Association of schizophrenia onset age and white matter integrity with treatment effect of D-cycloserine: a randomized placebo-controlled double-blind crossover study.

Background: It has been reported that drugs which promote the N-Methyl-D-aspartate-type glutamate receptor function by stimulating the glycine modulatory site in the receptor improve negative symptoms and cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia patients being treated with antipsychotic drugs.

Methods: We performed a placebo-controlled double-blind crossover study involving 41 schizophrenia patients in which D-cycloserine 50 mg/day was added-on, and the influence of the onset age and association with white matter integrity on MR diffusion tensor imaging were investigated for the first time. The patients were evaluated using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS), Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS), and other scales.

A distinctive abnormality of diffusion tensor imaging parameters in the fornix of patients with bipolar II disorder.

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies have revealed a changed integrity in the white matter of bipolar disorder. However, only a few investigations have examined bipolar II disorder (BP-II). A cross-sectional study was conducted to compare thirty-eight patients with BP-II (mean age = 38.

[Behavioral characteristics of nicotine seeking: a role of the nicotine-conditioned effects and other mechanisms].

Nicotine dependence and its neural mechanisms have been well documented by pharmacological, behavioral and neuroscience studies. In this review, we introduce recent new findings in this theme, particularly on the role of nicotine -associated stimuli as non-pharmacological factors affecting maintaining/reinstating nicotine seeking. By using the techniques of drug self-administration and conditioned place preference, nicotine's specific property of forming seeking/taking behavior is well characterized, and the mechanisms of seeking/taking could be partly explained by discrete and/or contextual conditioned stimuli (dCS and cCS).

Facilitation of intracranial self-stimulation behavior in rats by environmental stimuli associated with nicotine.

Environmental stimuli associated with nicotine act as a trigger for nicotine-seeking behavior and make it difficult to quit smoking. The trigger action might be related to the activity of the mesolimbic dopamine "reward" system. Thus, in the present study, we investigated the effects of nicotine-associated stimuli on reward seeking, assessed by current intensity thresholds of intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) in rats.

Decreases in brain reward function reflect nicotine- and methamphetamine-withdrawal aversion in rats.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether brain reward function decreases during withdrawal from nicotine and methamphetamine, and whether decreased reward function is related to aversion during withdrawal from these drugs. For that purpose, male Sprague-Dawley rats were chronically infused subcutaneously with 9 mg/kg per day nicotine, or with 6 mg/kg per day methamphetamine using osmotic minipumps. In an intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) paradigm, chronic infusion of nicotine and methamphetamine decreased the thresholds for lateral hypothalamic ICSS, whereas their antagonists, mecamylamine and haloperidol increased the ICSS thresholds in the rats treated with nicotine and methamphetamine, respectively.