Motivations for and Experiences With Antipsychotic Tapering Among Patients With Schizophrenia Seeking Guided Dose Reduction.

Objective: Over time, most patients with schizophrenia wish to reduce or discontinue their antipsychotic medication treatment. In Denmark, a specialized government-funded outpatient clinic was established to offer guided antipsychotic dose reduction. This study aimed to provide data on motivations for and previous experiences with antipsychotic tapering among patients attending the clinic.

Deprescribing antipsychotics in patients with schizophrenia: findings from a specialized clinic.

Background: While antipsychotic medication reduces the risk of relapse for patients with schizophrenia, high prevalence of adverse effects results in low adherence. Lower doses of antipsychotics have been associated with increased level of function but also with increased risk of relapse. This study presents findings from a specialized deprescribing clinic.

Reward Processing as an Indicator of Vulnerability or Compensatory Resilience in Psychoses? Results From a Twin Study.

Background: Findings of reward disturbances in unaffected relatives of patients with schizophrenia suggest reward disturbances as an endophenotype for schizophrenia. Twin studies, where 1 twin has been diagnosed with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder, can further explore this.

Methods: We used Danish registries to identify twin pairs with at least 1 twin having a schizophrenia spectrum disorder diagnosis and control twin pairs matched on age, sex, and zygosity.

Heritability of specific cognitive functions and associations with schizophrenia spectrum disorders using CANTAB: a nation-wide twin study.

Background: Many cognitive functions are under strong genetic control and twin studies have demonstrated genetic overlap between some aspects of cognition and schizophrenia. How the genetic relationship between specific cognitive functions and schizophrenia is influenced by IQ is currently unknown.

Methods: We applied selected tests from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) to examine the heritability of specific cognitive functions and associations with schizophrenia liability.

Heritability of Cerebral Blood Flow and the Correlation to Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: A Pseudo-continuous Arterial Spin Labeling Twin Study.

Whether aberrant cerebral blood flow (CBF) in schizophrenia is affected by genetic influences, and consequently a potential marker for genetic susceptibility, is unknown. Our aims were to determine the heritability of CBF in thalamic, frontal, and striatal areas, and to ascertain if associations with disease were under genetic influence. Monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs concordant (n = 2) or discordant (n = 20) for schizophrenia spectrum disorders (ICD-10 F2x.

[Hypochondriacal paranoia is a differential diagnostic challenge].

Patients with persistent complaints about somatic symptoms, which cannot be explained by somatic disease, constitute a major healthcare problem. Hypochondriacal paranoia is an important subset of paranoid conditions, which should not be overlooked in patients with persistent hypochondriacal complaints. It is rare, in contrast to illness anxiety disorder or body dysmorphic disorder optionally with insufficient insight.

Heritability of cerebral glutamate levels and their association with schizophrenia spectrum disorders: a [H]-spectroscopy twin study.

Research findings implicate cerebral glutamate in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, including genetic studies reporting associations with glutamatergic neurotransmission. The extent to which aberrant glutamate levels can be explained by genetic factors is unknown, and if glutamate can serve as a marker of genetic susceptibility for schizophrenia remains to be established. We investigated the heritability of cerebral glutamate levels and whether a potential association with schizophrenia spectrum disorders could be explained by genetic factors.

Real-world effectiveness of clozapine for intellectual disability: Results from a mirror-image and a reverse-mirror-image study.

Background: Comorbid mental illness is common in patients with intellectual disability. Antipsychotics are widely used for these conditions, but the effect of clozapine remains largely unknown.

Aims: We aimed to investigate the effectiveness of clozapine on naturalistic outcomes in patients with intellectual disability.

[Hypochondrical paranoia].

This is a case report of hypochondrical paranoia in a young man, who was convinced of a toxic infection by fungi following mold growth exposure. The patient was admitted to a psychiatric facility, severely pained by the delusional perception of his insides being eaten by fungus. He had undergone a thorough medical examination without the discovery of any somatic irregularities and had attempted to treat himself several times.

Heritability of Schizophrenia and Schizophrenia Spectrum Based on the Nationwide Danish Twin Register.

Background: Twin studies have provided evidence that both genetic and environmental factors contribute to schizophrenia (SZ) risk. Heritability estimates of SZ in twin samples have varied methodologically. This study provides updated heritability estimates based on nationwide twin data and an improved statistical methodology.

Is an Early Age at Illness Onset in Schizophrenia Associated With Increased Genetic Susceptibility? Analysis of Data From the Nationwide Danish Twin Register.

Background: Early age at illness onset has been viewed as an important liability marker for schizophrenia, which may be associated with an increased genetic vulnerability. A twin approach can be valuable, because it allows for the investigation of specific illness markers in individuals with a shared genetic background.

Methods: We linked nationwide registers to identify a cohort of twin pairs born in Denmark from 1951 to 2000 (N=31,524 pairs), where one or both twins had a diagnosis in the schizophrenia spectrum.

Low frontal serotonin 2A receptor binding is a state marker for schizophrenia?

Here we imaged serotonin 2A receptor (5-HT2AR) binding in a very rare population of monozygotic twins discordant for schizophrenia to provide insight into trait and state components in brain 5-HT2AR patterns. In four twin pairs not medicated with drugs that target 5-HT2AR, frontal 5-HT2AR binding was consistently lower (33%) in schizophrenic- relative to their healthy co-twins. Our results strongly imply low frontal 5-HT2AR availability as a state feature of schizophrenia.

Course of intelligence deficits in early onset, first episode schizophrenia: a controlled, 5-year longitudinal study.

Only few prospective longitudinal studies have assessed the course of intelligence deficits in early onset schizophrenia (EOS), and these have used different age appropriate versions of Wechsler Intelligence Scales and age appropriate norms. The post-psychotic development of intelligence in EOS has predominantly been characterized as relatively stable in these studies. However, comparisons of IQs from different test versions based on the different norms may not permit unequivocal interpretations.