48 results match your criteria: "Brain Center University Medical Center Utrecht[Affiliation]"

Article Synopsis
  • The study explores the biological differences linked to PTSD by examining DNA methylation changes in blood, suggesting they could indicate susceptibility or effects of trauma.
  • Conducted by the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, the research included nearly 5,100 participants to identify specific genetic markers associated with PTSD.
  • Results showed 11 significant CpG sites related to PTSD, with some also showing correlations between blood and brain tissue methylation, highlighting their potential role in understanding PTSD biology.
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Background: The interest in psychedelics as a therapeutic intervention for existential distress of people with terminal illness grounds on their mechanism of action and effect on the spiritual/existential aspects accompanying end-of-life experiences.

Aims: This systematic review and network meta-analysis aimed at examining the efficacy and safety of psychedelic compounds for existential distress in terminally ill people.

Methods: PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, EMBASE, and clinicaltrials.

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  • Subcortical brain structures play a crucial role in various developmental and psychiatric disorders, and a study analyzed brain volumes in 74,898 individuals, identifying 254 genetic loci linked to these volumes, which accounted for up to 35% of variation.
  • The research included exploring gene expression in specific neural cell types, focusing on genes involved in intracellular signaling and processes related to brain aging.
  • The findings suggest that certain genetic variants not only influence brain volume but also have potential causal links to conditions like Parkinson’s disease and ADHD, highlighting the genetic basis for risks associated with neuropsychiatric disorders.
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  • Subcortical brain structures play a crucial role in various disorders, and a study analyzed the genetic basis of brain volumes in nearly 75,000 individuals of European ancestry, revealing 254 loci linked to these volumes.
  • The research identified significant gene expression in neural cells, relating to brain aging and signaling, and found that polygenic scores could predict brain volumes across different ancestries.
  • The study highlights genetic connections between brain volumes and conditions like Parkinson's disease and ADHD, suggesting specific gene expression patterns could be involved in neuropsychiatric disorders.
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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers aimed to create and validate Methylation Risk Scores (MRS) using machine learning to identify individuals at risk for PTSD based on genomic and trauma exposure data.
  • The study developed three models: eMRS (which combines trauma exposure and methylation data), MoRS (which relies only on methylation data), and MoRSAE (which adjusts MoRS for trauma exposure).
  • The eMRS model showed the best performance with a 92% accuracy, and all models were able to predict post-deployment PTSD significantly, suggesting that including trauma exposure improves risk assessment.
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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the link between post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and differences in DNA methylation, a type of gene regulation, in blood samples from individuals diagnosed with PTSD compared to trauma-exposed controls.
  • Researchers conducted a large-scale analysis involving over 5,000 participants from various civilian and military studies, using standardized procedures for PTSD assessment and DNA methylation testing.
  • The results revealed 11 specific DNA methylation sites associated with PTSD, and found similarities in methylation patterns between blood and brain tissues, suggesting a biological basis for the condition.
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Investigating the impact of poverty on mental illness in the UK Biobank using Mendelian randomization.

Nat Hum Behav

September 2024

Department of Psychiatry, Brain Center University Medical Center Utrecht, University Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands.

It is unclear whether poverty and mental illness are causally related. Using UK Biobank and Psychiatric Genomic Consortium data, we examined evidence of causal links between poverty and nine mental illnesses (attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), anorexia nervosa, anxiety disorder, autism spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia). We applied genomic structural equation modelling to derive a poverty common factor from household income, occupational income and social deprivation.

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Fibroblasts as an in vitro model of circadian genetic and genomic studies.

Mamm Genome

September 2024

Center for Neurobehavioral Genetics, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a heritable disorder characterized by shifts in mood that manifest in manic or depressive episodes. Clinical studies have identified abnormalities of the circadian system in BD patients as a hallmark of underlying pathophysiology. Fibroblasts are a well-established in vitro model for measuring circadian patterns.

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Clonidine for post-traumatic stress disorder: a systematic review of the current evidence.

Eur J Psychotraumatol

June 2024

Department of Psychiatry, Brain Center University Medical Center Utrecht, University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Clonidine is a centrally acting anti-adrenergic agent that may have applications in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), particularly for sleep. In this systematic review, we aimed to summarize the effect of clonidine on sleep quality and duration, nightmares, and PTSD symptom severity in adults with PTSD. PubMed (Medline), Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and clinicaltrials.

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Article Synopsis
  • PTSD genetics have been difficult to study compared to other psychiatric disorders, limiting our biological understanding of the condition.
  • A large-scale meta-analysis involving over 1.2 million individuals identified 95 genome-wide significant loci, with 80 being new discoveries related to PTSD.
  • Researchers identified 43 potential causal genes linked to neurotransmitter activity, developmental processes, synaptic function, and immune regulation, enhancing our knowledge of the neurobiological systems involved in PTSD.
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Background: One of the most robust risk factors for developing a mood disorder is having a parent with a mood disorder. Unfortunately, mechanisms explaining the transmission of mood disorders from one generation to the next remain largely elusive. Since timely intervention is associated with a better outcome and prognosis, early detection of intergenerational transmission of mood disorders is of paramount importance.

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Bipolar disorder (BD) is a heritable disorder characterized by shifts in mood that manifest in manic or depressive episodes. Clinical studies have identified abnormalities of the circadian system in BD patients as a hallmark of underlying pathophysiology. Fibroblasts are a well-established model for measuring circadian patterns.

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This study investigated associations of the Incredible Years (IY) parenting program with children's DNA methylation. Participants were 289 Dutch children aged 3-9 years (75% European ancestry, 48% female) with above-average conduct problems. Saliva was collected 2.

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Background: Incorporating genomic data into risk prediction has become an increasingly useful approach for rapid identification of individuals most at risk for complex disorders such as PTSD. Our goal was to develop and validate Methylation Risk Scores (MRS) using machine learning to distinguish individuals who have PTSD from those who do not.

Methods: Elastic Net was used to develop three risk score models using a discovery dataset (n = 1226; 314 cases, 912 controls) comprised of 5 diverse cohorts with available blood-derived DNA methylation (DNAm) measured on the Illumina Epic BeadChip.

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Childhood abuse neglect and risk for major psychiatric disorders.

Psychol Med

June 2024

Department of Psychiatry, Brain Center University Medical Center Utrecht, University Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Background: Childhood maltreatment (CM) is a strong risk factor for psychiatric disorders but serves in its current definitions as an umbrella for various fundamentally different childhood experiences. As first step toward a more refined analysis of the impact of CM, our objective is to revisit the relation of abuse and neglect, major subtypes of CM, with symptoms across disorders.

Methods: Three longitudinal studies of major depressive disorder (MDD, = 1240), bipolar disorder (BD, = 1339), and schizophrenia (SCZ, = 577), each including controls ( = 881), were analyzed.

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We present a comprehensive multi-omic analysis of the EPISTOP prospective clinical trial of early intervention with vigabatrin for pre-symptomatic epilepsy treatment in Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC), in which 93 infants with TSC were followed from birth to age 2 years, seeking biomarkers of epilepsy development. Vigabatrin had profound effects on many metabolites, increasing serum deoxycytidine monophosphate (dCMP) levels 52-fold. Most serum proteins and metabolites, and blood RNA species showed significant change with age.

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Article Synopsis
  • Invasive medical procedures can make kids feel scared and in pain, so it's important to help them manage these feelings in a way that works best for them.
  • A study talked to children and their parents about their experiences with these procedures to find out what they need to feel better.
  • The main findings showed that kids and parents want doctors to give special attention to each child's feelings and coping methods to build trust and help them feel more in control during medical treatments.
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Background: It has not yet been determined if the commonly reported cannabis-psychosis association is limited to individuals with pre-existing genetic risk for psychotic disorders.

Methods: We examined whether the relationship between polygenic risk score for schizophrenia (PRS-Sz) and psychotic-like experiences (PLEs), as measured by the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences-42 (CAPE-42) questionnaire, is mediated or moderated by lifetime cannabis use at 16 years of age in 1740 of the individuals of the European IMAGEN cohort. Secondary analysis examined the relationships between lifetime cannabis use, PRS-Sz and the various sub-scales of the CAPE-42.

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Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have uncovered susceptibility loci associated with psychiatric disorders like bipolar disorder (BP) and schizophrenia (SCZ). However, most of these loci are in non-coding regions of the genome with unknown causal mechanisms of the link between genetic variation and disease risk. Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analysis of bulk tissue is a common approach to decipher underlying mechanisms, though this can obscure cell-type specific signals thus masking trait-relevant mechanisms.

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Article Synopsis
  • This study investigates the neurobiology of cognition in chimpanzees and humans, focusing on brain connectivity and cognitive abilities.
  • Researchers assessed cognitive skills through specialized tests, revealing that higher cognitive scores in chimpanzees correlates with strong connectivity in brain networks similar to humans.
  • The findings indicate that some core neural systems of cognition might have evolved before humans and chimpanzees diverged, while also highlighting differences in brain network specialization, like language in humans and spatial memory in chimpanzees.
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Background: Epigenetic clocks are based on DNA methylation levels of several genomic loci and have been developed as indices of biological aging. Studies examining the effects of stressful environmental exposures have shown that stress is associated with differences between epigenetic age and chronological age (i.e.

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Background Insight into outcome variation between hospitals could help to improve quality of care. We aimed to assess the validity of early outcomes as quality indicators for acute ischemic stroke care for patients treated with endovascular therapy (EVT). Methods and Results We used data from the MR CLEAN (Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial of Endovascular Treatment for Acute Ischemic Stroke in the Netherlands) Registry, a large multicenter prospective cohort study including 3279 patients with acute ischemic stroke undergoing EVT.

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Objectives: Patients with single-sided deafness (SSD) may experience difficulties with speech perception in noise, sound localization, have tinnitus and experience a reduced quality of life (QoL). contralateral routing of sound hearing aids (CROS) or bone conduction devices (BCD) may partly improve subjective speech communication and QoL in SSD patients. A trial period with these devices can help in making a well-informed choice of treatment.

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Background: With advances in clinical genetic testing, associations between genetic neurodevelopmental disorders and parkinsonism are increasingly recognized. In this review, we aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of reports on parkinsonism in genetic neurodevelopmental disorders and summarize findings related to genetic diagnosis, clinical features and proposed disease mechanisms.

Methods: A systematic literature review was conducted in PubMed and Embase on June 15, 2021.

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Introduction: There is a lack of comprehensive and uniform data on primary upper extremity deep venous thrombosis (pUEDVT). pUEDVT includes venous thoracic outlet syndrome related upper extremity deep venous thrombosis (UEDVT) and idiopathic UEDVT. Research on these conditions has been hampered by their rarity, lack of uniform diagnostic criteria, and heterogeneity in therapeutic strategies.

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