Publications by authors named "Morrens M"

In a letter critiquing our manuscript, Takefuji highlights general pitfalls in machine learning, without directly engaging with our study. The comments provide generic advice rather than a specific critique of our methods or findings. Despite raising important topics, the concerns reflect standard risks in machine learning, which we were aware of and explicitly addressed in our analyses.

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Article Synopsis
  • The immune system plays a crucial role in major depressive disorder (MDD), with about 30% of depressed patients exhibiting inflammation and atypical symptoms, leading to a poorer response to standard antidepressants.
  • The INSTA-MD trial is a 12-week, double-blind study assessing the effectiveness of minocycline or celecoxib as adjunct treatments for patients with MDD who have not responded to previous antidepressant trials.
  • The trial will stratify participants based on their inflammation levels (high vs. low hsCRP) and aims to determine if this stratification can help predict treatment response and improve outcomes with these immune-targeted therapies.
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Background: Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder frequently face significant delay in diagnosis, leading to being missed or misdiagnosed in early stages. Both disorders have also been associated with trait and state immune abnormalities. Recent machine learning-based studies have shown encouraging results using diagnostic biomarkers in predictive models, but few have focused on immune-based markers.

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Importance: Individuals with schizophrenia are at higher risk for severe COVID-19 illness and severe breakthrough infection following vaccination. It is unclear whether immune response to vaccination differs in this population.

Objective: To assess whether anti-SARS-CoV-2 spike antibody titers after vaccination differ in people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (SZ) compared to controls without a psychiatric disorder.

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Background: While theta burst stimulation (TBS) shows promise in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), its effectiveness in bipolar depression (BD-D) remains uncertain. Optimizing treatment parameters is crucial in the pursuit of rapid symptom relief. Moreover, aligning with personalized treatment strategies and increased interest in immunopsychiatry, biomarker-based stratification of patients most likely to benefit from TBS might improve remission rates.

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Psychomotor slowing has consistently been observed in schizophrenia, however research on motor learning in schizophrenia is limited. Additionally, motor learning in schizophrenia has never been compared with the waning of motor learning abilities in the elderly. Therefore, in an extensive study, 30 individuals with schizophrenia, 30 healthy age-matched controls and 30 elderly participants were compared on sensorimotor learning tasks including sequence learning and adaptation (both explicit and implicit), as well as tracking and aiming.

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Background: Studies have shown impairments in neurocognitive functions which persist more than 3 months after COVID-19 (long COVID). It remains unclear what these impairments entail, how long they persist and what proportion of the patients exhibit them.

Aim: To define the specific neurocognitive profile and to determine the proportion of deficits in at least one cognitive domain in patients with long COVID.

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Background: Medication self-management (MSM) is defined as a person's ability to cope with medication treatment for a chronic condition, along with the associated physical and psychosocial effects that the medication causes in their daily lives. For many patients, it is important to be able to self-manage their medication successfully, as they will often be expected to do after discharge.

Aim: The aim of this study was to describe the willingness and attitudes of patients with schizophrenia spectrum or bipolar disorders regarding MSM during hospital admission.

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Background: Patients with pre-existing mental disorders are at higher risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection and adverse outcomes, and severe mental illness, including mood and psychosis spectrum disorders, is associated with increased mortality risk. Despite their increased risk profile, patients with severe mental illness have been understudied during the pandemic, with limited estimates of exposure in inpatient settings.

Objective: The aim of this study was to describe the SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence and antibody titers, and pro-inflammatory cytokine concentrations of newly admitted or hospitalized psychiatric inpatients without known history of COVID-19 infection, using robust quantitative multi-antigen assessments, and compare patients' exposure to that of hospital staff.

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BDSM bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism is a widespread and highly prevalent yet stigmatized practice of intimacy and sexuality. In recent years, international interest in BDSM research has grown, mainly resulting in prevalence studies in various countries. To date, however, no research has investigated international and intercontinental differences in the nature of BDSM interests and fantasies, BDSM roles and practicing contexts among BDSM practitioners.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study focuses on a protein called TSPO that can help doctors see inflammation in the brain using a special imaging test called PET.
  • Researchers wanted to understand how well TSPO PET works for different brain disorders and at different stages of those disorders.
  • They reviewed a lot of research (156 studies!) involving both healthy people and patients to compare how TSPO PET results differed across various illnesses.
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Background: Medication self-management (MSM) is considered an important aspect of pharmacotherapy and plays an essential role in the treatment of various illnesses. To date, research into the willingness and attitude of psychiatric healthcare providers toward MSM in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorders during hospitalization is lacking.

Aim: The aim of this study was to identify healthcare providers' willingness to MSM and assess their attitude, conditions, benefits, and ability toward it during hospitalization.

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Schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) are associated with immunological dysfunctions that have been hypothesized to lead to clinical symptomatology in particular through kynurenine pathway abnormalities. The aim of this study was thus to investigate the impact of serum kynurenine metabolite levels on diagnosis, clinical state, symptom severity and clinical course in a large French transdiagnostic cohort of SCZ and BD patients. Four patient groups (total n = 507) were included in a cross-sectional observational study: 1) hospitalized acute bipolar patients (n = 205); 2) stable bipolar outpatients (n = 116); 3) hospitalized acute schizophrenia patients (n = 111) and 4) stable schizophrenia outpatients (n = 75), in addition to healthy controls (HC) (n = 185).

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Introduction: Synthetic cathinones are a heterogenous group of new psychoactive substances (NPS) with a surging prevalence of use. They are sold under the name of "Bath Salts," "Legal Highs" or "Research Chemical." It is a heterogeneous group of substances that have a varying binding selectivity and affinity.

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One aspect of metacognition is the ability to judge the accuracy of our own performance, even in the absence of external feedback, which is often measured using confidence ratings. Past research suggests that confidence is lower in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Less is known about the ability of MDD patients to discriminate correct from incorrect performance (metacognitive efficiency).

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Background: In psychotic and mood disorders, immune alterations are hypothesized to underlie cognitive symptoms, as they have been associated with elevated blood levels of inflammatory cytokines, kynurenine metabolites, and markers of microglial activation. The current meta-analysis synthesizes all available clinical evidence on the associations between immunomarkers (IMs) and cognition in these psychiatric illnesses.

Methods: Pubmed, Web of Science, and Psycinfo were searched for peer-reviewed studies on schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SZ), bipolar disorder (BD), or major depressive disorder (MDD) including an association analysis between at least one baseline neuropsychological outcome measure (NP) and one IM (PROSPERO ID:CRD42021278371).

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Aim(s): The aim of the study was to explore perspectives of hospitalised patients with schizophrenia or a bipolar disorder and their healthcare providers on medication self-management.

Methods: In a qualitative descriptive design, semi-structured interviews were used. Forty-nine interviews were completed (nurses = 18; psychiatrists = 3; hospital pharmacists = 2; patients = 26).

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An antiviral effect of lithium has been proposed, but never investigated for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Using electronic health records of 26 554 patients with documented serum lithium levels during the pandemic, we show that the 6-month COVID-19 infection incidence was lower among matched patients with 'therapeutic' (0.50-1.

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Current classification systems use the terms "catatonia" and "psychomotor phenomena" as mere a-theoretical descriptors, forgetting about their theoretical embedment. This was the source of misunderstandings among clinicians and researchers of the European collaboration on movement and sensorimotor/psychomotor functioning in schizophrenia and other psychoses or ECSP. Here, we review the different perspectives, their historical roots and highlight discrepancies.

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Introduction: Chronic low-grade inflammation is suggested to play a pathophysiological role in bipolar disorder (BD) and its related cognitive dysfunctions. Although kynurenine (KYN) pathway metabolites are key inflammatory mediators, studies investigating the association between KYN metabolism and cognition in BD are scarce. We aimed to explore the relationship between KYN metabolism and cognitive functioning across different mood states in BD.

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