Background: Social cognitive and negative symptoms impairment may increase the risk of mental disability in individuals with schizophrenia. However, randomized controlled studies on the effectiveness of accelerated intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) for social cognition and negative symptoms in individuals with schizophrenia are very limited.
Methods: A total of 125 individuals with schizophrenia were recruited, 66 of whom were randomly divided into an active iTBS group (n=34) and sham iTBS group (n=32) by stratified sampling. Participants received either active iTBS or sham iTBS targeting the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) 20 sessions for 4 weeks under navigation. The Facial Emotion Recognition Test (FERT), Hinting Task (HT), and Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) were measured at baseline, 2 weeks, and 4 weeks. The trial protocol was registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR2100051984).
Results: Sixty patients (90.90%) completed the intervention and the 4-week follow-up, including 29 women (43.94%) and 37 men (56.06%) with a mean (SD) age of 47.53 (10.17) years. The primary outcomes showed FERT scores (week 2; 0.27 [95% CI, 0.09 to 0.45]; P< .01; ES 0.14) (week 4; 0.63 [95% CI, 0.45 to 0.80]; P< .001; ES 0.47) and HT scores (week 2; 1.00 [95% CI, -0.02 to 1.98]; P< .05; ES 0.67) (week 4; 2.13 [95% CI, 1.21 to 3.06]; P< .001; ES 0.27) in the active iTBS group were significantly different from those in the sham iTBS group at 2 and 4 weeks of follow-up. The secondary outcome showed that the negative symptom score (-3.43 [95% CI, -4.85 to -2.01]; P< .001; ES 0.29) of the active iTBS group was significantly different from that of the sham iTBS group at the 4th week of follow-up.
Conclusions: Accelerated iTBS can effectively ameliorate the social cognition and negative symptoms of individuals with schizophrenia. These results suggest that accelerated iTBS may be a safe and effective neuromodulation technique to improve the overall functional recovery of individuals with schizophrenia, and has a good clinical application prospect.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2022.115033 | DOI Listing |
Background: Social communication is a crucial factor influencing human social life. Quantifying the degree of difficulty faced in social communication is necessary for understanding developmental and neurological disorders and for creating systems used in automatic symptom screening and assistive methods such as social skills training (SST). SST by a human trainer is a well-established method.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur Psychiatry
January 2025
Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
Background: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a safe and effective treatment for several major psychiatric conditions, including treatment-resistant depression, mania, and schizophrenia; nevertheless, its use remains controversial. Despite its availability in some European countries, ECT is still rarely used in others. This study aims to investigate the experiences and attitudes of early career psychiatrists (ECPs) across Europe towards ECT and to examine how their exposure to ECT influences their perceptions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSchizophr Bull
January 2025
Orygen, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia.
Background: Although attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is known to be common in psychotic disorders, reported prevalence rates vary widely, with limited understanding of how different factors (eg, assessment methods, geographical region) may be associated with this variation. The aim was to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to determine the prevalence of ADHD in psychotic disorders and factors associated with the variability in reported rates.
Study Design: Searches were conducted in MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and Scopus in May 2023.
Psych J
January 2025
Neuropsychology and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory; CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Anhedonia is believed to be transdiagnostic symptom exist in various disorders including schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, and autism spectrum disorder. However, very few studies attempted to profile subclinical samples with schizophrenia, depressive, and autistic symptoms using measures of anhedonia scales. This study adopted a cluster analytical approach to examine the anhedonia profile in 46 individuals with schizotypal trait (ST), 43 subthreshold depression (SD), 27 autistic trait (AT), and 41 healthy controls.
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