bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Mental health in paris: The homeless issue
Authors: Petitjean F. 
Published: May 2011

The Paris population covered, in 2007 2.181.000 inhabitants. This covers the city itself. When adding the surrounding towns, the total figure reaches 6.507.000, more than half the total Ile de France region.A recent study (LAPORTE, 2010) gives an estimate of 21.000 persons being homeless in the Paris megapole. A third of these individuals suffer from severe mental illness, with a prevalence of 13, 2% for psychotic disorders, 6,7% for affective disorders, 12,2% for anxiety and 21% for personality disorders.Psychoactive substances are to of concern for 29% of the homeless population.The author will present data from a two consecutive studies carried out in the Paris megapole concerning the homeless population. (KOVESS, 2001; LAPORTE, 2010).The author will present data from a two consecutive studies carried out in the Paris megapole concerning the homeless population. (KOVESS, 2001; LAPORTE, 2010).
Toxoplasma gondii-altered host behaviour: Clues as to mechanisms of action and implications for its role in some cases of human schizophrenia
Authors: Webster J. , Kaushik M. , Prandovszky E. , McConkey G. 
Published: May 2011

IntroductionRecognition of the role of infectious agents in a range of both acute and chronic diseases is increasing. One key example is the potential epidemiological and neuropathological association between some cases of schizophrenia with the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii. T. gondii establishes persistent infection within the CNS and can alter host behaviour. Altered dopamine levels have been reported for both T. gondii infection and schizophrenia. Several medications used to treat schizophrenia demonstrate anti-T. gondii properties, and haloperidol, a dopamine antagonist, can prevent the development of T. gondii-altered behaviour in rodents. Furthermore, T. gondii may actually be a source of dopamine, as it encodes a copy of the mammalian enzyme tyrosine hydroxylase, which represents the rate-limiting step in dopamine synthesis.AimsUsing the epidemiologically and clinically applicable rat-T. gondii model, and incorporating a battery of classical and novel non-invasive behavioural and physiological assays, we aim to further elucidate the impact of T. gondii on behaviour and the mechanisms involved.ResultsT. gondii increases the rats’ propensity for predation risk through enhanced activity, visibility and manipulation of their perception of predation risk, turning innate aversion into a ‘suicidal’ feline attraction. There is little indication that T. gondii alters the rats generalized anxiety, nor potential to enhanced predation by non-definitive mammalian host species. Preliminary associative analyses into the relationship between individual behavioural alterations and neurotransmitter and brain cysts localisation profiles will be presented.ConclusionsOur results provide further evidence for a role of T. gondii in the aetiology of some cases of schizophrenia.
Different impact of t.gondii seropositivity on the brain morphometry in schizophrenia and healthy control groups
Authors: Horacek J. , Flegr J. , Holub D. , Tintera J. , Novak T. , Brunovsky M. , Höschl C. 
Published: May 2011

BackgroundThe role of coccidian protozoa Toxoplasma gondii represents one of the most enigmatic and unexplained questions in the field of pathophysiology of schizophrenia. To address the role of latent Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) infection in pathophysiology of schizophrenia we studied the influence of latent toxoplasmosis on brain morphology in schizophrenia.MethodsMagnetic resonance imaging was analyzed by an optimized voxel-based-morphometry (VBM) in 44 schizophrenic patients (12 T. gondii positive) and 56 controls (13 T. gondii positive). The full factorial model of analysis of variance with diagnosis and seropositivity for latent toxoplasmosis as factors was used to address the differences in gray and white matter.FindingsVBM analyses showed the grey matter (GM) volume reduction in schizophrenia patients compared with controls bilaterally in the neocortical regions, hippocampus, middle and posterior cingulate and in the caudate. In the subgroup of patients and controls seropositive to T. gondii the reduction of GM was located in the same regions as in the whole sample and consisted of 11660 over-threshold voxels (p£0.05, FWR corrected). The differences between T. gondii negative patients and controls consisted only of 289 voxels in temporal and mediotemporal regions.DiscussionOur study is the first to document that latent toxoplasmosis reduces GM in schizophrenia but not in controls. The higher morphological vulnerability of patients but not controls to T. gondii infection represents an indirect support for the epidemiological evidence of the role of latent toxoplasmosis in schizophrenia.AcknowledgmentsThis work was supported by grants 1M0517.
From mirror neurons to embodied simulation: A new neuroscientific perspective on intersubjectivity
Authors: Gallese V. 
Published: May 2011

Our seemingly effortless capacity of conceiving of the acting bodies inhabiting our social world as goal-oriented individuals like us depends on the constitution of a shared “we-centric” space. I have proposed that this shared manifold space can be characterized at the functional level as embodied simulation, a basic functional mechanism by means of which our brain/body system models its interactions with the world.The mirroring mechanism for action and other mirroring mechanisms in our brain represent sub-personal instantiations of embodied simulation. Embodied simulation provides a new empirically based notion of intersubjectivity, viewed first and foremost as intercorporeity. Embodied simulation challenges the notion that Folk-psychology is the sole account of interpersonal understanding. Before and below mind reading is intercorporeity as the main source of knowledge we directly gather about others.By means of embodied simulation we can map others’ actions onto our own motor representations, as well as others’ emotions and sensations onto our own viscero-motor and somatosensory representations. “Representation”, as used here, refers to a particular type of content, generated by the relations that our situated and inter-acting brain-body system instantiates with the world. Such content is pre-linguistic and pre-theoretical, but nevertheless has attributes normally and uniquely attributed to conceptual content.Social cognition is not only explicitly reasoning about the contents of someone else's mind. Embodied simulation, gives us a direct insight of other minds thus enabling our capacity to empathize with others.This proposal opens new perspectives on our understanding of autism and other psychopathological states such as schizophrenia.
Putative cerebral correlates of abberant pain processing in depression
Authors: Bär K.J. , Terhaar J. , Boettger M.K. 
Published: May 2011

The complex sensory experience of pain involves cognitive, behavioural and emotional aspects which are closely interrelated. While patients suffering from major depressive disorder (MDD) mainly exhibit increased thresholds towards experimentally induced thermal pain applied to the skin, the induction of sad mood increases pain perception in healthy controls.Neurobiological underpinnings of the discrepancy of pain perception in depression and after sad mood induction in healthy volunteers will help to understand aberrant pain perception in the disease. Patients and controls were rated on mood scales and results were correlated to brain activity assessed in fMRI sessions. Similarly, autonomic modulation in respect to pain perception was assessed in patients.We found a highly significant reduction in heat pain threshold on the left hand after sad mood induction in patients and controls. Subjects were scanned twice, one group before and after sad-mood induction and another group before and after neutral-mood induction, respectively. Our main finding was a significant group×mood induction interaction bilaterally in the ventrolateral nucleus of the thalamus indicating a BOLD signal increase after sad-mood induction and a BOLD signal decrease in the control group.We present evidence that induced sad affect leads to reduced heat pain thresholds in healthy subjects and depressed patients. This is probably due to altered lateral thalamic activity, which is potentially associated with changed attentional processes. Furthermore we present evidence for similar changes in depressed patients after sad mood induction. Autonomic modulation is less likely to interfere with pain perception in the disease.
Pain processing in Schizophrenia
Authors: Bonnot O. , Tordjman S. 
Published: May 2011

We will propose a critical review of the scientific literature regarding pain and schizophrenia, examine the empirical basis for the reported pain insensitivity of schizophrenia, and emphasize the distinction between behavioral responses to pain or self-reported pain and physiological response to painful stimuli. Litterature is scarse and could be classified in 4 groups: case reports (n = 9), clinical studies (n = 23), experimental research (n = 20) and review articles (n = 5).The analysis of Case reports and clinical studies show reduced pain reactivity in patients with schizophrenia compared to healthy controls or other psychiatric patients. In the same vein, experimental studies using self-report measures of pain reactivity generally reported higher pain perception thresholds in patients with schizophrenia. However, the only experimental study using a neurophysiological measure of pain reactivity (the nociceptive RIII reflex) demonstrated a normal pain threshold in schizophrenia.Review of clinical and experimental data indicates that in most situations behavioral pain reactivity and self-reported responses to pain are reduced in schizophrenia. However, there is little or no physiological evidence supporting pain insensitivity in schizophrenia. It can be suggested that the widely accepted notion of reduced pain sensitivity in schizophrenia is related more to a different mode of pain expression than to a real endogenous analgesia. We will also present preliminary data on pain sensitivity associating behavioural pain reactivity measurements, "objective" electrophysiological assessments and neurovegetative function recordings. Our results are in the line of the literature and strongly suggest that there is no analgesia in schizophrenia but a different mode of pain expression.
Chronobiological issues of sleep and circadian rhythms
Authors: Hajak G. 
Published: May 2011

Progress in unravelling the cellular and molecular basis of mammalian circadian regulation over the past decade has provided us with data that deteriorations in measurable circadian output parameters, such as sleep/wake deficits and dysregulation of circulating hormone levels, are common features of most central nervous system disorders.At the core of the mammalian circadian system is a complex of molecular oscillations within the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus. These oscillations are modifiable by afferent signals from the environment, and integrated signals are subsequently conveyed to remote central neural circuits where specific output rhythms are regulated. Usually our sleep/wake cycle, temperature and melatonin rhythms are internally synchronized with a stable phase relationship. When there is a desynchrony between the sleep/wake cycle and circadian rhythm, sleep disorders such as advanced and delayed sleep phase syndrome can arise as well as transient chronobiologic disturbances, for example from jet lag and shift work.Increasing evidence suggests that disrupted temporal organization of biological functions impairs behaviour, cognition, affect, and emotion. Furthermore, disruption of circadian clock genes impairs the sleep-wake cycle and social rhythms, which may be implicated in particular in mental disorders. An increasing number of journal publications point to a crucial role of circadian rhythm dysregulations in particular for affective disorders, which should e addressed specifically in modern psychiatry.
The four season brain - circannual changes in Neurobiology
Authors: Spindelegger C. ,   Functional Neuroimaging - PET & fMRI
Published: May 2011

ObjectiveClimate, in particular sunshine, is known to influence mood and energy levels, leading to a positive upswing on bright, sunny days and negative downswing in the cold, dark winter seasons. Increased serotonin transporter availability in healthy human subjects has been revealed in times of lesser light exposure and lower serotonin levels have been examined in the winter season.Methods36 drug naive healthy human subjects underwent this retrospective study, investigatin light-dependent alteration of serotonin-1A (5-HT1A) receptor binding in the human brain. 5-HT1A receptor binding was quantified using positron emission tomography and the selective radioligand [carbonyl-11C]WAY-100635.In a next step, 5-HT1A binding potentials were correlated with the amount of individual exposure to global radiation and sunshine.ResultsA significant positive correlation between the regional postsynaptic serotonin-1A receptor binding and global radiation accumulated over a period of 5 days was found. Furthermore, significant differences between subjects of low and high exposure to global radiation were revealed, whereas subjects who were exposed to a lower amount of global radiation showed 20–30% lower serotonin-1A receptor binding.ConclusionsOur results showed a significant positive relationship between the accumulated amount of global radiation (5 days) and the serotonin-1A receptor binding in several limbic regions. Together with recently demonstrated seasonal fluctuations in serotonin turnover and transporter availability, our results underline the influence of seasonal factors in the regulation of brain serotonin transmission and might help to elucidate the pathogenesis of seasonal affective disorders.
Clock genes and mood disorders: Which role?
Authors: Serretti A. 
Published: May 2011

The Circadian Locomotor Output Cycles Kaput (CLOCK) gene is thought to be involved in the regulation of circadian rhythms, with its protein products driving transcription of other genetic components of the molecular oscillator. The possible role of 3111T/C CLOCK gene polymorphism and a number of other variants in psychiatry is currently under investigation. A polymorphism in the 3’ flanking region of the CLOCK gene have been shown to affect mRNA stability and half-life, with possible significant effects on the level of protein finally being translated. In mice, a mutation of CLOCK gene, called “C” variant, has been shown to lead to a lengthened circadian period and in healthy humans the CLOCK*C allele has been investigated as a predictor of “eveningness.” Finally, a significantly higher recurrence rate of illness episodes has been found in bipolar patients homozygous for the C variant. In a series of studies, we investigated the possible effect of CLOCK variants in mood disorders and drug response.Taken together, this evidence suggests that CLOCK gene variants modulate mood disorders in a subtle but consistent way, causing liability to a shorter and disrupted sleep, which is reflected in poorer sleep improvement during antidepressant therapy and eventually in a higher frequency of episodes. This also suggests the clinical usefulness of social rhythm therapy particularly in this subgroup of patients.
Intercultural psychotherapy of depression in migrants of first and second generation
Authors: Calliess I.T. , Machleidt W. 
Published: May 2011

Intercultural psychotherapeutic treatment must involve the psychological integration of different cultures within an individual as an additional developmental dimension. The literature concerning acculturation and mental health yields heterogeneous results concerning strategies of adaptive acculturation. In intercultural psychotherapy the integration strategy is usually the strategy with the highest adaptability. It is still uncertain which theoretical assumptions might be applicable to a healthy acculturation process. However, it is assumed that increased acculturative stress may lead to higher risk and susceptibility for emotional distress and depression.Individual change during the course of migration towards a bicultural identity that includes aspects of both the culture of origin and of the host culture has often been viewed as a desirable adaptation, although the theoretical foundation of the concept of bicultural identity remains inadequate. The cultural-dynamic model presented here distinguishes between personal and social identity on the basis of the identity concept proposed by Mead (1988). We discuss implications for the intercultural psychotherapeutic process, for identity configuration in second-generation migrants, for different phases of the lifespan, and in acquiring the language of the host culture.
Epidemiology of adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) - first hungarian data
Authors: Simon V. 
Published: May 2011

IntroductionAlthough ADHD in childhood is a well known and treated condition in Hungary, until recently there was no epidemiologic data about the prevalence of ADHD among adults.ObjectiveEstimation of the prevalence of adult ADHD in Hungary.MethodsIn this study1, 3529 subjects (18 to 60 years) were screened with the Adult Self-Report Scale2 6-item version. Out of 279 positively screened subjects, 161 participated in a detailed semi-structured clinical interview.ResultsADHD was associated with younger age and male gender [χ2=14.46; p=0.0007], however there was no significant interaction between the effect of gender and age [Estimate: –0.031, SE: 0.043, χ2=0.5124; p=0.4741]1. According to the estimates corrected for the ‘not-interviewed’ subsample and after adjusting for specificity and sensitivity data of the screener, the prevalence of ADHD was 2.3% in males, 0.91% in females; 2.02% in the ≤40 years group and 0.70% in the > 40 years group1. In our sample, 82.61% of male, and 78.94% of female ADHD subjects had at least 1 comorbid psychiatric disorder.ConclusionsThe estimated prevalence of ADHD among adults is in line with data reported in the literature.
International differences in the value for money provided by institutions in european countries at different stages of deinstitutionalisation and with different economies
Authors: Taylor T.L. 
Published: May 2011

BackgroundIndividuals with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder may require longer term care. Due to the complexities of caring for this population and the high resource cost of care, it is important to ensure that mental health services are efficient and effective.AimsThis investigation aims to examine international differences in quality of care and service user experience when compared to national health expenditure and the degree of deinstitutionalisation in 10 countries.MethodsThe quality of care provided in 213 units was measured using the Quality Indicator for Rehabilitative Care (QuIRC). Service users living in these units (N = 1750) were asked to assess the care they received. Multilevel models were used to examine the relationships between quality (QuIRC domain ratings), level of deinstitutionalisation and national health care expenditure. As no formalised assessment of deinstitutionalisation has been published, a quantitative tool was developed and validated. Percentage of gross domestic product spent on health care and per capita total health care spend was taken from World Health Organisation data to assess national health care expenditure.ResultsMultilevel models examining the relationships between deinstitutionalisation levels, health care expenditure, quality and service user experience will be presented. Results were adjusted for unit (type and size) and service user (age, gender and level of functioning) characteristics.ConclusionsRecommendations on the best use of resources within a facility providing longer term care and how best to increase the quality of care provided without additional financial expenditure will be discussed in relation to the results.
Quality of care in longer term mental health institutions in Poland
Authors: Piotrowski P. , Ciałkowska M. , Adamowski T. , Rymaszewska J. , Kiejna A. ,   DemoB.inc
Published: May 2011

ObjectiveDevelopment of Quality Indicator for Rehabilitative Care (QuIRC), experiences of Polish partner in implementation of the toolkit and preliminary assessment of care standards in longer term mental health institutions. Research constitutes a part of international project funded by European Commission.MethodsPolish version of QuIRC has been tested in 20 psychiatric units across 3 regions in Poland. Selected facilities differed in terms of employment profile, living standards as well as location and service users turnover. Managers of participating units were interviewed using the refined tool with 145 items regarding domains indentified during previous phases of the DEMoB.inc project. Each participant was questioned by a single researcher during face-to-face meeting. Lacking answers were completed on basis of service users’ medical files and account departments’ documents when necessary.ResultsManager of only 1 out of 21 units refused to participate in interview. The most common difficulties in data collection were in relation to the number of staff and staff training. These difficulties may be due to differences in the work patterns and training of staff in Polish units compared to other countries. In comparison to international results important differences in preliminary assessments of long term mental health care were found in several areas probably due to the early stage of deinstitutionalisation process in Eastern Europe. Development of the web based version of the toolkit will facilitate its implementation in research as well as internal assessments for units’ restructuring purposes.
Mortality in serious mental illness
Authors: Osby U. 
Published: May 2011

IntroductionThere is evidence that patients with bipolar disorder have an increased mortality from somatic causes of death, including coronary heart disease and myocardial infarction. However, present mortality ratios and mortality trends over time are not known.AimTo analyze relative mortality and mortality trends for patients with bipolar disorder in relation to the population for cerebrovascular disease, coronary heart disease and myocardial infarction.MethodsAll patients in Sweden with a clinical diagnosis of bipolar disorder from the introduction of ICD-10 (1987–2006) found in the National Swedish Patient Register were followed-up in the Cause of death register. Mortality rate ratios (MRR) for different cardiovascular diseases and different age groups were calculated, as well as numbers of excess deaths, relative to the population. Also, admission rate ratios (ARR) and yearly mortality rates for bipolar patients versus the population were calculated for the same time period.ResultsFrom all causes of death, there were 5,471 deaths for bipolar patients. MRR was 2.58 (95% CI: 2.51–2.65). For cerebrovascular disease MRR was 2.19 (95% CI: 2.01–2.40), and for coronary heart disease MRR was 2.10 (95% CI: 1.98–2.2.24). In the subgroup of acute myocardial infarction MRR was 1.97 (95% CI: 1.81–2.14). In cerebrovascular disease, ARR was increased to 1.47 (95% CI: 1.35–1.59), while in coronary heart disease ARR was 1.06 (95% CI: 0.98–2.24), and in acute myocardial infarction 1.09 (95% CI: 0.0.98–1.22). Yearly mortality rates for these causes of death decreased both among patients and the population, without indication of a decreasing gap.ConclusionsIn patients with bipolar disorder, mortality from cerebrovascular disease and coronary heart disease with its subgroup acute myocardial infarction was doubled during 1987–2006. In contrast, admission rates for coronary heart disease and acute myocardial infarction were not increased. Yearly mortality rates decreased both for the patients and the population, but there were no indications of a decreasing gap.KeywordsBipolar disorder; Register study; Cerebrovascular disease; Coronary heart disease; Acute myocardial infarction; Mortality rate ratios; Admission rate ratios.