Social cognition and psychosocial functioning in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: Theory of mind as a key to understand schizophrenia dysfunction.

Functional impairment is a common symptom in schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD). Pharmacological treatments have limited functional recovery in both disorders. Social cognition, a cognitive process, has been associated with functioning in mental disorders.

Haloperidol versus Second-generation Antipsychotics on the cognitive performance of individuals with schizophrenia and related disorders: pairwise meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Introduction: Despite previous literature, the superiority of Second-generation Antipsychotics (SGAs) relative to First-generation Antipsychotics- especially haloperidol - on cognitive management in schizophrenia is still controversial. Thus, we aimed to compare the effects of haloperidol versus SGAs on the cognitive performance of individuals with schizophrenia or related disorders.

Methods: We conducted an updated systematic review and nine pairwise meta-analyses of double-blinded randomized controlled trials published up to October 30th, 2022, using Medline, Web of Science, and Embase.

Association of daily-life functioning and obesity in individuals with schizophrenia and controls.

Early weight gain following the diagnosis of schizophrenia (SCZ) has been associated with improved daily functioning. However, in the general population and in other psychiatric conditions such as bipolar disorder, increased body mass index (BMI) has been associated with worse functioning. The data on this association in chronic individuals with SCZ is still scarce.

The enduring gap in educational attainment in schizophrenia according to the past 50 years of published research: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Educational attainment is associated with wellbeing and health, but patients with schizophrenia achieve lower levels of education than people without. Several effective interventions can ameliorate this situation. However, the magnitude of the education gap in schizophrenia and its change over time are unclear.

Gender, age and geographical representation over the past 50 years of schizophrenia research.

Previous studies have suggested that subjects participating in schizophrenia research are not representative of the demographics of the global population of people with schizophrenia, particularly in terms of gender and geographical location. We here explored if this has evolved throughout the decades, examining changes in geographical location, gender and age of participants in studies of schizophrenia published in the last 50 years. We examined this using a meta-analytical approach on an existing database including over 3,000 studies collated for another project.

Accelerated aging signatures in subjects with schizophrenia and their unaffected siblings.

Schizophrenia (SZ) is a chronic debilitating disease. Subjects with SZ have significant shorter life expectancy. Growing evidence suggests that a process of pathological accelerated aging occurs in SZ, leading to early development of severe clinical diseases and worse morbimortality.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health among local residents in South of Brazil: during pandemic times, youth sleep matters.

Introduction: Social isolation has been associated with poor sleep quality and mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, most studies have investigated heterogeneous samples subjected to varying social distancing policies and did not focus on a single local profile subject to homogeneous prevention policies.

Objectives: To evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health and sleep quality in a specific region in the South of Brazil where the populations have similar culture and local governments have adopted similar social distancing policies.

Heterogeneous trajectories in schizophrenia: insights from neurodevelopment and neuroprogression models.

The notion that schizophrenia is a neuroprogressive disorder is based on clinical perception of cumulative impairments over time and is supported by neuroimaging and biomarker research. Nevertheless, increasing evidence has indicated that schizophrenia first emerges as a neurodevelopmental disorder that could follow various pathways, some of them neuroprogressive. The objective of this review is to revisit basic research on cognitive processes and neuroimaging findings in a search for candidate keys to the intricate connections between neurodevelopment and neuroprogression in schizophrenia.

The effect of antipsychotics on the cognitive performance of individuals with psychotic disorders: Network meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials.

Cognitive deficits are a core aspect of psychotic disorders; however, it is not clear to which extent different pharmacological treatments could distinctly impact these outcomes. Hence, we conducted a systematic review and ten network meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials to compare the effect of antipsychotics on cognitive performance of individuals with psychotic disorders. Fifty-four trials were included in the analyses, enrolling 5866 patients.

Data-driven cognitive phenotypes in subjects with bipolar disorder and their clinical markers of severity.

Background: Subjects with bipolar disorder (BD) show heterogeneous cognitive profile and that not necessarily the disease will lead to unfavorable clinical outcomes. We aimed to identify clinical markers of severity among cognitive clusters in individuals with BD through data-driven methods.

Methods: We recruited 167 outpatients with BD and 100 unaffected volunteers from Brazil and Spain that underwent a neuropsychological assessment.

Structural brain abnormalities in schizophrenia in adverse environments: examining the effect of poverty and violence in six Latin American cities.

Background: Social and environmental factors such as poverty or violence modulate the risk and course of schizophrenia. However, how they affect the brain in patients with psychosis remains unclear.

Aims: We studied how environmental factors are related to brain structure in patients with schizophrenia and controls in Latin America, where these factors are large and unequally distributed.

Perceived childhood adversities: Impact of childhood trauma to estimated intellectual functioning of individuals with bipolar disorder.

Maltreatments in childhood may have implications for neurodevelopment that could remain throughout life. Childhood trauma seems to be associated with the onset of bipolar disorder (BD), and its occurrence might accentuate the overall disease impairments related to cognitive deficits in BD. We aimed to evaluate the effects of a history of childhood trauma to estimated intellectual functioning (IQ) of individuals with BD.

Imaging Social and Environmental Factors as Modulators of Brain Dysfunction: Time to Focus on Developing Non-Western Societies.

Social and environmental factors are known risk factors and modulators of mental health disorders. We here conducted a nonsystematic review of the neuroimaging literature studying the effects of poverty, urbanicity, and community violence, highlighting the opportunities of studying non-Western developing societies such as those in Latin America. Social and environmental factors in these communities are widespread and have a large magnitude, as well as an unequal distribution, providing a good opportunity for their characterization.

The Relationship between Cytokines and Verbal Memory in Individuals with Schizophrenia and Their Unaffected Siblings.

Background: Verbal memory impairment may be considered an endophenotype in schizophrenia (SZ), also affecting the siblings of SZ subjects. Furthermore, the immune-inflammatory system response has an important modulatory effect on brain processes, especially on memory circuits.

Objective: Investigating the relationship between TNF-α and IL-6 and memory performance in patients with SZ, their unaffected siblings (SB) and healthy controls (HC).

Mental health information online: what we have learned from social media metrics in BuzzFeed's Mental Health Week.

Introduction: The Internet has seen rapid growth in the number of websites focusing on mental health content. Considering the increased need for access to accurate information about mental health treatment, it is important to understand the promotion of this information online.

Objective: To analyze BuzzFeed's Mental Health Week (BFMHW) interactions on its own website and in related social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter and YouTube) using metrics of information delivery in mental health topics.

Long-term treatment with clozapine and verbal memory performance in schizophrenia.

Clozapine is more efficacious than first-generation antipsychotics for positive and negative symptoms, although it is related with serious adverse effects. Because of this profile, it could also have an impact on cognition. Therefore, we evaluated learning ability of 31 treatment-resistant individuals with SZ using clozapine uninterruptedly for 18.

Volumetric brain magnetic resonance imaging predicts functioning in bipolar disorder: A machine learning approach.

Neuroimaging studies have been steadily explored in Bipolar Disorder (BD) in the last decades. Neuroanatomical changes tend to be more pronounced in patients with repeated episodes. Although the role of such changes in cognition and memory is well established, daily-life functioning impairments bulge among the consequences of the proposed progression.

Translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the Brazilian Portuguese version of the Emotional Memory Scale.

Background Emotional memory is an important type of memory that is triggered by positive and negative emotions. It is characterized by an enhanced memory for emotional stimuli which is usually coupled with a decrease in memory of neutral preceding events. Emotional memory is strongly associated with amygdala function and therefore could be disrupted in neuropsychiatric disorders.