Knowledge and attitudes of Dutch psychiatry residents towards anorexia nervosa.

Background: Stigma significantly hinders treatment seeking, adherence to treatment, referrals, and can prolong recovery, while increasing the risk of relapse due to social exclusion and stress. Stigmatizing attitudes towards anorexia nervosa are widespread, and not only held by the general public, but also by professionals.

Objective: As stigmatizing attitudes towards mental disorders often develop early during education and training, the study's objective was to investigate stigmatizing attitudes towards anorexia nervosa among Dutch psychiatry residents, as well as their mental health literacy.

Towards collaborative care for severe and enduring Anorexia Nervosa - a mixed-method approach.

Background: Severe and Enduring Eating Disorders (SEED), in particular SEED-Anorexia Nervosa (SE-AN), may represent the most difficult disorder to treat in psychiatry. Furthermore, the lack of empirical research in this patient group, and, consequently the lack of guidelines, call for an urgent increase in research and discussion within this field. Meanwhile experts concur that effective care should be structured in a collaborative manner.

Is a dissonance-based group intervention targeting thin-ideal internalization a successful potential add-on for specialized eating disorder care? A randomized feasibility and acceptability pilot study.

Background: Dissonance-based eating disorder programs have successfully targeted body dissatisfaction by challenging the thin beauty ideal in the preventive context and in groups of patients with a subthreshold and full threshold DSM-5 eating disorder. As there is a need for interventions specifically targeting thin-ideal internalization in (highly) specialized treatment centres, the present study adapted Stice's et al.'s Body Project for its use as an add-on treatment for severe eating disorders with the aims to identify whether it was feasible and acceptable in this treatment context, to determine any necessary modifications with regard to the treatment and study procedures, and to test preliminary effectiveness.

COVID-19, anorexia nervosa and obese patients with an eating disorder - some considerations for practitioners and researchers.

Since COVID-19 is a global health emergency, there is an urgent need to share experiences on decision-making with regard to safety recommendations and for hypotheses that can inform a more focused prevention and treatment. Moreover, combining research into eating disorders and obesity with research into COVID-19 may provide a unique opportunity to shed light on the susceptibility to COVID-19.

Psychogenic nonepileptic seizures in adults with epilepsy and intellectual disability: A neglected area.

Purpose: To describe the main characteristics of psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) in adults with epilepsy and intellectual disability (ID), and to analyse the differences regarding psychosocial functioning, epilepsy severity and ID between patients with PNES and a control group without PNES.

Methods: Medical records of adults with ID and epilepsy living at an epilepsy care facility (N = 240) were screened for PNES and evaluated by a neurologist. A control group consisting of patients with epilepsy and ID, without PNES, was matched according to age, sex and level of ID.

Autonomic nervous system functioning associated with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures: Analysis of heart rate variability.

Objective: Psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNESs) resemble epileptic seizures but originate from psychogenic rather than organic causes. Patients with PNESs are often unable or unwilling to reflect on underlying emotions. To gain more insight into the internal states of patients during PNES episodes, this study explored the time course of heart rate variability (HRV) measures, which provide information about autonomic nervous system functioning and arousal.

Resting-state networks and dissociation in psychogenic non-epileptic seizures.

Objective: Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) are epilepsy-like episodes which have an emotional rather than organic origin. Although PNES have often been related to the process of dissociation, the psychopathology is still poorly understood. To elucidate underlying mechanisms, the current study applied independent component analysis (ICA) on resting-state fMRI to investigate alterations within four relevant networks, associated with executive, fronto-parietal, sensorimotor, and default mode activation, and within a visual network to examine specificity of between-group differences.

Neurophysiological correlates of dissociative symptoms.

Objective: Dissociation is a mental process with psychological and somatoform manifestations, which is closely related to hypnotic suggestibility and essentially shows the ability to obtain distance from reality. An increased tendency to dissociate is a frequently reported characteristic of patients with functional neurological symptoms and syndromes (FNSS), which account for a substantial part of all neurological admissions. This review aims to investigate what heart rate variability (HRV), EEG and neuroimaging data (MRI) reveal about the nature of dissociation and related conditions.

Functional connectivity of dissociation in patients with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures.

Introduction: Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) resemble epileptic seizures, but lack epileptiform brain activity. Instead, the cause is assumed to be psychogenic. An abnormal coping strategy may be exhibited by PNES patients, as indicated by their increased tendency to dissociate.

MMPI-II personality profiles of patients with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures.

This comparative study explored whether psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) are a unique disorder with distinctive personality characteristics or (seen from the personality profile) PNES are allied with the domain of a general functional somatic symptom and syndrome (FSSS). We compared the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory 2 (MMPI-2) results for 41 patients with newly diagnosed PNES and 43 patients with newly diagnosed insomnia. There were no statistically significant quantitative scoring differences on the main clinical scales, indicating that there is no substantial difference in "personality makeup" between the two groups with a FSSS.

Nondrug treatments for psychogenic nonepileptic seizures: what's the evidence?

Objective: The purpose of this Cochrane Review was to establish the evidence base for treatment of psychogenic nonepileptic seizures.

Methods: Six hundred eight references were identified using a search strategy designed with the support of the Cochrane Review Epilepsy Group library. The search employed Medline and PsychInfo, and included hand searches of relevant journals (Seizure, Epilepsia, Epilepsy &Behavior, Epilepsy Research).

Factors involved in the long-term prognosis of psychogenic nonepileptic seizures.

Introduction: Information on the long-term effects of psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) is limited. We therefore reassessed 22 patients 4-6 years after the initial diagnosis of PNES in a tertiary referral epilepsy center. The diagnosis was confirmed using clinical description and additional electroencephalogram investigations in 1998, 1999, and 2000.