Background: High levels of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) traits are associated with various outcomes, including depressive symptoms, functional impairment, and low self-esteem. Additionally, individuals with high levels of ADHD traits are reported to be more adversely affected by fear of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The current study aimed to examine whether the association between ADHD traits and outcomes was partially mediated by fear of COVID-19 using mediation analysis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study investigated the factor structure and determined the reliability and validity of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire-Japanese version (CAT-Q-J) among 204 autistic and 410 non-autistic people. Since a confirmatory factor analysis revealed no factor validity of the CAT-Q-J for both autistic and non-autistic adults, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted to ensure the psychometric properties matched those of the original scale as much as possible. The results showed the CAT-Q-J comprised three subscales, a four-item compensation subscale, a five-item masking scale, and a five-item assimilation subscale.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Autistic people demonstrate focused interests, sensitivity to sensory stimulation, and, compared with the general population, differences in social communication and interaction. We examined whether a combination of the Awareness and Care for My Autistic Traits (ACAT) program and treatment-as-usual is more effective than only treatment-as-usual in increasing the understanding of autistic attributes, reducing treatment stigma, and improving mental health and social adaptation among autistic adolescents and their parents/guardians.
Methods: Forty-nine adolescents and their parents/guardians were randomly assigned to either a combination of ACAT and treatment-as-usual or only treatment-as-usual.
Jinhua pigs have excellent meat quality and intramuscular fat content (IMF). Crossbreeding of Jinhua with Duroc pigs with high productivity was conducted to develop a new composite breed that possesses the beneficial characteristics of both breeds. The objective of this study was to estimate the crossbreeding parameters (additive breed, dominance, and epistatic loss effects) using the Kinghorn model and genetic parameters (heritability and genetic correlation) for carcass and meat quality traits by analysing the phenotypic data of Jinhua, Duroc, and their crossbred pigs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Most previous studies that described associations between adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and sociodemographic characteristics were focused on individuals diagnosed with ADHD, and few studies investigated ADHD traits in the general population. Additionally, some workers, who experienced no problems while at university and successfully graduated from university, developed ADHD traits after finding employment. This study described associations between ADHD traits and sociodemographic characteristics among Japanese workers who were university graduates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Major depression is one of the most common mental health problems worldwide. More than one-third of patients suffer from treatment-resistant depression (TRD). In this study, we explored the feasibility of group compassion-focused therapy (CFT) for TRD using a randomized controlled trial with two parallel groups.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn 1908, Bleuler proposed a unitary theory of schizophrenia, hypothesizing a "loosening of associations" as the central mechanism underlying disturbances in thinking, motivation, and affective expression. Here, we test Bleuler's model in an archival sample of 79 healthy controls and 76 patients with chronic schizophrenia who had completed neuropsychological tests, including a measure of learning of novel word pairs, which was specifically selected to probe the structure and formation of new verbal associations. The patients also had positive and negative symptoms ratings, including measures of flat affect, anhedonia, and thought disorder.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIndividuals with high levels of autistic traits are at a high risk of experiencing depressive symptoms, and are also vulnerable to job stress. This study aimed to identify which combination of autistic traits and type of job stress are related to depressive symptoms. Participants comprised 992 workers from different regions of Japan.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIt is a serious problem when people with mental disorders avoid, delay, discontinue, or do not use treatment and support, despite the existence of evidence-based treatment and support methods. In this study, we aimed to clarify the factor structure of BACE v3, a scale to measure barriers to accessing mental health care, and to examine its reliability and validity among Japanese people with mental disorders. An online survey with 268 participants, 20 years old and over, who had received care from mental health services in the past 12 months was conducted.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: In clinical settings, diagnosing comorbid depression in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is often difficult. Neuroimaging studies have reported reduced activation of frontal and temporal regions during emotional face recognition task (EFRT) in ASD and depression. However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has examined differences in frontotemporal activation during EFRT between ASD with and without comorbid depression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn clinical settings, autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with comorbid depression is often difficult to diagnose, and should be considered in treatment. However, to our knowledge, no functional imaging study has examined the difference between ASD adolescents with and without comorbid depression. We aimed to compare the characteristics and prefrontal brain function of ASD with and without depression in order to identify a biological marker that can be used to detect the difference.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: This study aimed to validate the Sick, Control, One stone, Fat, and Food (SCOFF) questionnaire in relation to the Eating Disorders Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) and to examine the appropriateness of a question concerning weight loss among Japanese university students. The psychometric properties of the two Japanese versions were determined among 649 Japanese college students. The original version (SCOFF-O) employed the original item 3, whereas the revised version (SCOFF-2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: It is challenging to safely treat blood blister-like aneurysms (BBAs) of the internal carotid artery. Endovascular surgery has been reported, but the optimal strategy is yet to be established. We report our endovascular treatment strategy using the Low-profile Visualized Intraluminal Support (LVIS) stent.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: One aim of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis is to obtain special support for the disorder, though this does not guarantee practical support. We developed a psychoeducational program using cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and Aware and Care for my Autistic Traits (ACAT) for Japanese adolescents with high-functioning ASD and their parents.
Methods: This multisite study is a randomized controlled trial.
Background: Idarucizumab is a specific antidote for the anticoagulant dabigatran. Although its efficacy has been recently reported, the drug is still in postmarketing surveillance and requires case data in different emergency settings. A newer intravenous thrombolytic therapy with recombinant tissue plasminogen activator has been proposed after injection of idarucizumab in patients receiving dabigatran; however, the safety and efficacy of this therapy are equivocal because of the limited number of reported cases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is a good deal of evidence that cognitive behavioural therapy is effective for children and adolescents with anxiety-related problems. In Japan, an anxiety prevention programme based on cognitive behavioural therapy called 'Journey of the Brave' has been developed, and it has been demonstrated to be effective for elementary school students (aged 10-11 years). The purpose of this study was to have classroom teachers deliver the programme to junior high school students (aged 12-13 years) and to test the feasibility and efficacy of the programme in this setting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe hypothesized that neuropsychological disturbance in schizophrenia (SZ) may reflect faulty interactions of executive attention and episodic memory, emanating, in part, from reduced prefrontal cortex (PFC) gray matter volume. Participants with SZ (n = 84) and age-matched (n = 77) controls completed both the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) and the Wechsler Memory Scale-Third Edition (WMS-III), used, respectively, as measures of executive attention and episodic memory. A subset of SZ (n = 27) and control (n = 17) groups also had available 3-T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies of the PFC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough smaller gray matter volumes (GMV) in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have been reported cross-sectionally, there are, to our knowledge, no reports of longitudinal comparisons using manually drawn, gyrally based ROI, and their associations with symptoms. The object of this study was to determine whether first-episode schizophrenia (FESZ) and first-episode affective psychosis (FEAFF) patients show initial and progressive PFC GMV reduction in bilateral frontal pole, superior frontal gyrus (SFG), middle frontal gyrus (MFG), and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and examine their symptom associations. Twenty-one FESZ, 24 FEAFF and 23 healthy control subjects (HC) underwent 1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The postoperative metabolic states of subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) patients were investigated using indirect calorimetry (IDC) and various nutritional evaluations to establish any difference in perioperative metabolic and nutritional states between microsurgical and endovascular treatment.
Methods: This study included 30 acute aneurysmal SAH patients with ruptured intracranial aneurysms treated by surgical clipping (n = 16) or coil embolization (n = 14) at a single institute. The resting energy expenditure (REE) and respiratory quotient were measured using IDC on days 1, 4, 7, 10, 14, and 17-21 after the operation.
A 68-year-old woman presented with segmental aplasia of bilateral internal carotid arteries accompanied by unruptured intracranial aneurysms. The abnormality was discovered incidentally at the age of 44 years. Cerebral angiography showed occlusion of bilateral internal carotid arteries, and the carotid territory was supplied by each posterior communicating artery with small intracranial aneurysms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe combined diffusion tension imaging (DTI) of prefrontal white matter integrity and neuropsychological measures to examine the functional neuroanatomy of human intelligence. Healthy participants completed the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition (WAIS-III) along with neuropsychological tests of attention and executive control, as measured by Trail Making Test (TMT) and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Stochastic tractography, considered the most effective DTI method, quantified white matter integrity of the medial orbital frontal cortex (mOFC) and rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) circuitry.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The lowering of the age of onset and chronicity have been key problems related to eating disorders (EDs). As the proportion of teens in the estimated onset ages has increased, it has become important to detect students with EDs and to clarify how they can be supported. Though epidemiological surveys of teachers (school nurse/health science teachers) have been conducted to inquire about the number of such students, none of these were done according to ED type based on DSM-5.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Many studies have focused on the decreasing age of onset of eating disorders (EDs). Because school-age children with EDs are likely to suffer worse physical effects than adults, early detection and appropriate support are important. The cooperation of Yogo teachers is essential in helping these students to find appropriate care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: It is important to understand the neural basis of functional impairments in patients with bipolar disorder (BD) in order to be able to address the recovery. Recently, neurocognitive impairment emerged as a predictor of psychosocial function. A number of functional brain imaging studies have shown that social function is associated with activation of the prefrontal cortex during a cognitive task in healthy adults, and in patients with major depressive disorder and schizophrenia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF