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.

The benefits of the Mediterranean diet in first episode psychosis patients taking antipsychotics.

Background: The side effects of antipsychotics (APs), related to weight gain and metabolic disturbances, can contribute to the health burden of psychotic people.

Objective: To explore a) the level of adherence to the Mediterranean Diet (MedDiet) and consumption of fermented foods by first episode of psychosis (FEPs) patients taking APs, in comparison to matched -for age and BMI- healthy controls (HCs), and b) the effect of this dietary pattern on the biochemical and metabolic profile of FEPs.

Method: The study population consisted of 33 FEPs treated with APs for less than 5 years, with no history of other chronic diseases, and an equal number of HCs.

The need for holistic, longitudinal and comparable, real-time assessment of the emotional, behavioral and societal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic across nations.

As of the end of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to over 82 million verified infections and almost 1.8 million COVID-19-related deaths worldwide,1 resulting to an unprecedented public health response around the globe. The COVID-19 pandemic, together with the applied multi-level restrictive measures, has generated a unique combination of an unpredictable and stressful biomedical and socioeconomic environment (i.

Stable patients with schizophrenia switched to paliperidone palmitate 3-monthly formulation in a naturalistic setting: impact of patient age and disease duration on outcomes.

Background: Paliperidone palmitate 3-monthly (PP3M) is a second-generation, long-acting injectable antipsychotic formulation indicated for the maintenance treatment of adults with schizophrenia first stabilized with paliperidone palmitate 1-monthly (PP1M). This exploratory subgroup analysis of the 52-week, phase 3b REMISSIO study analysed outcomes according to patient age and disease duration in a naturalistic clinical setting.

Methods: Outcomes of patients with schizophrenia were analysed according to age [<35 years ( = 123) ⩾35 years ( = 182)] and disease duration [⩽3 years ( = 72) >3 years ( = 233)].

Symptomatic and functional outcomes after treatment with paliperidone palmitate 3-month formulation for 52 weeks in patients with clinically stable schizophrenia.

Background: Paliperidone palmitate 3-monthly (PP3M) formulation is a long-acting, injectable antipsychotic treatment approved in many countries worldwide for the maintenance treatment of adult patients with schizophrenia. This single-arm, open-label, phase IIIb study evaluated the efficacy and safety of converting patients with schizophrenia stabilized with paliperidone palmitate 1-month (PP1M) to PP3M in a naturalistic clinical setting.

Methods: After screening (days -7 to 1), patients were converted from PP1M (50-150 mg eq.

Moderators of treatment efficacy in individualized metacognitive training for psychosis (MCT+).

Background And Objectives: Individualized Metacognitive Training (MCT+) is a manualized intervention designed to improve delusional severity by reducing delusion-associated cognitive biases such as jumping-to-conclusions. Increased interest in personalized medicine stipulates the identification of patients who are more likely to benefit from specialized interventions. The present study aimed to explore baseline moderators of MCT+ efficacy on delusions and overall positive symptoms in psychosis.

Autobiographical memory deficits in remitted patients with bipolar disorder I: The effect of impaired memory retrieval.

Autobiographical memory (AM) has been studied extensively in different psychiatric disorders. However, less is known about AM in bipolar disorder (BD). Aim of the present study was to investigate BD patients' ability to recall episodic and semantic autobiographical memories after controlling for the effect of other possible neurocognitive deficits.

Resilience Predicts Social Functioning in Clinically Stable Patients With Bipolar Disorder.

The current study focused on the association between resilience and social functioning in patients with bipolar disorder (BD). Forty clinically stable patients with BD type I and BD type II, as well as 40 healthy controls, matched for age, sex, and educational background were enrolled. Clinical status was assessed by the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale and the Young Mania Rating Scale.

Differential relationship of jumping-to-conclusions and incorrigibility with delusion severity.

Reasoning biases such as jumping-to-conclusions (JTC) and incorrigibility have been suggested to contribute to the generation and maintenance of delusions. However, it is still debated whether these biases represent stable traits of patients with delusions, or are related to state fluctuations of delusion severity. The present study aimed to elucidate this question by combining a cross-sectional with a longitudinal approach.

The effect of impaired verbal memory retrieval on autobiographical memory across different life periods in schizophrenia.

Objectives: Autobiographical memory (AM) involves recollection of personal events and facts about one's life. Αim of the present study was to investigate AM in schizophrenia patients, and, in particular, patients' ability to recall autobiographical memories after controlling for verbal memory and verbal fluency deficits.

Method: Participants included 40 schizophrenia patients (23 male) and 40 healthy controls (23 male), matched for age, gender, educational level, and premorbid intellectual functioning.

Treatment response and tolerability with once-monthly paliperidone palmitate initiated shortly after hospital admission in patients with schizophrenia.

Objectives: Partial or non-adherence in patients with schizophrenia is common and increases the risk of relapse. This study explored safety, tolerability and treatment outcomes in patients hospitalised for an exacerbation of schizophrenia initiated on maintenance treatment of once-monthly paliperidone palmitate (PP1M).

Methods: A 6-week, observational cohort study of patients initiated on PP1M within 3 weeks after hospital admission.

Improved facial affect recognition in schizophrenia following an emotion intervention, but not training attention-to-facial-features or treatment-as-usual.

In schizophrenia, impaired facial affect recognition (FAR) has been associated with patients' overall social functioning. Interventions targeting attention or FAR per se have invariably yielded improved FAR performance in these patients. Here, we compared the effects of two interventions, one targeting FAR and one targeting attention-to-facial-features, with treatment-as-usual on patients' FAR performance.

Resilience in Patients With Recent Diagnosis of a Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder.

This study focused on resilience in patients who recently received a diagnosis of schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD). Psychopathological symptoms, depressive symptoms, and hopelessness were considered as sources of stress in the context of psychosis. Forty-eight SSD patients (mean period between diagnosis and recruitment, 20.

The role of obsessive-compulsive symptoms in the perception of insincere speech in first-episode psychosis.

Objectives: The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of comorbid obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS) on the perception of insincere speech (e.g., sarcasm and white lies) in patients with first-episode psychosis.

Associations between visual perception accuracy and confidence in a dopaminergic manipulation study.

Delusions are defined as fixed erroneous beliefs that are based on misinterpretation of events or perception, and cannot be corrected by argumentation to the opposite. Cognitive theories of delusions regard this symptom as resulting from specific distorted thinking styles that lead to biased integration and interpretation of perceived stimuli (i.e.

Effects of dopaminergic modulation on automatic semantic priming: a double-blind study.

Background: Enhanced automatic spreading of activation in the semantic network has been suggested to underlie formal thought disorder in patients with schizophrenia, but it is not clear how this relates to the dopaminergic dysfunction implicated in the disorder. Previous studies on dopaminergic modulation of priming in healthy volunteers have focused on controlled rather than automatic processes. The present study aimed to examine the effects of both a dopaminergic agonist and a dopaminergic antagonist on semantic priming while minimizing the contribution of controlled processes.

The predictive significance of neurocognitive factors for functional outcome in bipolar disorder.

Purpose Of Review: Poor psychosocial functioning in bipolar disorder often persists even after affective symptom remission. Cognitive deficits, which have emerged as a core feature of bipolar disorder in the past few years, are among the factors implicated in adverse psychosocial outcomes of patients suffering from bipolar disorder. This review aims to overview recent literature on the association of neurocognition and psychosocial functioning in bipolar disorder.

Familial comorbidity of bipolar disorder and multiple sclerosis: genetic susceptibility, coexistence or causal relationship?

Our purpose in undertaking the present study was to examine the hypotheses proposed for explaining the frequent comorbidity of bipolar disorder and multiple sclerosis. One hypothesis posits that, when there is comorbidity, MS plays a causal role in psychiatric manifestations. Another suggests that both disorders have a common underlying physiological process that increases the likelihood of their co-occurrence.

Humor appreciation of captionless cartoons in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Background: It seems that the core neural regions and cognitive processes implicated in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) pathophysiology may overlap with those involved in humor appreciation. However, to date, there have been no studies that have explored humor appreciation in OCD. The purpose of the present work was to investigate humor appreciation in a group of patients with OCD.

Longitudinal studies of cognition in first episode psychosis: a systematic review of the literature.

Although cognitive deficits are recognized as a core feature in schizophrenia, their evolution over the course of the illness is still debated. Longitudinal studies of cognition in patients after a first episode of psychosis (FEP) provide extremely useful information, in that they include an adequate and realistic baseline measure of cognitive performance, while at the same time minimizing the effect of confounding variables associated with chronicity. The aim of this systematic review was to summarize findings of studies assessing the longitudinal course of neuropsychological deficits in patients with FEP for durations of at least one year.

Sex differences in neuropsychological functioning among schizophrenia patients.

Objectives: Evidence from the literature addressing sex differences in cognition in schizophrenia remains equivocal, with some researchers suggesting that male schizophrenia patients are more impaired than female subjects, while others report no significant sex differences in cognitive functioning. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the differential pattern of cognitive performance observed in healthy men and women is preserved in male and female schizophrenia patients.

Method: Ninety-six schizophrenia patients (56 men) were compared with 62 age- and gender-ratio matched healthy controls (31 men), on a battery of neuropsychological tests that assessed basic cognitive abilities: attention, working memory, abstraction, inhibition, fluency, verbal learning and memory, visual memory, visuospatial skills, and psychomotor speed.

Differential impact of lacunes and microvascular lesions on poststroke depression.

Background And Purpose: Previous studies have postulated that poststroke depression (PSD) might be related to cumulative vascular brain pathology rather than to the location and severity of a single macroinfarct. We performed a detailed analysis of all types of microvascular lesions and lacunes in 41 prospectively documented and consecutively autopsied stroke cases.

Methods: Only cases with first-onset depression <2 years after stroke were considered as PSD in the present series.

The neuroanatomical model of post-stroke depression: towards a change of focus?

One third of all stroke survivors develop post-stroke depression (PSD). Depressive symptoms adversely affect rehabilitation and significantly increase risk of death in the post-stroke period. One of the theoretical views on the determinants of PSD focuses on psychosocial factors like disability and social support.

Effects of sentence context on lexical ambiguity resolution in patients with schizophrenia.

Previous research has suggested that a failure in processing contextual information may account for the heterogeneous clinical manifestations and cognitive impairments observed in schizophrenia. In the domain of language, context processing in schizophrenia has been investigated mostly with single-word semantic priming paradigms; however, natural language comprehension depends on more than semantic relations between words. The present study aimed to systematically assess sentence context effects in homonym meaning activation in patients with schizophrenia.