor for major depressive disorder (MDD), yet little research has tested the efficacy of different psychotherapies for depressed women with BC. This study, the largest to date, compared outcomes of three evidence-based, 12-week therapies in treating major depressive disorder among women with breast cancer.

Methods: This randomized trial compared interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), problem solving therapy (PST), and brief supportive psychotherapy (BSP).

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