Inpatient antipsychotic medication switching and rehospitalization risk among patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.

Objective: To describe patterns of antipsychotic switching among patients hospitalized for schizophrenia and to correlate antipsychotic switching with hospital readmission risk.

Methods: We identified 3295 patients with index hospitalizations for schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder from New York State Medicaid claims 2017-2018 who had filled at least one prescription for an antipsychotic in both the 44 days (one month +14 day grace period) prior to and after their admission. We identified patients who had kept or switched any of their antipsychotic medication between the pre- and post-periods surrounding their index hospitalization.

Cannabis use selectively modulates circulating biomarkers in the blood of schizophrenia patients.

Cannabis use disorder is frequent in schizophrenia patients, and it is associated with an earlier age of onset and poor schizophrenia prognosis. Serotonin 2A receptors (5-HT2AR) have been involved in psychosis and, like Akt kinase, are known to be modulated by THC. Likewise, endocannabinoid system dysregulation has been suggested in schizophrenia.

Sensitive periods for the effect of childhood interpersonal violence on psychiatric disorder onset among adolescents.

Although childhood adversity is a strong determinant of psychopathology, it remains unclear whether there are 'sensitive periods' when a first episode of adversity is most harmful.To examine whether variation in the developmental timing of a first episode of interpersonal violence (up to age 18) associates with risk for psychopathology.Using cross-sectional data, we examined the association between age at first exposure to four types of interpersonal violence (physical abuse by parents, physical abuse by others, rape, and sexual assault/molestation) and onset of four classes of DSM-IV disorders (distress, fear, behaviour, substance use) ( = 9984).

[Advancing public mental health research in Latin America].

This special issue on Mental Health of the Journal of the School of Medicine, represents a significant contribution to the advance of public mental health research and training in Latin America. The editors (as well as the authors) deserve much credit for having conceived and implemented the joint publication of these papers. In this brief introduction, I draw attention to four ways in which their effort is likely to accelerate progress in this field.

Anxiety, motor activation, and maternal-infant interactions in 5HT1B knockout mice.

This study describes the development of anxiety and motor activation in mice lacking the serotonin (5HT) 1B receptor and in wild type controls and characterizes their early mother-infant interactions. In the isolation-induced ultrasonic vocalization paradigm, 5HT1B knockout pups vocalized less and were hyperactive, rearing, jumping, and rolling more often than wild type pups. One week postpartum, 5HT1B knockout mothers spent 20% more of their time outside the nest and were also hyperactive, rearing and climbing to the edge of the cage more often than the wild type mothers.