The negative impact of vitamin D on antipsychotic drug exposure may counteract its potential benefits in schizophrenia.

Aims: Patients with schizophrenia frequently show insufficient vitamin D levels, which are associated with somatic comorbidity and may contribute to psychopathology. For many reasons, vitamin D supplementation may be indicated for this patient cohort. However, there is growing evidence for a vitamin D-mediated increase of drug metabolism by induction of cytochrome P450 (CYP) 3A4.

Antidopaminergic medication in healthy subjects provokes subjective and objective mental impairments tightly correlated with perturbation of biogenic monoamine metabolism and prolactin secretion.

Objectives: Off-label prescription of antipsychotics to patients without psychotic symptoms has become a routine matter for many psychiatrists and also some general practitioners. Nonetheless, little is known about the possibly detrimental effects of antidopaminergic medications on general psychopathology, subjective mental state, or a possible association with physiological parameters in nonpsychotic individuals.

Methods: In this randomized, single-blinded study, groups of healthy volunteers (n=18) received low doses of reserpine, aripiprazole, haloperidol, or placebo on 7 successive days.

Effects of alexithymia and empathy on the neural processing of social and monetary rewards.

Empathy has been found to affect the neural processing of social and monetary rewards. Alexithymia, a subclinical condition showing a close inverse relationship with empathy is linked to dysfunctions of socio-emotional processing in the brain. Whether alexithymia alters the neural processing of rewards, which is currently unknown.

Neural evidence for an association between social proficiency and sensitivity to social reward.

Data from developmental psychology suggests a link between the growth of socio-emotional competences and the infant's sensitivity to the salience of social stimuli. The aim of the present study was to find evidence for this relationship in healthy adults. Thirty-five participants were recruited based on their score above the 85th or below the 15th percentile of the empathy quotient questionnaire (EQ, Baron-Cohen and Wheelwright, 2004).