Physician Care Coordination and the Use of Psychotropic Polypharmacy in the Management of Pediatric Mental Disorders.

Background: Psychotropic polypharmacy is a concern in the management of pediatric mental disorders due to the lack of pediatric data to support the practice. Although seeing multiple providers has been identified as an important predictor of polypharmacy, no study has yet assessed the effect of care coordination between providers on receipt of psychotropic polypharmacy.

Objective: To examine the association between the intensity of care coordination within a patient's care team and the likelihood of the patient receiving multiclass psychotropic polypharmacy.

Overview of pharmacogenomic testing in clinical practice.

Introduction: Pharmacogenomic tests relevant to neuropsychiatric medications have been clinically available for more than a decade, but the utility of regular testing is still unknown. Tests available include both pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic targets. The potential practice benefits vary with each target.

Clinical potential of psilocybin as a treatment for mental health conditions.

Psilocybin, a classic hallucinogen, is a chemical produced by more than 100 species of mushrooms worldwide. It has high affinity for several serotonin receptors, including 5-HT, 5-HT, and 5-HT, located in numerous areas of the brain, including the cerebral cortex and thalamus. With legislation introduced in 1992, more work is being done to further understand the implications of psilocybin use in a number of disease states.

Treating Addiction to Prescription Opioids.

For over 30 years, medication-assisted treatment for preventing relapse in opiate use disorder has been limited to methadone maintenance and withdrawal treatments followed by naltrexone; however, buprenorphine has emerged as an exciting and successful pharmacotherapy alternative. Buprenorphine is a partial μ-opioid receptor agonist with less abuse potential and a favorable safety profile compared to methadone and offers a great opportunity of office-based opioid addiction treatment (OBOT) to improve patient access. However, we have limited number of providers certified to prescribe buprenorphine in South Dakota.

Trends in Substance Use Across the Nation and South Dakota.

With the discovery of morphine in the early 1800s, substance abuse quickly followed. Next came the production of heroin and other synthetic opioids, along with increases in nonmedical use of prescription medications. In the 21st century, drug abuse and addiction continues to rise nationwide with the three most common drugs abused in adolescents being marijuana, synthetic marijuana, and hallucinogens.

De novo and inherited CNVs in MZ twin pairs selected for discordance and concordance on Attention Problems.

Copy number variations (CNVs) have been reported to be causal suspects in a variety of psychopathologic traits. We investigate whether de novo and/or inherited CNVs contribute to the risk for Attention Problems (APs) in children. Based on longitudinal phenotyping, 50 concordant and discordant monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs were selected from a sample of ∼3200 MZ pairs.

Berberine and evodiamine influence serotonin transporter (5-HTT) expression via the 5-HTT-linked polymorphic region.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of berberine and evodiamine on serotonin transporter (5-HTT) expression and then test how allelic variations previously identified in the promoter region could modulate that effect in the serotonergic neuronal cell line RN46A. Both berberine and evodiamine, alone and in combination, increased 5-HTT mRNA and protein expression significantly across the various alleles. When tested against the S, XS(11), L(G), L(A), XL(17), and XL(18) alleles, respectively, 100 μM berberine increased 5-HTT promoter activities by 67%, 128.

Using a commercially available DNA extraction kit to obtain high quality human genomic DNA suitable for PCR and genotyping from 11-year-old saliva saturated cotton spit wads.

Background: We sought to describe the integrity of human genomic DNA extracted from saliva saturated cotton spit wads stored at -20 degrees C for approximately 11 years. 783 spit wad samples were collected from an ADHD sample population (Vermont Family Study) during 1996-2000. Human genomic DNA was extracted from the spit wads using a commercially available kit; QIAamp DNA Blood Midi Kit (Qiagen, Inc.