Additive effects of a family history of schizophrenia spectrum disorders and an environmental risk score for the outcome of patients with non-affective first-episode psychosis.

Background: First-episode psychotic disorders comprise a heterogeneous phenotype with a complex etiology involving numerous common small-effect genetic variations and a wide range of environmental exposures. We examined whether a family of schizophrenia spectrum disorder (FH-Sz) interacts with an environmental risk score (ERS-Sz) regarding the outcome of patients with non-affective first episode psychosis (NAFEP).

Methods: We included 288 patients with NAFEP who were evaluated after discharge from an intensive 2-year program.

Long-term trajectories of clinical staging in first-episode psychosis and their associated cognitive outcome: A 21-year follow-up study.

Cognitive deficits are already present before psychosis onset but are a key feature of first-episode psychosis (FEP). The objective of this study was to investigate the cognitive outcomes of a cohort of FEP patients who were diagnosed using the clinical staging approach and were followed for up to 21 years. We analyzed data from 173 participants with first-admission psychosis who were followed-up for a mean of 20.

Effect of polygenic risk score, family load of schizophrenia and exposome risk score, and their interactions, on the long-term outcome of first-episode psychosis.

Background: Consistent evidence supports the involvement of genetic and environmental factors, and their interactions, in the etiology of psychosis. First-episode psychosis (FEP) comprises a group of disorders that show great clinical and long-term outcome heterogeneity, and the extent to which genetic, familial and environmental factors account for predicting the long-term outcome in FEP patients remains scarcely known.

Methods: The SEGPEPs is an inception cohort study of 243 first-admission patients with FEP who were followed-up for a mean of 20.

Empirical validity of Leonhard's psychoses: A long-term follow-up study of first-episode psychosis patients.

The validation of nosological diagnoses in psychiatry remains a conundrum. Leonhard's (1979) nosology seems to be one of the few acceptable alternative categorical models to current DSM/ICD systems. We aimed to empirically validate Leonhard's four classes of psychoses: systematic schizophrenia (SSch), unsystematic (USch), cycloid psychosis (Cyclo), and manic-depressive illness (MDI) using a comprehensive set of explanatory validators.

Neurocognitive correlates of the varied domains of outcomes at 20 year follow-up of first-episode psychosis.

Little is known about long-term outcomes of the first episode of psychosis (FEP) other than in the symptomatic domain. We hypothesised that cognitive impairment is associated with poorer multi-domain outcomes at a long-term follow-up of FEP patients. We followed-up 172 FEP patients for a mean of 20.

Assessment of cognitive impairment in psychosis spectrum disorders through self-reported and interview-based measures.

Self-reported and interview-based measures can be considered coprimary measures of cognitive performance. We aimed to ascertain to what extent cognitive impairment in psychotic disorders, as assessed with a neuropsychological battery, is associated with subjective cognitive complaints compared to difficulties in daily activities caused by cognitive impairment. We assessed 114 patients who had a psychotic disorder with a set of neuropsychological tests and two additional measures: the Cognitive Assessment Interview-Spanish version (CAI-Sp) and the Frankfurt Complaint Questionnaire (FCQ).

Familial liability to schizophrenia and mood disorders and cognitive impairment in psychosis.

Schizophrenia and other psychoses are complex disorders with high rates of cognitive impairment and a considerable degree of genetic and environmental influence on its etiology. Whether cognitive impairment is related to dimensional scores of familial liability is still matter of debate. We conducted a cross-sectional study including 169 patients with psychotic disorders and 26 healthy controls.

The association of lifetime insight and cognition in psychosis.

Poor insight has been related to poor course in psychosis. However, the role of cognition in insight remains unclear. The aim of this study was to examine the influence of cognition and lifetime psychopathological dimensions on insight in psychosis.

Lifetime cannabis use and cognition in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and their unaffected siblings.

The relationship between cannabis and cognitive performance is controversial. While both acute administration and long-term cannabis use impair cognitive performance in healthy subjects, several studies have shown improved cognitive outcomes in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders who use cannabis. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between lifetime cannabis use, as assessed longitudinally over 10 years of follow-up in a sample of 42 patients and 35 of their unaffected siblings, and current cognitive performance.

Executive functioning in schizophrenia spectrum disorder patients and their unaffected siblings: a ten-year follow-up study.

Executive dysfunction represents a core deficit that is associated with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs). However, the longitudinal course of executive deficits in SSDs is still controversial. The aim of this study was to examine the executive performance of 34 SSD patients in relation to 34 of their unaffected siblings over a period of 10 years.

An Australian environmental survey reveals moderate Spiroplasma biodiversity: characterization of four new serogroups and a continental variant.

An environmental survey of tabanid host spiroplasma carriage was undertaken at 10 collection sites in Australia during February 1999. A total of 164 tabanid flies, representing 27 species, were collected and sustainable spiroplasma isolations were made from 48 of the flies. The morphology of the cultured spiroplasmas, as observed in M1D medium under dark-field microscopy, was typical of either (i) Apis group spiroplasmas (relatively thick cells (approximately 150 nm) with six or more turns) or (ii) chrysopicola-syrphidicola-TAAS-1 clade spiroplasmas (narrower, often much shorter cells) serologically related to Spiroplasma serogroup VIII.

Empirical validation of competing definitions of schizophrenia: a poly-diagnostic study of cognitive impairment in non-affective psychosis.

Background: The empirical validation of diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia remains a controversial issue within psychiatry and allied sciences. Most diagnostic criteria are still influenced to a large extent by historical and consensus-based perspectives.

Methods: A poly-diagnostic approach including a set of 23 operationalized diagnostic criteria were administered to probands with non-affective psychosis (n=169).

The woodchuck hepatitis virus post-transcriptional regulatory element reduces readthrough transcription from retroviral vectors.

The woodchuck hepatitis virus post-transcriptional regulatory element (WPRE) increases transgene expression from a variety of viral vectors, although the precise mechanism is not known. WPRE is most effective when placed downstream of the transgene, proximal to the polyadenylation signal. We hypothesized that WPRE likely reduces viral mRNA readthrough transcription by improving transcript termination, which in turn would increase viral titers and expression.

Insight dimensions and cognitive function in psychosis: a longitudinal study.

Background: It has been reported that lack of insight is significantly associated with cognitive disturbance in schizophrenia. This study examines the longitudinal relationships between insight dimensions and cognitive performance in psychosis.

Methods: Participants were 75 consecutively admitted inpatients with schizophrenia, affective disorder with psychotic symptoms or schizoaffective disorder.

The Val66Met polymorphism of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor gene is associated with risk for psychosis: evidence from a family-based association study.

Schizophrenia (SZ) is a prevalent and severe mental disorder. One of the most favored hypotheses for the etiology of SZ is the neurodevelopmental hypothesis. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a member of the neurotrophin growth factor family, promotes the development, regeneration, and survival of neurons and has been linked to the neuropathology of SZ.

Dermatoglyphic anomalies and neurocognitive deficits in sibling pairs discordant for schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

The neurodevelopmental hypothesis of schizophrenia suggests that adverse genetic loading in conjunction with environmental factors early in fetal life causes a disruption of neural development, decades before the symptomatic manifestation of the disease. Neurocognitive deficits have been observed early on the course of schizophrenia, and their association with an early developmental brain lesion has been postulated. Dermatoglyphics have been analyzed in schizophrenia as markers of prenatal brain injury because of their early fetal ontogenesis and susceptibility to the same environmental factors that can also affect cerebral development.

New evidence of association between COMT gene and prefrontal neurocognitive function in healthy individuals from sibling pairs discordant for psychosis.

Objective: Using a sample of sibling pairs discordant for psychosis, the authors attempted to replicate the findings of previous studies suggesting that the functional genetic polymorphism Val158Met in the catechol O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene influences prefrontal cognitive function and increases the risk for schizophrenia.

Method: Eighty-nine sibling pairs discordant for psychosis were genotyped for this polymorphism and were assessed with the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, a measure of prefrontal function. Additionally, the preferential transmission of alleles for this polymorphism was analyzed in a sample of 89 nuclear families in order to examine the genetic association.

[Psychological factors and psychotherapeutic approaches in depressive disorders].

This paper reviews the contributions of the different psychological orientations to the understanding and treatment of depressive disorders. Special emphasis is placed on explaining the foundations and methodology of the psychotherapeutic alternatives that at present enjoy the widest diffusion. Finally, reflection on the complexity of the depressive pictures, and on the reality within which the person suffering from this disorder is immersed, obliges us to support the recommendation of combined therapies, to emphasise the lack of a solid body of research concerning the efficacy of the treatments and the adjustment of the different modalities of psychotherapy to the different disorders and depressive patients, and to recommend that preventive strategies should be taken into account as well as those of treatment.

Neurological soft-signs in psychosis: threshold criteria for discriminating normal controls and for predicting cognitive impairment.

It is well established that psychotic patients obtain higher scores on neurological soft-sign (NSS) examinations than normal controls, and also that their cognitive performance is poorer. The aims of the present study were to find threshold criteria that distinguish between normal individuals and patients suffering from psychosis, and to investigate the predictive power of NSS for cognitive impairment. The sample was composed of 56 patients suffering from psychosis and 26 normal controls.

Are personality traits associated with cognitive disturbance in psychosis?

Objective: Personality and cognition are often considered as disparate constructs, both in normal individuals and in those with a psychosis. The goal of the present study was to analyze the relationship between dimensions of personality and cognitive performance in individuals with psychosis.

Methods: Sixty-one consecutively admitted patients with an acute psychotic episode were recruited for this study.

Effects of olanzapine and other antipsychotics on cognitive function in chronic schizophrenia: a longitudinal study.

This study aimed to determine the effect of olanzapine and other antipsychotic drugs on cognitive functions after 6months of treatment. Baseline, 3month and 6month psychopathological and cognitive evaluations were made. Thirty-eight partially responsive outpatients with DSM-IV chronic schizophrenia diagnosis were included in the study.

Reappraising insight in psychosis. Multi-scale longitudinal study.

Background: Many patients suffering from psychosis are unaware of their disorder and symptoms.

Aims: To investigate whether insight changes with time, and how it relates to patients' psychopathology, and to examine the correlations between insight scales in patients with psychoses.

Methods: Seventy-five consecutively admitted in-patients with schizophrenia, affective disorder with psychotic symptoms, or schizoaffective disorder were examined after remission of an acute episode and at follow-up (> 6 months).

Psychopathological dimensions and lack of insight in schizophrenia.

The present study investigated the relationships of psychopathological dimensions of schizophrenia with Insight in a sample of 100 acute schizophrenic patients. Lack of insight was significantly correlated with disorganized, excited and negative schizophrenic dimensions but not with other Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale dimensions. In addition, when insight was assessed through a multidimensional approach, a variety of relationships with the schizophrenic dimensions were found.

Illness duration and neuropsychological impairments in schizophrenia.

This study aims to verify whether cognitive disturbances in schizophrenic patients are associated with illness duration, and to examine the influence of other covariates on neuropsychological disturbances. Sixty-nine consecutive admissions of schizophrenic patients (DSM-III-R, APA, 1987) were included to an acute psychiatric unit. Patients were evaluated by a semistructured interview and assessed with the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) and the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS).