Sex differences in hedonic judgement of odors in schizophrenia cases and healthy controls.

The neurocircuitries subserving affective and olfactory processes overlap, are sexually dimorphic, and show disruptions in schizophrenia, suggesting their intersection may be a window on the core process producing psychosis. This study investigated diagnostic and sex differences in hedonic judgments of odors and smell identification in 26 schizophrenia cases and 27 healthy controls. Associations between olfaction measures and psychiatric symptoms were also examined.

Yoga and Emotion Regulation in High School Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Middle adolescents (15-17 years old) are prone to increased risk taking and emotional instability. Emotion dysregulation contributes to a variety of psychosocial difficulties in this population. A discipline such as yoga offered during school may increase emotion regulation, but research in this area is lacking.

Impairment in emotional modulation of attention and memory in schizophrenia.

Emotion plays a critical role in cognition and goal-directed behavior via complex interconnections between the emotional and motivational systems. It has been hypothesized that the impairment in goal-directed behavior widely noted in schizophrenia may result from defects in the interaction between the neural (ventral) emotional system and (rostral) cortical processes. The present study examined the impact of emotion on attention and memory in schizophrenia.

Examining the role of trauma, personality, and meaning in young prolonged grievers.

Purpose: Younger spouses or partners have been understudied in the prolonged grief literature. The purpose of this study was to determine rates of prolonged grief in young spouses or partners and the associations between prolonged grief and personality styles (specifically, narcissistic, histrionic, and obsessive), trauma history, and the perceived meaning of the loss in the young conjugally bereaved.

Participants And Method: Participants between 20 and 50 years old who lost a spouse/partner to cancer 6 months-3 years prior to the study completed the following measures during one time point (via phone or in person interviews): Prolonged Grief-13, traumatic life events questionnaire, Millon clinical multiaxial inventory-III, and grief meaning reconstruction inventory.

Changes in neuropsychological functioning following treatment with risperidone, olanzapine, and conventional antipsychotic medications.

Objective: To compare changes in neuropsychological functioning over time among adults with schizophrenia treated with atypical and conventional antipsychotics, controlling for phenomenological changes, medication dosage, concomitant use of anticholinergic medications, and practice effects.

Methods: In a larger clinical trial, 108 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were randomly assigned to medication groups (risperidone, olanzapine, or conventional medications), treated in an open-label design, and monitored prospectively for 12 months using standard neuropsychological and symptomatology instruments.

Results: Significant differential effects were evident on the ability to maintain and rapidly shift mental set within a psychomotor task, with patients in the conventional medication group consistently making more errors over time until the 12-month follow-up, when the olanzapine group made significantly more errors.

Factors of complicated grief pre-death in caregivers of cancer patients.

Purpose: Over the past decade, Prigerson and her colleagues have shown that symptoms of 'complicated grief'-intense yearning, difficulty accepting the death, excessive bitterness, numbness, emptiness, and feeling uneasy moving on and that the future is bleak-are distinct from depression and anxiety and are independently associated with substantial morbidity. Little is known about complicated grief experienced by family caregivers prior to the death. This study sought to examine differences in caregiver age groups and potential risk factors for complicated grief pre-death.

Impact of childhood abuse on the clinical course of bipolar disorder.

Background: Few investigations have examined the impact of childhood trauma, and domains of childhood abuse, on outcome in bipolar disorder.

Aims: To evaluate the prevalence and subtypes of childhood abuse reported by adult patients with bipolar disorder and relationship to clinical outcome.

Method: Prevalence rates of childhood abuse were retrospectively assessed and examined relative to illness complexity in a sample of 100 patients at an academic specialty centre for the treatment of bipolar disorder.

Rethinking medication prescribing practices in an inner-city Hispanic mental health clinic.

Improved compliance with pharmacotherapy was achieved in treating Hispanic outpatients with psychotic disorders when recognition of culturally based differences between patients and psychiatrists led to modifications in prescribing practices. Unacculturated Hispanic outpatients experienced akathisia as an increase in "nerviosismo." Addressing this issue, as well as using anxiolytics and low doses of antipsychotics when beginning treatment, led to an improvement in compliance.