What is the relationship between exposure to environmental pollutants and severe mental disorders? A systematic review on shared biological pathways.

Severe mental disorders are multi-dimensional constructs, resulting from the interaction of genetic, biological, psychosocial, and environmental factors. Among the latter, pollution and climate change are frequently being considered in the etiopathogenesis of severe mental disorders. This systematic review aims to investigate the biological mechanisms behind the relationship between environmental pollutants, climate change, and mental disorders.

Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms in the General Population Under Stressful Conditions: Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic.

: The COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on mental health in the general population. The fear, stress, and uncertainty surrounding that traumatic period could have contributed to the aggravation or possible new onset of obsessive-compulsive symptoms. The COvid Mental hEalth Trial (COMET) is a nationwide project organized by the University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", designed as an observational investigation that aimed to gather data from a representative sample of the Italian general population.

Brain maps of general cognitive function and spatial correlations with neurobiological cortical profiles.

In this paper, we attempt to answer two questions: 1) which regions of the human brain, in terms of morphometry, are most strongly related to individual differences in domain-general cognitive functioning ( )? and 2) what are the underlying neurobiological properties of those regions? We meta-analyse vertex-wise -cortical morphometry (volume, surface area, thickness, curvature and sulcal depth) associations using data from 3 cohorts: the UK Biobank (UKB), Generation Scotland (GenScot), and the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 (LBC1936), with the meta-analytic = 38,379 (age range = 44 to 84 years old). These morphometry associations vary in magnitude and direction across the cortex (|β| range = -0.12 to 0.

Serum starvation as the most suitable method for inducing G/G phase cell cycle arrest in six-banded armadillo (Euphractus sexcinctus) skin-derived fibroblast lines.

Background: Several studies have evaluated different cell cycle synchronization methods to improve reprogramming efficiency aimed at wild species conservation. The six-banded armadillo is one of the wild mammals with significant ecological and biomedical interests but has not yet been evaluated for reprogramming purposes.

Objective: We investigated the effects in a time-dependent manner of serum starvation (SS; 0.

Improving the physical health of overweight/obese people suffering from severe mental disorders: What is the role of antipsychotic drugs and of lifestyle psychosocial interventions?

People with severe mental disorders experience premature mortality compared with the general population. Several factors contribute to the mortality gap, including the adoption of unhealthy lifestyle behaviours, poor screening for physical illnesses, difficulties in accessing healthcare facilities, specific clinical features of mental disorders and some pharmacological treatment such as antipsychotic medications with serious metabolic side effects. In the present study, carried out in the framework of the LIFESTYLE trial, a funded nationwide multicentric study, we aimed to assess the impact of different antipsychotics in mediating the effectiveness of psychosocial intervention on healthy lifestyle behaviours.