Publications by authors named "Pomarol-Clotet E"

Objective: The clinical diversity of schizophrenia is reflected by structural brain variability. It remains unclear how this variability manifests across different gray and white matter features. In this meta- and mega-analysis, the authors investigated how brain heterogeneity in schizophrenia is distributed across multimodal structural indicators.

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Background: Individuals with bipolar disorder have been reported to have increased white matter hyperintensities (WMH) in fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) magnetic resonance scans. However, it is unknown whether this WMH increase has any impact on white matter connectivity. The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of the bipolar disorder-related WMH increase on white matter tracts and networks.

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Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a complex psychiatric disorder that affects the lives of hundreds of millions of individuals around the globe. Even today, researchers debate if morphological alterations in the brain are linked to MDD, likely due to the heterogeneity of this disorder. The application of deep learning tools to neuroimaging data, capable of capturing complex non-linear patterns, has the potential to provide diagnostic and predictive biomarkers for MDD.

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Background: According to the aberrant salience proposal, reward processing abnormality, specifically erroneous reward prediction error (RPE) signaling due to stimulus-independent release of dopamine, underlies delusions in schizophrenia. However, no studies to date have examined RPE-associated brain activations in relation to this symptom.

Methods: Seventy-eight patients with a DSM-5 diagnosis of schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder and 43 healthy individuals underwent fMRI while they performed a probabilistic monetary reward task designed to generate a measure of RPE.

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Both genetic and environmental factors have been found to play a significant role in psychosis relapse, either independently or through their synergistic interaction. Recently, DNA methylation (DNAm) has been proposed through the calculation of methylation profile scores (MPS). The aim of the present study is to evaluate the association of MPS as a surrogate marker of the biological impact of early stressful life events (including stressful intrauterine conditions and obstetric complications, childhood adversity and toxic habits), with the risk of schizophrenia (SCZ) relapse.

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Article Synopsis
  • Psychedelic drugs are being studied for potential treatment of depression and other disorders, but there are concerns about their psychiatric side effects, which are hard to assess due to the informal nature of existing literature.
  • A review of case reports identified 17 instances each of schizophrenia-spectrum and affective disorders after psychedelic use, with some developing after just one use; recovery was common for affective disorders but rare for schizophrenia.
  • Flashbacks were observed in some cases, with psychiatric symptoms like anxiety and depression sometimes persisting beyond the episodes, although about half showed resolution within a year.
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Although specific risk factors for brain alterations in bipolar disorders (BD) are currently unknown, obesity impacts the brain and is highly prevalent in BD. Gray matter correlates of obesity in BD have been well documented, but we know much less about brain white matter abnormalities in people who have both obesity and BD. We obtained body mass index (BMI) and diffusion tensor imaging derived fractional anisotropy (FA) from 22 white matter tracts in 899 individuals with BD, and 1287 control individuals from 20 cohorts in the ENIGMA-BD working group.

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  • Schizophrenia (SCZ) shows differences in brain structure and symptoms between men and women, suggesting distinct neurobiological factors linked to sex.
  • The study analyzed MRI data from nearly 6,000 participants to explore the effects of sex and diagnosis on the shape of deep brain regions in individuals with SCZ compared to healthy controls.
  • Results indicated that women with SCZ had more pronounced shape abnormalities than men, but there were no significant interactions between diagnosis and sex, highlighting the need for further exploration of sex-related differences in schizophrenia's neurobiology.
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  • This study investigated sex differences in patients experiencing their first episode of mania (FEM) or psychosis (FEP) to develop targeted treatment approaches.
  • A total of 113 patients were assessed across various clinical and neuropsychological domains, revealing that women generally outperformed men in verbal memory and emotional intelligence, while men excelled in working memory.
  • Findings suggest significant interactions between sex and conditions, indicating a need for treatment strategies that consider these differences in cognitive performance and emotional capabilities.
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Objective: To assess the effectiveness of a psychoeducational intervention program (PIP) compared to standard attention in reducing caregiver burden after the intervention (at 4 months) and at follow-up (at 8 months).

Methods: A multicenter, evaluator-blind, randomized controlled trial. The experimental group received a PIP intervention consisting of 10 weekly group sessions, while the control group received standard attention.

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Background And Hypothesis: This umbrella review aims to comprehensively synthesize the evidence of association between peripheral, electrophysiological, neuroimaging, neuropathological, and other biomarkers and diagnosis of psychotic disorders.

Study Design: We selected systematic reviews and meta-analyses of observational studies on diagnostic biomarkers for psychotic disorders, published until February 1, 2018. Data extraction was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines.

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Introduction: Health institutions provide general recommendations to cope with global crises such as pandemics or geopolitical tensions. However, these recommendations are mainly based on cross-sectional evidence. The preregistered Repeated Assessment of Behaviors and Symptoms in the Population (RABSYPO) study sought to establish prospective longitudinal evidence from a cohort with a demographic distribution similar to that of the Spanish population to provide evidence for developing solid universal recommendations to reduce anxiety and depressive symptoms during times of uncertainty.

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Introduction: Research data show the impact of the endocannabinoid system on psychosis through its neurotransmission homeostatic functions. However, the effect of the endocannabinoid system genetic variability on the relationship between cannabis use and psychosis has been unexplored, even less in first-episode patients. Here, through a case-only design, we investigated the effect of cannabis use and the genetic variability of endocannabinoid receptors on clinical and cognitive outcomes in first-episode psychosis (FEP) patients.

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Deficits in memory performance have been linked to a wide range of neurological and neuropsychiatric conditions. While many studies have assessed the memory impacts of individual conditions, this study considers a broader perspective by evaluating how memory recall is differentially associated with nine common neuropsychiatric conditions using data drawn from 55 international studies, aggregating 15,883 unique participants aged 15-90. The effects of dementia, mild cognitive impairment, Parkinson's disease, traumatic brain injury, stroke, depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder on immediate, short-, and long-delay verbal learning and memory (VLM) scores were estimated relative to matched healthy individuals.

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Article Synopsis
  • This study used machine learning to classify subtypes of schizophrenia by analyzing brain images from over 4,000 patients and healthy individuals through international collaboration.* -
  • Researchers identified two neurostructural subgroups: one with predominant cortical loss and enlarged striatum, and another with significant subcortical loss in areas like the hippocampus and striatum.* -
  • The findings suggest this new imaging-based classification could redefine schizophrenia based on biological similarities, enhancing our understanding and treatment of the disorder.*
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Given the shared ectodermal origin and integrated development of the face and the brain, facial biomarkers emerge as potential candidates to assess vulnerability for disorders in which neurodevelopment is compromised, such as schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD). The sample comprised 188 individuals (67 SZ patients, 46 BD patients and 75 healthy controls (HC)). Using a landmark-based approach on 3D facial reconstructions, we quantified global and local facial shape differences between SZ/BD patients and HC using geometric morphometrics.

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Multivariate techniques better fit the anatomy of complex neuropsychiatric disorders which are characterized not by alterations in a single region, but rather by variations across distributed brain networks. Here, we used principal component analysis (PCA) to identify patterns of covariance across brain regions and relate them to clinical and demographic variables in a large generalizable dataset of individuals with bipolar disorders and controls. We then compared performance of PCA and clustering on identical sample to identify which methodology was better in capturing links between brain and clinical measures.

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The expression of Neuritin-1 (NRN1), a neurotrophic factor crucial for neurodevelopment and synaptic plasticity, is enhanced by the Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF). Although the receptor of NRN1 remains unclear, it is suggested that NRN1's activation of the insulin receptor (IR) pathway promotes the transcription of the calcium voltage-gated channel subunit alpha1 C (CACNA1C). These three genes have been independently associated with schizophrenia (SZ) risk, symptomatology, and brain differences.

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  • Formal thought disorder (FTD) is a key symptom of schizophrenia, but its exact neurobiological causes and correlation with brain volume loss are still unclear, which this study seeks to address using a large cohort of patients and controls.
  • The research focuses on differentiating between positive, negative, and total formal thought disorder while investigating brain structural changes and their cellular bases using virtual histology tools.
  • Findings reveal distinct neural networks for positive and negative FTD, with negative FTD showing preserved orbitofrontal thickness and both FTD types linked to unique cellular fingerprint patterns, advancing our understanding of the disorder.
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Objective: This study aimed to assess the relationship between childhood maltreatment (CM), objective and subjective cognition, and psychosocial functioning in adults with first-episode psychosis (FEP) by examining the moderating role of cognitive reserve (CR). A secondary objective was to explore whether unique CM subtypes (physical and/or emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical and/or emotional neglect) were driving this relationship.

Method: Sixty-six individuals with FEP ( = 27.

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Unlabelled: Accessible Summary What is known on the subject? Functioning is one of the most affected areas in schizophrenia. Social, occupational and personal domains are affected, and these deficits are responsible for a major part of the disability associated with the disorder. There are several instruments to measure functioning, but the HoNOS provides a wide assessment of impairment in 12 areas of functioning.

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The DDR1 locus is associated with the diagnosis of schizophrenia and with processing speed in patients with schizophrenia and first-episode psychosis. Here, we investigated whether DDR1 variants are associated with bipolar disorder (BD) features. First, we performed a case‒control association study comparing DDR1 variants between patients with BD and healthy controls.

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Article Synopsis
  • * This large-scale study analyzed MRI scans from over 2,000 schizophrenia patients and 2,800 healthy controls to assess brain volume and microstructural integrity, using advanced modeling techniques.
  • * Results showed that aggressive behavior was significantly associated with reduced cortical and white matter volumes, particularly in key brain areas, suggesting a direct neurological link to aggression in schizophrenia patients.
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