Clinical practice for unspecified anxiety disorder in primary care.

Aim: Clinicians face difficulties in making treatment decisions for unspecified anxiety disorder due to the absence of any treatment guidelines. The objective of this study was to investigate how familiar and how often primary care physicians use pharmacological and nonpharmacological approaches to manage the disorder.

Methods: A survey was conducted among 117 primary care physicians in Japan who were asked to assess the familiarity of using each treatment option for unspecified anxiety disorder on a binary response scale (0 = "unfamiliar," 1 = "familiar") and the frequency on a nine-point Likert scale (1 = "never used," 9 = "frequently used").

Management of unspecified anxiety disorder: Expert consensus.

Aims: Treatment guidelines with respect to unspecified anxiety disorder have not been published. The aim of this study was to develop a consensus among field experts on the management of unspecified anxiety disorder.

Methods: Experts were asked to evaluate treatment choices based on eight clinical questions concerning unspecified anxiety disorder using a nine-point Likert scale (1 = "disagree" to 9 = "agree").

Does cognitive behavioral therapy alter mental defeat and cognitive flexibility in patients with panic disorder?

Objective: Mental defeat and cognitive flexibility have been studied as explanatory factors for depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. This study examined mental defeat and cognitive flexibility scores in patients with panic disorder (PD) before and after cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and compared them to those of a gender- and age-matched healthy control group.

Results: Patients with PD (n = 15) received 16 weekly individual CBT sessions, and the control group (n = 35) received no treatment.

Positive association between panic disorder and polymorphism of the serotonin 2A receptor gene.

Family and twin studies have shown that genetic factors play an important role in the etiology of panic disorder. However, linkage and association studies using DNA markers have yielded inconclusive results. Increased serotonin neurotransmission may cause or be related to panic disorder.

The influence on the schizophrenic symptoms by the DRD2Ser/Cys311 and -141C Ins/Del polymorphisms.

The hyperactivity of dopaminergic systems is one of the major etiological hypotheses of schizophrenia. The major support for this hypothesis is that effective antipsychotic drugs bind to dopamine receptors and improve acute schizophrenic symptoms. For this reason, we investigated the allelic association between schizophrenia and polymorphisms of the DRD2 genes for the Ser/Cys311 and -141C Ins/Del.