Exploring correlates of high psychiatric inpatient utilization in Switzerland: a descriptive and machine learning analysis.

Background: This study investigated socio-demographic, psychiatric, and psychological characteristics of patients with high versus low utilization of psychiatric inpatient services. Our objective was to better understand the utilization pattern and to contribute to improving psychiatric care.

Methods: One-hundred and twenty inpatients of the University Psychiatric Clinics (UPK) Basel, Switzerland, participated in this cross-sectional study.

BMIgap: a new tool to quantify transdiagnostic brain signatures of current and future weight.

Understanding the neurobiological underpinnings of weight gain could reduce excess mortality and improve long-term trajectories of psychiatric disorders. We used support-vector machines and whole-brain voxel-wise grey matter volume to generate and validate a BMI predictor in healthy individuals (N = 1504) and applied it to individuals with schizophrenia (SCZ,N = 146), clinical high-risk states for psychosis (CHR,N = 213) and recent-onset depression (ROD,N = 200). We computed BMIgap (BMI-BMI), interrogated its brain-level overlaps with SCZ and explored whether BMIgap predicted weight gain at 1- and 2-year follow-up.

[Psychedelics in psychiatry: an open debate].

The application of psychedelics in psychiatry and psychotherapy is increasingly the subject of scientific evaluation and discussion in national and international professional and general society, and, internationally, has already been partly applied in the clinical setting. The manuscript provides a basic description of the state of the art regarding evidence and clinical issues; law, ethics and economics are addressed; therapeutic qualification of potential users and a potentially clinical embedding in psychiatry are discussed, taking into consideration current challenges. Thus, the discussion will cover the circumstances under which the application of psychedelics might have a potential to broaden the spectrum of treatments in certain psychiatric conditions, particularly in the context of chronicity and treatment resistance to current methods.

Collaborative Outcomes Study on Health and Functioning During Infection Times (COH-FIT): Global and Risk-Group Stratified Course of Well-Being and Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Adolescents.

Objective: To identify the COVID-19 pandemic impact on well-being/mental health, coping strategies, and risk factors in adolescents worldwide.

Method: This study was based on an anonymous online multi-national/multi-language survey in the general population (representative/weighted non-representative samples, 14-17 years of age), measuring change in well-being (World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index [WHO-5]/range = 0-100) and psychopathology (validated composite P-score/range = 0-100), WHO-5 <50 and <29, pre- vs during COVID-19 pandemic (April 26, 2020-June 26, 2022). Coping strategies and 9 a priori- defined individual/cumulative risk factors were measured.

Test-retest reliability of behavioral and computational measures of advice taking under volatility.

The development of computational models for studying mental disorders is on the rise. However, their psychometric properties remain understudied, posing a risk of undermining their use in empirical research and clinical translation. Here we investigated test-retest reliability (with a 2-week interval) of a computational assay probing advice-taking under volatility with a Hierarchical Gaussian Filter (HGF) model.

Parsing heterogeneity in global and local white matter integrity at different stages across the psychosis continuum.

Psychosis progresses along a continuum. While heterogeneity is evident across the continuum, it remains unknown whether this is also reflected in white matter (WM) heterogeneity and whether parsing WM heterogeneity may reveal subgroups with more pronounced clinical features. This analysis included 212 participants consisting of healthy controls (HC, n = 59), individuals with high schizotypy (SPT, n = 27), at-risk mental state (ARMS, n = 35), and patients with first episode psychosis (FEP, n = 50) and schizophrenia (SZ, n = 41).

Patient-related characteristics or local tradition: what predicts the admission to a locked ward or the use of coercive measures in psychiatric inpatient treatment?

Prior research shows that locked doors and coercive measures are not only applied due to safety concerns, but also due to the specific local tradition of an institution. We examined the association of the use of coercive measures and the admission to a locked ward with person-related characteristics compared to the admission to a specific clinic. In this 15-year, naturalistic observational study, we examined 230,684 admissions to 14 German psychiatric inpatient clinics from Jan 1, 1998, to Dec 31, 2012.

Altered brain complexity in first-episode antipsychotic-naïve patients with schizophrenia: A whole-brain voxel-wise study.

Background: Measures of cortical topology are believed to characterize large-scale cortical networks. Previous studies used region of interest (ROI)-based approaches with predefined templates that limit analyses to linear pair-wise interactions between regions. As cortical topology is inherently complex, a non-linear dynamic model that measures the brain complexity at the voxel level is suggested to characterize topological complexities of brain regions and cortical folding.

Individualized pretest risk estimates to guide treatment decisions in patients with clinical high risk for psychotic disorders.

Introduction: Clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR) states are associated with an increased risk of transition to psychosis. However, the predictive value of CHR screening interviews is dependent on pretest risk enrichment in referred patients. This poses a major obstacle to CHR outreach campaigns since they invariably lead to risk dilution through enhanced awareness.

Large-scale brain connectivity changes following the administration of lysergic acid diethylamide, d-amphetamine, and 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine.

Psychedelics have recently attracted significant attention for their potential to mitigate symptoms associated with various psychiatric disorders. However, the precise neurobiological mechanisms responsible for these effects remain incompletely understood. A valuable approach to gaining insights into the specific mechanisms of action involves comparing psychedelics with substances that have partially overlapping neurophysiological effects, i.

Serum Metabolites as Potential Markers and Predictors of Depression-like Behavior and Effective Fluoxetine Treatment in Chronically Socially Isolated Rats.

Metabolic perturbation has been associated with depression. An untargeted metabolomics approach using liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry was employed to detect and measure the rat serum metabolic changes following chronic social isolation (CSIS), an animal model of depression, and effective antidepressant fluoxetine (Flx) treatment. Univariate and multivariate statistics were used for metabolic data analysis and differentially expressed metabolites (DEMs) determination.

Verbal Learning and Memory Deficits across Neurological and Neuropsychiatric Disorders: Insights from an ENIGMA Mega Analysis.

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.

Evidence from comprehensive independent validation studies for smooth pursuit dysfunction as a sensorimotor biomarker for psychosis.

Smooth pursuit eye movements are considered a well-established and quantifiable biomarker of sensorimotor function in psychosis research. Identifying psychotic syndromes on an individual level based on neurobiological markers is limited by heterogeneity and requires comprehensive external validation to avoid overestimation of prediction models. Here, we studied quantifiable sensorimotor measures derived from smooth pursuit eye movements in a large sample of psychosis probands (N = 674) and healthy controls (N = 305) using multivariate pattern analysis.

Anhedonia as a Potential Transdiagnostic Phenotype With Immune-Related Changes in Recent-Onset Mental Health Disorders.

Background: Chronic low-grade inflammation is observed across mental disorders and is associated with difficult-to-treat-symptoms of anhedonia and functional brain changes, reflecting a potential transdiagnostic dimension. Previous investigations have focused on distinct illness categories in people with enduring illness, but few have explored inflammatory changes. We sought to identify an inflammatory signal and the associated brain function underlying anhedonia among young people with recent-onset psychosis and recent-onset depression.

Altered Perception of Environmental Volatility During Social Learning in Emerging Psychosis.

Paranoid delusions or unfounded beliefs that others intend to deliberately cause harm are a frequent and burdensome symptom in early psychosis, but their emergence and consolidation still remains opaque. Recent theories suggest that overly precise prediction errors lead to an unstable model of the world providing a breeding ground for delusions. Here, we employ a Bayesian approach to test for such an unstable model of the world and investigate the computational mechanisms underlying emerging paranoia.

Reduced prevalence of drug-related problems in psychiatric inpatients after implementation of a pharmacist-supported computerized physician order entry system - a retrospective cohort study.

Introduction: In 2021, a computerized physician order entry (CPOE) system with an integrated clinical decision support system (CDSS) was implemented at a tertiary care center for the treatment of mental health conditions in Lübeck, Germany. To date, no study has been reported on the types and prevalence of drug-related problems (DRPs) before and after CPOE implementation in a psychiatric inpatient setting. The aim of this retrospective before-and-after cohort study was to investigate whether the implementation of a CPOE system with CDSS accompanied by the introduction of regular medication plausibility checks by a pharmacist led to a decrease of DRPs during hospitalization and unsolved DRPs at discharge in psychiatric inpatients.

Distinct Volume Alterations of Thalamic Nuclei Across the Schizophrenia Spectrum.

Background And Hypothesis: Abnormal thalamic nuclei volumes and their link to cognitive impairments have been observed in schizophrenia. However, whether and how this finding extends to the schizophrenia spectrum is unknown. We hypothesized a distinct pattern of aberrant thalamic nuclei volume across the spectrum and examined its potential associations with cognitive symptoms.

Distinct multimodal biological and functional profiles of symptom-based subgroups in recent-onset psychosis.

Symptom heterogeneity characterizes psychotic disorders and hinders the delineation of underlying biomarkers. Here, we identify symptom-based subtypes of recent-onset psychosis (ROP) patients from the multi-center PRONIA (Personalized Prognostic Tools for Early Psychosis Management) database and explore their multimodal biological and functional signatures. We clustered N = 328 ROP patients based on their maximum factor scores in an exploratory factor analysis on the items.

Aging effects on the encoding/retrieval flip in associative memory: fMRI evidence from incidental contingency learning.

Introduction: Associative memory is arguably the most basic memory function and therein constitutes the foundation of all episodic and semantic memory processes. At the same time, the decline of associative memory represents a core feature of age-related cognitive decline in both, healthy and pathological (i.e.