Publications by authors named "Lucianne Groenink"

An increasing amount of evidence suggests that immune responses may affect trophoblast functioning, which in turn may play a role in gestational disorders and fetal development. This systematic review offers the first summary of in vitro studies on the trophoblast response to immunological triggers, in conjunction with a risk of bias analysis. A search in Pubmed and Embase yielded 110 relevant studies.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Interest in the therapeutic potential of cannabinoids for mental health is increasing, particularly for conditions like anxiety, depression, and addiction, due to the role of the endocannabinoid system in these disorders.
  • Research has mainly focused on the well-known cannabinoids CBD and Δ9-THC, but there are about 120 lesser-known cannabinoids with varying effects that haven't been thoroughly studied.
  • A systematic review analyzed 22 preclinical studies and one clinical study on minor cannabinoids for various psychiatric conditions, finding that certain cannabinoids like Δ8-THCV, Δ9-THCV, CBDA-ME, and CBDV show promise for conditions ranging from addiction to anxiety and autism spectrum disorders, despite some inconsistencies in the results.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The pathophysiology of several neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders is linked to an altered immune system. However, it is often unclear how the immune system specifically affects these disorders since neuroimmune interactions are very complex. In this paper, we introduce an adjusted version of the adverse outcome pathway (AOP) approach from toxicology to the field of neuroimmunology.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The first 1000 days of life is a critical period of development in which adverse circumstances can have long-term consequences for the child's health. Maternal immune activation is associated with increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders in the child. Aberrant immune responses have been reported in individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Rationale: Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the first choice of treatment for anxiety-like disorders. However, which aspects of anxiety are affected by SSRIs is not yet fully understood.

Objective: We aimed to systematically review the effect of six clinically effective SSRIs on four aspects of unconditioned anxiety: approach-avoidance behaviour (elevated plus maze), repetitive behaviour (marble burying), distress behaviour (ultrasonic vocalization), and activation of the autonomous nervous system (stress-induced hyperthermia).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The endocannabinoid system is a promising candidate for anxiolytic therapy, but translation to the clinic has been lagging. We meta-analyzed the evidence for anxiety-reduction by compounds that facilitate endocannabinoid signaling in humans and animals. To identify areas of specific potential, effects of moderators were assessed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Rationale: Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are considered first-line medication for anxiety-like disorders such as panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Fear learning plays an important role in the development and treatment of these disorders. Yet, the effect of SSRIs on fear learning are not well known.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Rationale And Objectives: Fear conditioning is an important aspect in the pathophysiology of anxiety disorders. The fear-potentiated startle test is based on classical fear conditioning and over the years, a broad range of drugs have been tested in this test. Synthesis of the available data may further our understanding of the neurotransmitter systems that are involved in the expression of conditioned fear.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Preclinical research suggests that cannabidiol (CBD) may have therapeutic potential in pathological anxiety. Dosing guidelines to inform future human studies are however lacking.

Aim: We aimed to predict the therapeutic window for anxiety-reducing effects of CBD in humans based on preclinical models.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Radiotherapy (RT) is a cornerstone treatment strategy for brain tumours. Besides cytotoxicity, RT can cause disruption of the blood-brain barrier (BBB), resulting in an increased permeability into the surrounding brain parenchyma. Although this effect is generally acknowledged, it remains unclear how and to what extent different radiation schemes affect BBB integrity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Preclinical research suggests that enhancing CB1 receptor agonism may improve fear extinction. In order to translate this knowledge into a clinical application we examined whether cannabidiol (CBD), a hydrolysis inhibitor of the endogenous CB1 receptor agonist anandamide (AEA), would enhance the effects of exposure therapy in treatment refractory patients with anxiety disorders. Patients with panic disorder with agoraphobia or social anxiety disorder were recruited for a double-blind parallel randomised controlled trial at three mental health care centres in the Netherlands.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The maternal polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid (poly(I:C)) animal model is frequently used to study how maternal immune activation may impact neuro development in the offspring. Here, we present the first systematic review and meta-analysis on the effects of maternal poly(I:C) injection on immune mediators in the offspring and provide an openly accessible systematic map of the data including methodological characteristics. Pubmed and EMBASE were searched for relevant publications, yielding 45 unique papers that met inclusion criteria.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Trace Amine-Associated Receptor 1 (TAAR1) is a potential target for the treatment of depression and other CNS disorders. However, the precise functional roles of TAAR1 to the actions of clinically used antidepressants remains unclear. Herein, we addressed these issues employing the TAAR1 agonist, o-phenyl-iodotyramine (o-PIT), together with TAAR1-knockout (KO) mice.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Various animal models are used to study pharmacokinetics (PK) of drugs in development. Human renal clearance (CLr) should be predictable through interpolation from animal data by allometric scaling. Based on this premise, we quantified interspecies differences in CLr, and related them to drug properties.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Phobic anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent psychiatric disorders and are burdensome in terms of loss of quality of life and work productivity. Evidence-based treatments are relatively successful in the majority of patients, especially exposure therapy. However, a substantial subset of patients fails to achieve or stay in remission.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Rationale: Fear conditioning is an important factor in the etiology of anxiety disorders. Previous studies have demonstrated a role for serotonin (5-HT) receptors in fear conditioning. However, the relative contribution of somatodendritic 5-HT autoreceptors and post-synaptic 5-HT heteroreceptors in fear conditioning is still unclear.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Degeneration of dopamine (DA) neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta is the pathological hallmark of Parkinson's disease (PD). In PD multiple pathogenic mechanisms initiate and drive this neurodegenerative process, making the development of effective treatments challenging. To date, PD patients are primarily treated with dopaminergic drugs able to temporarily enhance DA levels, therefore relieving motor symptoms.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This study evaluated the extent to which a reduction in contextual fear contributes to the anxiolytic effect of benzodiazepines in the fear-potentiated startle response. To this end, chlordiazepoxide, an anxiolytic often used as positive control in preclinical drug studies, and zolpidem, known to have sedative properties and to be devoid of anxiolytic effects, were tested in two contexts: the same context as training had taken place and an alternative context. In addition, the level of muscle relaxation was assessed in a grip strength test.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The prevalence of anxiety disorders is higher in women than in men. Yet preclinical studies on anxiety are mostly performed in male subjects. This may have limited our understanding of mechanisms contributing to anxiety disorders.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Patients with bipolar disorder mania exhibit poor cognition, impulsivity, risk-taking, and goal-directed activity that negatively impact their quality of life. To date, existing treatments for bipolar disorder do not adequately remediate cognitive dysfunction. Reducing dopamine transporter expression recreates many bipolar disorder mania-relevant behaviors (i.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Rationale: Given the large number of patients that does not respond sufficiently to currently available treatment for anxiety disorders, there is a need for improved treatment.

Objectives: We evaluated the anxiolytic effects of corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) receptor antagonists and glucocorticoid receptor (GR) antagonists in the separation-induced vocalization test in guinea pigs and transgenic mice with central CRF overexpression. Furthermore, we explored effects of these drugs when given in combination with a suboptimal dose of a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Psychopharmacology has had some bad publicity lately. Frankly, there have been some major problems along the way in developing new effective drugs for psychiatric disorders. After a prolonged period of high investments but low success rates, big pharmaceutical companies seem to retract their activities in the psychopharmacology field.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF