Managing information gaps on caregivers of psychotic patients in primary health settings of Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Information gaps hinder the management of psychotic patients. Incorporating mental health services into primary care might solve the problem. Health workers can be trained to provide psycho-education for caregivers of psychotic patients.

Brief interactive psychoeducation for caregivers of patients with early phase psychosis in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Aim: Brief psychoeducation for families of psychotic patients has been shown to significantly increase family members' knowledge of the disorder. This increase is associated with reductions in relapse and rehospitalization. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of brief psychoeducation about schizophrenia to caregivers of patients in early phases of psychotic disorders in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Roles of afadin in functional differentiations of hippocampal mossy fiber synapse.

A hippocampal mossy fiber synapse has a complex structure and is implicated in learning and memory. In this synapse, the mossy fiber boutons attach to the dendritic shaft by puncta adherentia junctions and wrap around a multiply-branched spine, forming synaptic junctions. We have recently shown using transmission electron microscopy, immunoelectron microscopy and serial block face-scanning electron microscopy that atypical puncta adherentia junctions are formed in the afadin-deficient mossy fiber synapse and that the complexity of postsynaptic spines and mossy fiber boutons, the number of spine heads, the area of postsynaptic densities and the density of synaptic vesicles docked to active zones are decreased in the afadin-deficient synapse.

The association between duration of untreated psychosis in first psychotic episode patients and help seeking behaviors in Jogjakarta, Indonesia.

Help seeking is predictor of prognosis in the first episode of psychotic disorders. Caregivers play a key role in deciding from whom to seek help. In Indonesia, caregivers often seek help from alternative healers first and health professionals later, which is believed to result in delayed psychiatric treatment and risk for poor prognosis.

Afadin regulates puncta adherentia junction formation and presynaptic differentiation in hippocampal neurons.

The formation and remodeling of mossy fiber-CA3 pyramidal cell synapses in the stratum lucidum of the hippocampus are implicated in the cellular basis of learning and memory. Afadin and its binding cell adhesion molecules, nectin-1 and nectin-3, together with N-cadherin, are concentrated at puncta adherentia junctions (PAJs) in these synapses. Here, we investigated the roles of afadin in PAJ formation and presynaptic differentiation in mossy fiber-CA3 pyramidal cell synapses.

Association analysis of the DISC1 gene with schizophrenia in the Japanese population and DISC1 immunoreactivity in the postmortem brain.

The Disrupted-in-Schizophrenia 1 (DISC1) gene plays a role in the regulation of neural development. Previous evidence from genetic association and biological studies implicates the DISC1 gene as having a role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. In the present study, we explored the association between DISC1 missense mutation rs821616 (Ser704Cys) single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and four other SNPs (rs1772702, rs1754603, rs821621, rs821624) in the related haplotype block and schizophrenia in the Japanese population.

A missense mutation in the ITGA8 gene, a cell adhesion molecule gene, is associated with schizophrenia in Japanese female patients.

Background: Cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) play pivotal role in the development of the central nervous system (CNS) and have also been reported to play role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Missense mutations in the CAMs genes might alter the binding of their ligands, increasing the vulnerability to develop schizophrenia.

Methods: We selected 15 missense mutations in the CAMs genes of the CNS reported in the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and examined the association between these mutations and schizophrenia in 278 patients and 284 control subjects (first batch).

Haplotypes in the expression quantitative trait locus of interleukin-1β gene are associated with schizophrenia.

Recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) and gene expression analyses have revealed that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with complex diseases such as schizophrenia are significantly more likely to be associated with expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL). The interleukin-1β (IL1B) gene has been strongly implicated in the susceptibility to schizophrenia. In order to test this association, we selected five tag SNPs in the eQTL of the IL1B gene and conducted a case-control study using two independent samples.

Common genetic variations in TPH1/TPH2 genes are not associated with schizophrenia in Japanese population.

Alteration of serotonin transmission in the brain of patients with schizophrenia has been reported in postmortem brain studies, cerebrospinal fluid studies, and pharmacological challenges. Although a genetic association of tryptophan hydroxylase isoform 1 (TPH1), the rate-limiting enzyme in serotonin synthesis, with schizophrenia has been suggested by recent systematic meta-analyses, the newly identified neuronal isoform TPH2 is more relevant to the central nervous system and the association of TPH2 gene with schizophrenia has been much less explored. We, therefore, explored the association of TPH2 gene with schizophrenia using a case-control study of 720 Japanese populations and also tried to replicate the association of the TPH1 rs1800532 (A218C) single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) with schizophrenia.