Publications by authors named "Rujescu D"

Article Synopsis
  • A study was conducted to investigate the X-chromosome's role in Alzheimer's Disease (AD), which had been overlooked in previous genome-wide association studies.
  • The research included 115,841 AD cases and 613,671 controls, considering different X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) states in females.
  • While no strong genetic risk factors for AD were found on the X-chromosome, seven significant loci were identified, suggesting areas for future research.
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Background: Anhedonic features within major depressive disorder (MDD) have been associated with worse course and outcome and may predict nonresponse to treatment. However, a detailed clinical profile of anhedonia in MDD is still lacking.

Materials And Methods: One thousand two hundred ninety-four patients with MDD were selected from the cross-sectional European multicenter Group for the Study of Resistant Depression study.

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  • Duplications of a specific region on the X chromosome known as Xq28,distal have been linked to schizophrenia (SCZ) and intellectual disability in both males and females, though the exact genes involved remain unclear.
  • This study aimed to explore rare genetic variants in the Xq28,distal locus and how they might contribute to SCZ risk, using advanced sequencing methods on a large sample of patients and controls.
  • Despite identifying some potentially functional variants, the analysis did not find a significant difference between patients with SCZ and controls, suggesting that more research is needed to understand the role of X-chromosomal factors in neuropsychiatric disorders.
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  • * In a study with 17 healthy volunteers, the relationship between anxiety during ketamine infusion and brain structure was explored, revealing that smaller hippocampal volumes were associated with higher anxiety scores.
  • * The findings indicate that the size of hippocampal subfields could help predict anxiety experiences during ketamine treatment and may also influence treatment outcomes in future therapies.
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  • * A study with 902 patients investigated the effectiveness of these treatments, using genetic analysis of 100 candidate genes to assess recovery patterns and side effects over time.
  • * The researchers developed a new method using neural networks to identify genetic patterns associated with treatment responses, achieving high classification accuracy for both responder and non-responder patients.
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The diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) relies on core cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers, amyloid beta (Aβ) and tau. As the brain is then already damaged, researchers still strive to discover earlier biomarkers of disease onset and the progression of AD. Glycation, advanced glycation end products (AGEs) and oxidative modifications on proteins in CSF mirror the underlying biological mechanisms that contribute to early AD pathology.

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  • There’s a theory that suggests schizophrenia symptoms might get better with medicine that blocks certain dopamine receptors, but not everyone gets better.
  • Researchers studied 21 people who were just diagnosed with schizophrenia and hadn’t taken medication before to see how dopamine release affected their symptoms over a year.
  • They found that certain areas of the brain releasing more dopamine were linked to improvements in symptoms, helping to understand why some patients respond better to treatment than others.
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The mitochondrial cascade hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been portrayed through molecular, cellular, and animal studies; however large epidemiological studies are lacking. This study aimed to explore the association of mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn), a marker representative of mtDNA abundance per cell, with risk of incident all-cause dementia, AD, and vascular dementia diagnosis within 17 years and dementia-related blood biomarkers (P-tau181, GFAP, and NfL). Additionally, sex-stratified analyses were completed.

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The clinical phenotype of the so-called late-onset depression (LOD) affecting up to 30% of older adults and yielding heterogeneous manifestations concerning symptoms, severity and course has not been fully elucidated yet. This European, cross-sectional, non-interventional, naturalistic multicenter study systematically investigated socio-demographic and clinical correlates of early-onset depression (EOD) and LOD (age of onset ≥ 50 years) in 1410 adult in- and outpatients of both sexes receiving adequate psychopharmacotherapy. In a total of 1329 patients (94.

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Modern electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and the approval of nasal esketamine for clinical use have significantly improved the approach to treatment-resistant depression (TRD), which is defined as non-response to at least two different courses of antidepressants with verified adherence to treatment, adequate dosage, and duration of treatment. The goal of this literature review is to present the newest evidence regarding efficacy and safety. Furthermore, we aim to provide an overview of future perspectives in this field of research, for example, regarding structural and molecular effects.

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The pathophysiology of many neuropsychiatric disorders is still poorly understood. Identification of biomarkers for these diseases could benefit patients due to better classification and stratification. Exosomes excreted into the circulatory system can cross the blood-brain barrier and carry a cell type-specific set of molecules.

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Background: GAA-FGF14 disease/spinocerebellar ataxia 27B is a recently described neurodegenerative disease caused by (GAA) expansions in the fibroblast growth factor 14 (FGF14) gene, but its phenotypic spectrum, pathogenic threshold, and evidence-based treatability remain to be established. We report on the frequency of FGF14 (GAA) and (GAA) expansions in a large cohort of patients with idiopathic downbeat nystagmus (DBN) and their response to 4-aminopyridine.

Methods: Retrospective cohort study of 170 patients with idiopathic DBN, comprising in-depth phenotyping and assessment of 4-aminopyridine treatment response, including re-analysis of placebo-controlled video-oculography treatment response data from a previous randomised double-blind 4-aminopyridine trial.

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Objectives: The cause of downbeat nystagmus (DBN) remains unknown in a substantial number of patients ("idiopathic"), although intronic GAA expansions in FGF14 have recently been shown to account for almost 50% of yet idiopathic cases. Here, we hypothesized that biallelic RFC1 expansions may also represent a recurrent cause of DBN syndrome.

Methods: We genotyped the RFC1 repeat and performed in-depth phenotyping in 203 patients with DBN, including 65 patients with idiopathic DBN, 102 patients carrying an FGF14 GAA expansion, and 36 patients with presumed secondary DBN.

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Article Synopsis
  • COVID-19 restrictions had a significant impact on mental health, with concerns that these measures could worsen psychiatric symptoms in the population.
  • A study used structural MRI, serum analyses, and psychometric assessments to explore changes in brain neurobiology and mental health symptoms in patients with recurrent major depressive disorder and healthy individuals during the pandemic.
  • Findings indicated no significant changes over time in brain structure or depressive symptoms, suggesting that nine months of lockdown measures did not visibly affect brain morphology or mental health outcomes in the studied group.
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Background: This study analyzed the extent to which irregularities in genetic diversity separate psychiatric patients from healthy controls.

Methods: Genetic diversity was quantified through multidimensional "gene vectors" assembled from 4 to 8 polymorphic SNPs located within each of 100 candidate genes. The number of different genotypic patterns observed per gene was called the gene's "diversity index".

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Loneliness, influenced by genetic and environmental factors such as childhood maltreatment, is one aspect of interpersonal dysfunction in Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Numerous studies link loneliness and BPD and twin studies indicate a genetic contribution to this association. The aim of our study was to investigate whether genetic predisposition for loneliness and BPD risk overlap and whether genetic risk for loneliness contributes to higher loneliness reported by BPD patients, using genome-wide genotype data.

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Background: The function of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is impaired in late-onset Alzheimer disease (LOAD), but the associated molecular mechanisms, particularly with respect to the high-risk APOE4/4 genotype, are not well understood. For this purpose, we developed a multicellular isogenic model of the neurovascular unit (NVU) based on human induced pluripotent stem cells.

Methods: The human NVU was modeled in vitro using isogenic co-cultures of astrocytes, brain capillary endothelial-like cells (BCECs), microglia-like cells, neural stem cells (NSCs), and pericytes.

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Late-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a complex multifactorial disease. The greatest known risk factor for late-onset AD is the E4 allele of the apolipoprotein E (APOE), while increasing age is the greatest known non-genetic risk factor. The cell type-specific functions of neural stem cells (NSCs), in particular their stem cell plasticity, remain poorly explored in the context of AD pathology.

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Article Synopsis
  • Scientists studied over 176,000 people to see how certain genes might protect against Parkinson's disease (PD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD).
  • They found that specific types of a gene called HLA could help reduce the risk of these diseases and lower harmful proteins in the brain.
  • This suggests that our immune system might help protect us from PD and AD, which could lead to new treatments in the future.
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  • The study investigates how endophenotypes, which are traits linked to psychosis, connect to genetic factors by examining specific gene sets.
  • It analyzed data from 4,506 participants to compute polygenic risk scores related to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, ultimately measuring their association with seven different endophenotypes.
  • Results indicated a significant link between reduced P300 amplitude and higher schizophrenia risk linked to forebrain-related genes, suggesting genetic variants influence early brain development and may heighten psychosis risk in the future.
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  • About 30% of people with downbeat nystagmus (DBN) don't know why they have it, and researchers think that a genetic issue called GAA repeat expansions might be a common cause for this.
  • In a study with 170 patients, they found that 48% had these GAA repeat expansions and that patients with this genetic change had more eye and movement issues related to the brain's balance control.
  • The patients with GAA repeat expansions responded better to a treatment called 4-aminopyridine (4-AP) compared to those without, showing that this genetic cause can help doctors decide how to treat DBN.
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The non-benzodiazepine hypnotic zolpidem is frequently administered as a short term psychopharmacotherapy for insomnia. Although it is well-established in a broad clinical routine and often well-tolerated, severe delirium and complex sleep behavior were reported in rare cases. Hereby, it remains unclear whether zolpidem's potential for delirium might be enhanced when combined with further psychopharmacotherapeutics.

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