Risks associated with antipsychotic treatment in pregnancy: Comparative cohort studies based on electronic health records.

Background: Limited information is available on whether antipsychotics prescribed in pregnancy are associated with increased risks of adverse outcomes.

Methods: We used electronic health records from pregnant women and their children to examine risks of adverse maternal and child outcomes in three cohorts of women who: (A) received antipsychotic treatment in pregnancy (n=416) (B) discontinued antipsychotic treatment before pregnancy (n=670), and (C) had no records of antipsychotic treatment before or during pregnancy (n=318,434). Absolute and risk ratios were estimated and adjusted for health and lifestyle and concomitant medications.

Vulnerability to depression is associated with a failure to acquire implicit social appraisals.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with disrupted relationships with partners, family, and peers. These problems can precipitate the onset of clinical illness, influence severity and the prospects for recovery. Here, we investigated whether individuals who have recovered from depression use interpersonal signals to form favourable appraisals of others as social partners.

Risks and benefits of psychotropic medication in pregnancy: cohort studies based on UK electronic primary care health records.

Background: Although many women treated with psychotropic medication become pregnant, no psychotropic medication has been licensed for use in pregnancy. This leaves women and their health-care professionals in a treatment dilemma, as they need to balance the health of the woman with that of the unborn child. The aim of this project was to investigate the risks and benefits of psychotropic medication in women treated for psychosis who become pregnant.

Serotonin and social norms: tryptophan depletion impairs social comparison and leads to resource depletion in a multiplayer harvesting game.

How do people sustain resources for the benefit of individuals and communities and avoid the tragedy of the commons, in which shared resources become exhausted? In the present study, we examined the role of serotonin activity and social norms in the management of depletable resources. Healthy adults, alongside social partners, completed a multiplayer resource-dilemma game in which they repeatedly harvested from a partially replenishable monetary resource. Dietary tryptophan depletion, leading to reduced serotonin activity, was associated with aggressive harvesting strategies and disrupted use of the social norms given by distributions of other players' harvests.

Preliminary evidence that sub-chronic citalopram triggers the re-evaluation of value in intimate partnerships.

Depression frequently involves disrupted inter-personal relationships, while treatment with serotonergic anti-depressants can interfere with libido and sexual function. However, little is known about how serotonin activity influences appraisals of intimate partnerships. Learning more could help to specify how serotonergic mechanisms mediate social isolation in psychiatric illness.

I want to help you, but I am not sure why: gaze-cuing induces altruistic giving.

Detecting subtle indicators of trustworthiness is highly adaptive for moving effectively amongst social partners. One powerful signal is gaze direction, which individuals can use to inform (or deceive) by looking toward (or away from) important objects or events in the environment. Here, across 5 experiments, we investigate whether implicit learning about gaze cues can influence subsequent economic transactions; we also examine some of the underlying mechanisms.

Classification of depressive disorders.

The classification of depression is well established in major diagnostic systems and operational definitions now make the diagnosis of depression reasonably reliable. However, classification and diagnosis continue to be based on clinical presentation and course and are not currently informed by aetiological or pathophysiological considerations. It is still unclear, for example, whether or not categories such as melancholic depression represent distinct subforms of illness or whether a dimensional classification based on severity can capture clinical presentation adequately and more economically.

Serotonergic activity influences the cognitive appraisal of close intimate relationships in healthy adults.

Background: Close supportive relationships protect against psychological disorders and also facilitate recovery. However, little is known about the neurochemical mechanisms that mediate these effects. Variation in serotonin function influences affiliative behavior in humans and nonhuman primates.

Acute administration of citalopram facilitates memory consolidation in healthy volunteers.

Objectives: Decreasing serotonergic neurotransmission in humans has been found to impair memory consolidation. Such effects may be relevant to the memory deficits seen in major depression and the cognitive actions of antidepressant drugs used to treat them. However, the improvement in cognitive function often found following successful pharmacological treatment in depression may be confounded by symptom improvement.