Context algorithm: evidence that a transdiagnostic framework of contextual clinical characterization is of more clinical value than categorical diagnosis.

Background: A transdiagnostic and contextual framework of 'clinical characterization', combining clinical, psychopathological, sociodemographic, etiological, and other personal contextual data, may add clinical value over and above categorical algorithm-based diagnosis.

Methods: Prediction of need for care and health care outcomes was examined prospectively as a function of the contextual clinical characterization diagnostic framework in a prospective general population cohort ( = 6646 at baseline), interviewed four times between 2007 and 2018 (NEMESIS-2). Measures of need, service use, and use of medication were predicted as a function of any of 13 DSM-IV diagnoses, both separately and in combination with clinical characterization across multiple domains: social circumstances/demographics, symptom dimensions, physical health, clinical/etiological factors, staging, and polygenic risk scores (PRS).

Age- and sex-specific associations between risk scores for schizophrenia and self-reported health in the general population.

Purpose: The health correlates of polygenic risk (PRS-SCZ) and exposome (ES-SCZ) scores for schizophrenia may vary depending on age and sex. We aimed to examine age- and sex-specific associations of PRS-SCZ and ES-SCZ with self-reported health in the general population.

Methods: Participants were from the population-based Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study-2 (NEMESIS-2).

The jumping to conclusions reasoning bias as a cognitive factor contributing to psychosis progression and persistence: findings from NEMESIS-2.

Background: Contemporary models of psychosis implicate the importance of affective dysregulation and cognitive factors (e.g. biases and schemas) in the development and maintenance of psychotic symptoms, but studies testing proposed mechanisms remain limited.

Interaction between environmental and familial affective risk impacts psychosis admixture in states of affective dysregulation.

Background: Evidence suggests that cannabis use, childhood adversity, and urbanicity, in interaction with proxy measures of genetic risk, may facilitate onset of psychosis in the sense of early affective dysregulation becoming 'complicated' by, first, attenuated psychosis and, eventually, full-blown psychotic symptoms.

Methods: Data were derived from three waves of the second Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study (NEMESIS-2). The impact of environmental risk factors (cannabis use, childhood adversity, and urbanicity) was analyzed across severity levels of psychopathology defined by the degree to which affective dysregulation was 'complicated' by low-grade psychotic experiences ('attenuated psychosis' - moderately severe) and, overt psychotic symptoms leading to help-seeking ('clinical psychosis' - most severe).

Reasoning bias, working memory performance and a transdiagnostic phenotype of affective disturbances and psychotic experiences in the general population.

Background: The jumping to conclusions (JTC) reasoning bias and decreased working memory performance (WMP) are associated with psychosis, but associations with affective disturbances (i.e. depression, anxiety, mania) remain inconclusive.

Evidence That Environmental and Familial Risks for Psychosis Additively Impact a Multidimensional Subthreshold Psychosis Syndrome.

Background: The observed link between positive psychotic experiences (PE) and psychosis spectrum disorder (PSD) may be stronger depending on concomitant presence of PE with other dimensions of psychopathology. We examined whether the effect of common risk factors for PSD on PE is additive and whether the impact of risk factors on the occurrence of PE depends on the co-occurrence of other symptom dimensions (affective dysregulation, negative symptoms, and cognitive alteration).

Method: Data from the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study 2 were used.

Exposure to environmental factors increases connectivity between symptom domains in the psychopathology network.

Background: We investigated to what degree environmental exposure (childhood trauma, urbanicity, cannabis use, and discrimination) impacts symptom connectivity using both continuous and categorical measures of psychopathology.

Methods: Outcomes were continuous symptom dimensions of self-reported psychopathology using the Self-report Symptom Checklist-90-R in 3021 participants from The Early Developmental Stages of the Psychopathology (EDSP) study and binary DSM-III-R categories of mental disorders and a binary measure of psychotic symptoms in 7076 participants from The Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study (NEMESIS-1). For each symptom dimension in the EDSP and mental disorder in the NEMESIS-1 as the dependent variable, regression analyses were carried out including each of the remaining symptom dimensions/mental disorders and its interaction with cumulative environmental risk load (the sum score of environmental exposures) as independent variables.

Marker genes for the metabolic adaptation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa to the hypoxic cystic fibrosis lung environment.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the leading pathogen of chronic cystic fibrosis (CF) lung infection. Life-long persistence in the inflamed and ever fluctuating CF lungs results in the selection of a variety of changes in P. aeruginosa physiology.

Psychopathological mechanisms linking childhood traumatic experiences to risk of psychotic symptoms: analysis of a large, representative population-based sample.

Background: Different psychological models of trauma-induced psychosis have been postulated, often based on the observation of "specific" associations between particular types of childhood trauma (CT) and particular psychotic symptoms or the co-occurrence of delusions and hallucinations. However, the actual specificity of these associations remains to be tested.

Methods: In 2 population-based studies with comparable methodology (Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study-1 [NEMESIS-1] and NEMESIS-2, N = 13 722), trained interviewers assessed CT, psychotic symptoms, and other psychopathology.

Phenotypically continuous with clinical psychosis, discontinuous in need for care: evidence for an extended psychosis phenotype.

Background: Rates of self-reported psychotic experiences (SRPEs) in general population samples are high; however the reliability against interview-based assessments and the clinical significance of false-positive (FP) ratings remain unclear.

Design: The second Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study-2, a general population study.

Methods: Trained lay interviewers administered a structured interview assessing psychopathology and psychosocial characteristics in 6646 participants.

Persistence and outcome of auditory hallucinations in adolescence: a longitudinal general population study of 1800 individuals.

Background: Auditory hallucinations are common in adolescents. However, it has been suggested that not the presence of low-grade psychotic experiences per se, but rather the level of persistence and associated clinical complications over time may lead to psychotic illness. The current paper investigated, in a large representative sample of adolescents, to what degree hallucinations persist, and whether persistence of hallucinations increases the risk of developing secondary delusional ideation and affective dysregulation.

No ecological effect modification of the association between negative life experiences and later psychopathology in adolescence: A longitudinal community study in adolescents.

Background: The aim of the study was to examine the potential contribution of exposure to bullying and adverse life events to the development of psychopathology in adolescents, and possible effect modification by neighbourhood social capital.

Methods: Two waves of routine, longitudinal, standard health examinations at local community paediatric health services, pertaining to 749 adolescents living in Maastricht (The Netherlands) who were attending second grade of secondary school (age 13/14 years) and approximately 2 years later going to the fourth grade (age 15/16 years), were analysed. A self-report questionnaire was used, including measures of psychopathology and two measures of negative life experiences, exposure to bullying and adverse life events, that were available for both age groups and subjected to (multilevel) regression analysis.

Disentangling associations between poverty at various levels of aggregation and mental health.

The present editorial discusses whether socioeconomic status of the individual and of the neighbourhood could be important in prevalence, treatment and prevention of psychiatric morbidity. Previous research showed that patients diagnosed with mental disorders are concentrated in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas. This could be the result of (1) an association between individual socioeconomic status and mental health, (2) an association between neighbourhood socioeconomic status and mental health, or (3) social selection.

Childhood victimisation and developmental expression of non-clinical delusional ideation and hallucinatory experiences: victimisation and non-clinical psychotic experiences.

Background: Victimisation in childhood may be associated with adult psychosis. The current study examined this association in the crucial developmental period of early adolescence and investigated whether (1) unwanted sexual experiences, and (2) being bullied, were associated with non-clinical delusional ideation and hallucinatory experiences in a general population sample of 14 year olds.

Methods: Data were derived from standard health screenings of the Youth Health Care Divisions of the Municipal Health Services in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

An enzyme module system for the synthesis of dTDP-activated deoxysugars from dTMP and sucrose.

A flexible enzyme module system is presented that allows preparative access to important dTDP-activated deoxyhexoses from dTMP and sucrose. The strategic combination of the recombinant enzymes dTMP-kinase and sucrose synthase (SuSy), and the enzymes RmlB (4,6-dehydratase), RmlC (3,5-epimerase) and RmlD (4-ketoreductase) from the biosynthetic pathway of dTDP-beta-L-rhamnose was optimized. The SuSy module (dTMP-kinase, SuSy, +/-RmlB) yielded the precursor dTDP-alpha-D-glucose (2) or the biosynthetic intermediate dTDP-6-deoxy-4-keto-alpha-D-glucose (3) on a 0.

Association of mental health problems in childhood with prenatal and postnatal physical growth.

Aims: The present study was conducted to examine (i) prenatal and postnatal patterns of growth in relation to the risk of later mental health problems in children and (ii) the possible mediating effect of these patterns of growth in the association between parental socioeconomic status (SES) and children's mental health.

Subjects And Methods: The present study is part of a blinded, matched case control study, involving a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data from routine examinations at community health services for children and adolescents. The sample comprised 80 patients, referred between the age of 6-13 years to the Community Mental Health Centre in Maastricht, and 320 matched population controls.

Expression, purification and characterization of recombinant sucrose synthase 1 from Solanum tuberosum L. for carbohydrate engineering.

The gene sus1 from Solanum tuberosum L. encoding for sucrose synthase 1 was cloned into the plasmid pDR195 under the control of the PMA1 promotor. After transformation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain 22574d sus1 was constitutively expressed giving a specific activity of 0.

Children's mental health service use, neighbourhood socioeconomic deprivation, and social capital.

Background: There is accumulating evidence that the shared social environment at the neighbourhood level exerts significant effects on health over and above individual level variables. The aim of this study was to assess the interactive influence of neighbourhood measures of socioeconomic deprivation and social capital (i. e.

Childhood social and early developmental factors associated with mental health service use.

Background: The aim of this study was to determine the influence of family and child variables on the pathway to mental health care in children.

Methods: A blinded, matched case control study was conducted, involving a retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data from routine examinations at the Youth Health Care Division from the Municipal Health Centre Maastricht (YHCD), where all children in a geographically defined area from foetal life through to age 19 years are periodically screened. The sample included 400 children, 80 referred to the Community Mental Health Centre in Maastricht and 320 matched controls, aged 6-13 years.