125 results match your criteria: "Centre for Behavioural Sciences and Mental Health[Affiliation]"

Aims: Military veterans exposed to stressful or traumatic events may experience adjustment difficulties in the post-deployment period, developing a high risk of mental health-related issues. Promising complementary practices such as Equine-Assisted Therapy (EAT) are now widely used, although standardized protocols are missing. The present study aimed to develop an EAT standardized intervention.

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Exclusive breastfeeding (eBF) in infancy appears to offer a developmental advantage for children's brains compared to formula-fed counterparts. Existing research has predominantly focused on global brain measures (i.e.

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Data-Driven Cutoff Selection for the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 Depression Screening Tool.

JAMA Netw Open

November 2024

Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how using small datasets to select an optimal cutoff score for the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) can lead to inaccurate results.
  • Researchers evaluated whether data-driven methods for cutoff selection resulted in scores that were significantly different from the true population optimal score and if these methods produced biased accuracy estimates.
  • Findings showed that many small studies frequently failed to identify the correct optimal cutoff score, particularly in smaller samples, leading to an overestimation of test sensitivity.
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An open-label pilot trial of a five-day, accelerated rTMS protocol in bipolar II depression.

J Affect Disord

January 2025

Department of Neurosciences, Imaging and Clinical Sciences, Università degli Studi G. D'Annunzio, Chieti, Italy; Department of Mental Health, ASL 2 Abruzzo Lanciano-Vasto-Chieti, Chieti, Italy.

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Article Synopsis
  • Lactoferrin (LF) and osteopontin (OPN) are milk proteins that can form complexes, which were studied for their effects on infant digestion and health.
  • Pre-clinical models showed that these complexes enhance LF's protective qualities during digestion and improve its impact on gut health.
  • In a neonatal rodent model, LF-OPN coacervation promoted better bone structure and increased stiffness, indicating potential benefits for bone development.
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Neurodevelopmental outcomes in children living near hazardous waste sites: a systematic review.

Int J Environ Health Res

August 2024

Department Environment and Health, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Roma, Italy.

Article Synopsis
  • - Mismanagement of hazardous waste poses serious risks to the environment and human health, particularly affecting childhood neurobehavioral development.
  • - A systematic review of 75 studies identified nine that linked exposure to hazardous waste sites with negative cognitive and behavioral outcomes in children, including sufficient evidence specifically for lead exposure.
  • - Urgent action is required to remediate contaminated sites and address illegal hazardous waste management to protect children's health.
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Investigating the impact of L1 retrotransposons on behavior: A pilot study on young twins.

Schizophr Res

September 2024

Department of Neurosciences and Mental Health, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan, Italy. Electronic address:

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Article Synopsis
  • Treatment-Resistant Depression (TRD) is a significant health issue that's hard to tackle due to its complex nature and varied symptoms, prompting the need for better treatment strategies.
  • The SelecTool Project is introduced as a computational tool that combines clinical data, EEG, and blood biomarkers using machine learning to personalize TRD treatments, specifically focusing on esketamine nasal spray and accelerated repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.
  • The project involves two main phases: first, a study with 100 TRD subjects to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments, and then training the tool to assist in managing an additional 20 subjects, ultimately aiming to improve TRD treatment outcomes through advanced data analysis.
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Heritability of white matter in twins: A diffusion neuroimaging review.

Phys Life Rev

September 2024

Department of Neurosciences and Mental Health, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda, Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, via F. Sforza 35, Milan 20122, Italy. Electronic address:

Diffusion neuroimaging has emerged as an essential non-invasive technique to explore in vivo microstructural characteristics of white matter (WM), whose integrity allows complex behaviors and cognitive abilities. Studying the factors contributing to inter-individual variability in WM microstructure can provide valuable insight into structural and functional differences of brain among individuals. Genetic influence on this variation has been largely investigated in twin studies employing different measures derived from diffusion neuroimaging.

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Exposure to environmental pollutants, such as metals, pesticides, and air pollutants during early life, is a risk factor for neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), including Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Our systematic review aimed to select and summarize more recent case-control studies that examined the association between prenatal and early postnatal exposure to environmental pollutants and NDDs. We searched five databases (Web of Science, PubMed, Embase, Scopus, Ovid), screened 2261 records, and included 24 eligible case-control studies.

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Exploring the effects of family and life events on genetic and environmental architecture of schizotypal and hypomanic dimensions: Insights from a twin study.

J Affect Disord

October 2024

Department of Pathophysiology and Transplantation, University of Milan, Milan, Italy; Department of Neurosciences and Mental Health, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan, Italy. Electronic address:

Background: Strategies of prevention for psychiatric disorders need a deep understanding of the aetiological factors involved in the psychopathological processes. Our twin study aims at disentangling the contributions of genes and environment to schizotypal and hypomanic dimensions, considering the role of stressful life events (LEs) and the quality of family relationships.

Methods: The Magical Ideation Scale (MIS) and Perceptual Aberration Scale (PAS) were used to assess positive schizotypy, while Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPS) and its sub-scales were used to investigate proneness to affective disorders.

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Comparison of Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and Hospital Anxiety and Depression - Depression subscale scores by administration mode: An individual participant data differential item functioning meta-analysis.

J Affect Disord

September 2024

Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, Québec, Canada; Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada; Department of Medicine, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada; Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada; Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada; Biomedical Ethics Unit, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Article Synopsis
  • * Statistically significant differential item functioning (DIF) was found for most questionnaire items, but this had minimal impact on total scores.
  • * Researchers and clinicians can choose the administration method based on what works best for patients, considering preferences, feasibility, or cost, as score differences were negligible.
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Type 2 Diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a metabolic disorder characterized by chronic hyperglycemia, resulting from deficits in insulin secretion, insulin action, or both. Whilst the role of insulin in the peripheral nervous system has been ascertained in countless studies, its role in the central nervous system (CNS) is emerging only recently. Brain insulin has been lately associated with brain disorders like Alzheimer's disease, obsessive compulsive disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

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Article Synopsis
  • * A meta-analysis of 37 studies revealed that higher MEA is linked to different DNA methylation patterns in offspring at birth, childhood, and adolescence, with significant findings at 473 specific sites associated with maternal factors like smoking and nutrition.
  • * The research underscores the connection between socio-economic status and biological processes, enhancing our understanding of how maternal education impacts health through genetic mechanisms and emphasizing the role of social determinants in health disparities.
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Article Synopsis
  • Insulin can cause problems not just in the body, but also in the brain, leading to mental disorders like Alzheimer’s and OCD.
  • Scientists are studying rats to understand how high sugar levels (hyperglycemia) affect memory and focus.
  • This research hopes to explain how body and brain issues are connected, especially through problems with glucose (sugar) in our bodies.
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Cognitive flexibility involves the capability to switch between different perspectives and implement novel strategies upon changed circumstances. The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (in humans) and the Attentional Set-Shifting Task (ASST, in rodents) evaluate individual capability to acquire a reward-associated rule and subsequently disregard it in favour of a new one. Both tasks entail consecutive stages wherein subjects discriminate between: two stimuli of a given category (simple discrimination, SD); the stimuli of SD confounded by an irrelevant stimulus of a different category (compound discrimination, CD); different stimuli belonging to the SD category (intradimensional shift, IDS); and two stimuli of the confounding category (extradimensional shift, EDS).

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Corrigendum to "Comparing fast-acting interventions for treatment-resistant depression: An explorative study of accelerated HF-rTMS versus intranasal esketamine" [Brain Stimul 16 (2023)].

Brain Stimul

September 2023

Department of Neurosciences, Imaging and Clinical Sciences, Università degli Studi G. D'Annunzio, Chieti, Italy; Department of Mental Health, ASL 2 Abruzzo Lanciano-Vasto-Chieti, Chieti, Italy; Psychopharmacology, Drug Misuse and Novel Psychoactive Substances Research Unit, School of Life and Medical Sciences, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB, UK.

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Comparing fast-acting interventions for treatment-resistant depression: An explorative study of accelerated HF-rTMS versus intranasal esketamine.

Brain Stimul

November 2023

Department of Neurosciences, Imaging and Clinical Sciences, Università Degli Studi G. D'Annunzio, Chieti, Italy; Department of Mental Health, ASL 2 Abruzzo Lanciano-Vasto-Chieti, Chieti, Italy; Psychopharmacology, Drug Misuse and Novel Psychoactive Substances Research Unit, School of Life and Medical Sciences, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB, UK.

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Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a class of ubiquitous organic compounds produced during the incomplete combustion or pyrolysis of organic material. Dietary source is the main route for PAH human exposure by environmental contamination, food industrial processing or domestic cooking methods. The most studied PAH is benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P), due to its harmful and multiple effects on human health: in addition to its well-known carcinogenic effects, emerging evidence indicates that B[a]P also induces neurotoxicity earlier and at lower doses than B[a]P-induced carcinogenicity making B[a]P neurotoxicity relevant to human health risk assessment.

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Effects of the Rho GTPase-activating toxin CNF1 on fibroblasts derived from Rett syndrome patients: A pilot study.

J Cell Mol Med

May 2023

Department of Cardiovascular, Endocrine-Metabolic Diseases and Aging, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy.

The bacterial product CNF1, through its action on the Rho GTPases, is emerging as a modulator of crucial signalling pathways involved in selected neurological diseases characterized by mitochondrial dysfunctions. Mitochondrial impairment has been hypothesized to have a key role in paramount mechanisms underlying Rett syndrome (RTT), a severe neurologic rare disorder. CNF1 has been already reported to have beneficial effects in mouse models of RTT.

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Insulin and disorders of behavioural flexibility.

Neurosci Biobehav Rev

July 2023

Conway Institute of Biomedical and Biomolecular Research, School of Medicine, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

Behavioural inflexibility is a symptom of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder and Alzheimer's Disease, encompassing the maintenance of a behaviour even when no longer appropriate. Recent evidence suggests that insulin signalling has roles apart from its regulation of peripheral metabolism and mediates behaviourally-relevant central nervous system (CNS) functions including behavioural flexibility. Indeed, insulin resistance is reported to generate anxious, perseverative phenotypes in animal models, with the Type 2 diabetes medication metformin proving to be beneficial for disorders including Alzheimer's Disease.

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