Weekday and seasonal patterns in psychiatric referrals in three major London A&E departments, 2012-2014.

Unlabelled: Aims and method To identify temporal and demographic trends in referrals made to psychiatric liaison services. Routine clinical data from 16 105 individual referrals from three central London accident and emergency (A&E) departments to psychiatric liaison services from 2012 to 2014 were obtained and analysed using the Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS).

Results: Referrals from A&E to psychiatric liaison services increased 16% over the 3-year study period.

Depression in Parkinson's disease: loss of dopamine and noradrenaline innervation in the limbic system.

The reason for the high frequency of depression and anxiety in Parkinson's disease is poorly understood. Degeneration of neurotransmitter systems other than dopamine might play a specific role in the occurrence of these affective disorders. We used [11C]RTI-32 PET, an in vivo marker of both dopamine and noradrenaline transporter binding, to localize differences between depressed and non-depressed patients.

Tremor in Parkinson's disease and serotonergic dysfunction: an 11C-WAY 100635 PET study.

Background: The pathophysiologic mechanisms underlying parkinsonian tremor remain unclear. The response to dopaminergic treatment is variable and nondopaminergic mechanisms may play a role in tremor generation. Midbrain raphe 5-HT(1A) binding provides a functional measure of serotonergic system integrity.

Familial progressive supranuclear palsy: detection of subclinical cases using 18F-dopa and 18fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography.

Background: Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is generally considered to be a sporadic disease; however, occasional cases of familial PSP have been described. The rarity of reports of familial PSP may be attributed in part to an inability to detect subclinical disease in affected relatives who subsequently die before symptoms clinically develop.

Objective: To study regional cerebral dopaminergic function and glucose metabolism in members of 2 large kindreds with familial PSP to identify subclinical cases.

Paroxysmal dystonic choreoathetosis: clinical features and investigation of pathophysiology in a large family.

Paroxysmal dystonic choreoathetosis (PDC) is an unusual hyperkinetic movement disorder characterized by attacks of chorea, dystonia, and ballism with onset in childhood. We report a large British family with dominantly inherited PDC linked to chromosome 2q and describe the clinical features in 20 affected family members. Attacks were precipitated by a variety of factors, including caffeine, alcohol, or emotion, and could be relieved by short periods of sleep in most subjects.