[Innovative technology and mental health care. Survey on the usage of WhatsApp among Argentinian psychiatrists and psychologists].

Objective: Communication between patients and mental health professionals by means of messaging platforms in the interval between synchronous encounters became a kind of asynchronous teleconsultation (AT) whose usefulness and effect on providers’ workload have not been explored. Method: Mental health providers working in Argentina were invited to answer a survey exploring the intensity and usefulness of AT, and the resulting overload.

Results: A total of 527 responses from professionals working throughout the country were received.

Advancing ocular safety research: A comprehensive examination of benzocaine acute exposure without animal testing.

Benzocaine is a widely employed local anaesthetic; however, there is a notable dearth of preclinical and clinical evidence regarding its safety in ophthalmological products. To address this, a comprehensive strategy incorporating in silico and in vitro methodologies was proposed for assessing benzocaine's ocular toxicity without animal testing. To collect the in silico evidence, the QSAR Toolbox (v4.

[Multidimensional evaluation of a 12-month intensive outpatient program for the treatment of substance use disorder. Experience in Argentina].

Objective: The purpose of this study was to asess the efficacy of an intensive outpatient treatment (IOT) for substance use disorder (SUD) using a multidimensional approach.

Methods: All the patients consecutively admitted to a private institution between May 2019 and May 2020 were invited to participate in the study. The program consisted in a 12-month set of psychosocial, medical and recreative interventions requiring an attendance of at least 9 hours per week.

Body mass index, waist circumference, insulin, and leptin plasma levels differentiate between clozapine-responsive and clozapine-resistant schizophrenia.

Background: Between 25% and 50% of patients suffering from treatment-resistant schizophrenia fail to achieve a clinical response with clozapine. The rapid identification and treatment of this subgroup of patients represents a challenge for healthcare practice.

Aims: To evaluate the relationship between metabolic alterations and the clinical response to clozapine.

Comparison between HET-CAM protocols and a product use clinical study for eye irritation evaluation of personal care products including cosmetics according to their surfactant composition.

The hen's egg test on chorioallantoic membrane (HET-CAM) is one of the most frequently used alternative tests for prediction of ocular irritation of cosmetic products. There are different HET-CAM protocols widely accepted, but there is no information about which of the protocols better correlates with the results obtained in product use clinical study under the conditions of use. Two Fix Time Methods (FTM) -Lüepke and the ICCVAM guideline - and two Reaction Time Methods (RTM) -ECVAM DBALM Prot.

[Practical notes on locating and critically reading scientific bibliography to guide clinical decisions, with a focus on quantitative research].

In clinical practice it is increasingly imperative to obtain updated information for decision making. For health professionals, it is of great value to collect the experience that other workers in the disciplinary field have synthesized in the form of articles, reviews or different types of reports. Moreover, having tools that allow weighing the internal and external validity of the publications found, provides skills that today are essential for a clinical practice that guarantees patients the best standards of care.

[Association between mental illness, obesity and metabolic syndrome. Effect of the treatment with psychotropic drugs].

Persons with mental disorders present higher morbimortality than that observed in general population. Among the factors contributing with this situation we can mention an increase in the incidence of obesity and metabolic syndrome, with their burden of cardiovascular and cancer risks. This review summarizes the evidence about the comorbid presence of schizophrenia, unipolar depression and bipolar disorder on one side and metabolic syndrome or obesity on the other.

Pharmacokinetics of a novel spot-on formulation of praziquantel for dogs.

Praziquantel (PZQ) is an anthelmintic drug used both in humans and animals that can be administered through various routes. There are transdermal formulations for cats, but only oral or subcutaneous dosage forms for dogs. Given the fact that the cat's skin and the dog's skin have different characteristics, which in turn affect bioavailability, we developed a PZQ spot-on formulation for dogs.

Working memory training triggers delayed chromatin remodeling in the mouse corticostriatothalamic circuit.

Working memory is a cognitive function serving goal-oriented behavior. In the last decade, working memory training has been shown to improve performance and its efficacy for the treatment of several neuropsychiatric disorders has begun to be examined. Neuroimaging studies have contributed to elucidate the brain areas involved but little is known about the underlying cellular events.

[Dysthimia or chronic depression: what do we know about its pharmacological treatment?].

The term dysthymia is applied to a clinical picture characterized by depressive feelings of low intensity and chronic evolution. Psychiatric nosology includes it among the mood disorders or among neurosis and personality disorders. This ambiguity has empirical consequences, since bibliography examining the efficacy of the different treatments is relatively scarce, in particular if we consider the incidence of the dysthymic disorder, that rounds 3% of general population.

Effects of fluoxetine on CRF and CRF1 expression in rats exposed to the learned helplessness paradigm.

Rationale: Stress is a common antecedent reported by people suffering major depression. In these patients, extrahypothalamic brain areas, like the hippocampus and basolateral amygdala (BLA), have been found to be affected. The BLA synthesizes CRF, a mediator of the stress response, and projects to hippocampus.

[Physiopathogeny in psychiatry: discovery, construction or discovery plus construction? The "case" of depression].

This work summarizes the efforts made in the last twenty years towards the discovery of the physiopathogeny of mental diseases. It takes the "case" of major depression and reviews the different theories proposed to explain its physiopathogeny beginning with the role of excitatory aminoacids, glucocorticoids and trophic neurofactors in the '90s, the neurogenesis at the beginning of '00s and the genetics, the epigenetics and the research on neural networks in the last years. Result of these scientific efforts seem to be a construction which has at the same time the strength of the evidences employed in its building and the weakness that emerges from the reductionism necessary to obtain them.

[How do Argentinean psychiatrists treat bipolar depression?].

We show the results of a survey on bipolar depression treatment using a sample of 359 argentine psychiatrists in the context of The National Psychiatry Congress that took place in the City of Buenos Aires, between September 26th and 29th, 2007. The objective was to study the attendant psychiatrists' prescribing habits in the treatment of bipolar depression. The discussion is based on the comparison between the answers and the recommendations taken from the main consensus, guidelines and from articles published by experts.

Effects of T-type calcium channel blockers on cocaine-induced hyperlocomotion and thalamocortical GABAergic abnormalities in mice.

Rationale: Repetitive cocaine exposure has been shown to induce GABAergic thalamic alterations. Given the key role of T-type (Ca(V)3) calcium channels in thalamocortical physiology, the direct involvement of these calcium channels in cocaine-mediated effects needs to be further explored.

Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of T-type calcium channel blockers on acute and repetitive cocaine administration that mediates thalamocortical alterations in mice using three different T-type blockers: 2-octanol, nickel, and mibefradil.

[From symptomatic stability to functional recovery in the pharmacological treatment of schizophrenia and unipolar depression].

This work summarizes the efficacy of pharmacotherapy in the chronic course of schizophrenia and unipolar depresion. It is aimed to answer three questions: does it cure these diseases? Does it exert any significant effect on the symptomatic presentation of the disorders? Which is its action on the social dysfunction provoked by schizophrenia or depression? A conceptual analysis of available bibliography was performed. It could be concluded that antypsychotics improve the symptomatic course of schizophrenia, although their efficacy is limited, and that these drugs does not act on the social dysfunction provoked by the disease.

An enriched environment restores normal behavior while providing cytoskeletal restoration and synaptic changes in the hippocampus of rats exposed to an experimental model of depression.

The exposure of rats to an enriched environment (EE) has several effects in common with the administration of antidepressants. However, there is still little information about the molecular underpinnings of these effects on rats subjected to experimental models of depression. The aim of this research was to evaluate the effects of EE on rats exposed to the learned helplessness paradigm (LH), a well-known model of the disease.

Cocaine acute "binge" administration results in altered thalamocortical interactions in mice.

Background: Abnormalities in both thalamic and cortical areas have been reported in human cocaine addicts with noninvasive functional magnetic resonance imaging. Given the substantial involvement of the thalamocortical system in sensory processing and perception, we defined electrophysiology-based protocols to attempt a characterization of cocaine effects on thalamocortical circuits.

Methods: Thalamocortical function was studied in vivo and in vitro in mice after cocaine "binge" administration.

[Psychopharmacological drugs and ethiopathogenic theories in psychiatry. From discovery context to epistemological obstacle].

This work postulates the thesis that the development of the contemporary psychopharmacology, which began with the chemical changes imposed to molecules with antihistaminergic properties, modelled the current ethiopatogenic theories of mental diseases. The development of chlorpromazine and imipramine was coincident with the beginning of the research about neurotransmission. This coincidence contributed for the construction of the dopaminergic theory of schizophrenia and in the monoaminergic theory of depression.

[How do Argentinean psychiatrists treat depression?].

Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the prescribing practices of Argentinean psychiatrists in the treatment of major depression and to observe similarities and/or differences with some consensus or treatment guidelines.

Methodology: Four hundred two psychiatrists were surveyed during a specialty meeting in October 2005.

Results: A total of 88.