Schizophrenia And Disorders With Psychotic Features

Increasingly, financial reinforcement interventions based on behavioral economic principles are being applied in health care settings, and this study examined the use of financial reinforcers for enhancing adherence to medications.|Electronic databases and bibliographies of relevant references were searched, and a meta-analysis of identified trials was conducted. The variability in effect size and the impact of potential moderators (study design, duration of intervention, magnitude of reinforcement, and frequency of reinforcement) on effect size were examined.|Fifteen randomized studies and 6 nonrandomized studies examined the efficacy of financial reinforcement interventions for medication adherence. Financial reinforcers were applied for adherence to medications for tuberculosis, substance abuse, human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis, schizophrenia, and stroke prevention. Reinforcement interventions significantly improved adherence relative to control conditions with an overall

Childhood-onset schizophrenia (COS) is a rare severe form of schizophrenia that may have greater salient genetic risk. Despite evidence for high heritability, conclusive genetic causes of schizophrenia remain elusive. Recent genomic technologies in concert with large case-control cohorts have led to several associations of highly penetrant rare copy number variants (CNVs) and schizophrenia. We previously reported two patients with COS who carried a microduplication disrupting the PXDN and MYT1L genes at 2p25.3. This rate of duplications within our COS population (N=92) is significantly higher than that in 2026 healthy controls (P=0.002). As a replication, we report a meta-analysis of four recently published studies that together provide strong evidence for an association between variably sized microduplications involving the MYT1L gene and schizophrenia. None have reported this separately. Altogether, among 5325 patients and 9279 controls, 10 microduplications were observed: nine in

Current drug treatments for schizophrenia are inadequate for many patients, and despite 5 decades of drug discovery, all of the treatments rely on the same mechanism: dopamine D(2) receptor blockade. Understanding the pathophysiology of the disorder is thus likely to be critical to the rational development of new treatments for schizophrenia.|To investigate the nature of the dopaminergic dysfunction in schizophrenia using meta-analysis of in vivo studies.|The MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PsycINFO databases were searched for studies from January 1, 1960, to July 1, 2011.|A total of 44 studies were identified that compared 618 patients with schizophrenia with 606 controls, using positron emission tomography or single-photon emission computed tomography to measure in vivo striatal dopaminergic function.|Demographic, clinical, and imaging variables were extracted from each study, and effect sizes were determined for the measures of dopaminergic function. Studies were grouped into those of

There is a well-established but poorly understood association between tobacco use and psychotic illness. The aim of this study was to determine whether tobacco use is associated with an earlier age at onset of psychotic illness.|Peer-reviewed publications in English reporting the age at onset of psychosis in tobacco-using and non-tobacco-using groups were located using searches of CINAHL, EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and ISI Web of Science, and were supplemented by papers located by manual searches and unpublished data obtained by correspondence with primary researchers. A total of 29 samples reported age at onset data in a consecutive series of patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia related psychosis or first episode psychosis. Information on study design, study population and effect size was extracted independently by three authors. A random effects meta-analysis was performed.|There was no significant difference between smokers and non-smokers in age at the onset of psychosis

Research has established that psychiatric disorders are common among children and adolescents within thejuvenile justice system. However, the bulk of these researches had been from the developed countries, with very limited data from sub-Sahara Africa. In a region like sub-Sahara Africa with acute shortage of mental healthcare resources, availability of data on mental health needs of children within the juvenile justice system is about the only way to ensure that they are not excluded from needed services. This study aims to determine the pattern, prevalence and correlates of psychiatric disorders among the residents of a juvenile justice facility in Nigeria and to speculate appropriate policy responses.|Using a cross-sectional comparative study design, 60 consecutive residents of the Ibadan juvenile Remand home and 60 randomly selected age- and gender-matched school going adolescents were evaluated for the presence of current and lifetime psychiatric disorders. The Kiddies Schedule

There is substantial evidence found in the literature that supports the fact that the presence of oxidative stress may play an important role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. The glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) forms one of the major detoxifying groups of enzymes responsible for eliminating products of oxidative stress. Interindividual differences observed in the metabolism of xenobiotics have been attributed to the genetic polymorphism of genes coding for enzymes involved in detoxification. Thus, in this study we investigated the association of glutathione S-transferase Mu-1 (GSTM1) and glutathione S-transferase theta-1 (GSTT1) gene deletion polymorphisms and schizophrenia in a Tunisian population. A case-control study including 138 schizophrenic patients and 123 healthy controls was enrolled. The GSTM1 and GSTT1 polymorphisms were analyzed by multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR). No association was found between the GSTM1 genotype and schizophrenia, whereas the

23288389 2013 01 04 2013 02 19 1535-7228 170 1 Jan 1 Am J Psychiatry 122-3 10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.12060822 Rane Swati S Kose Samet S Gore John C JC Heckers Stephan S eng Case Reports Letter United States Am J Psychiatry 0370512 0002-953X 7782-44-7

Cognitive deficits in schizophrenia are critically important predictors of long-term psychosocial outcome and are not significantly ameliorated by currently available medications. Cognitive remediation training has shown promise for alleviating cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia, but the clinical significance has often been limited by small effect sizes. Approaches that achieve larger improvement involve time requirements that can be cost-prohibitive within the current clinical care system. This mini-review evaluates the theoretical potential of a pharmacological enhancement strategy of cognitive remediation training with nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) agonists. nAChR agonists can facilitate sensory processing, alertness, attention, learning and memory. While these effects may be too subtle and short-lasting to be of clinical relevance as a primary treatment of cognitive deficits, they constitute an ideal effects profile for enhancing training benefits. Several mechanisms

Intensive computerized auditory training results in improved cognition for schizophrenia patients, but participants show variation in their cognitive gains and the biological factors that affect the response to training are unknown. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene have been related to cognitive function. Here we asked if functional variation in this gene has an impact on the response of schizophrenia patients to cognitive training. We genotyped 48 schizophrenia patients who completed 50 h of computerized cognitive training and analyzed the association between DNA variants in the COMT gene and the improvement in global cognition. Although conventional analyses did not reveal any significant associations, a set-based analysis examining the aggregate effect of common variation in the COMT gene (42 SNPs) suggested association with improvement in global cognition. Eight SNPs, mostly located in the 3' end of the COMT gene, were

NGC is the National Guideline Clearinghouse.

NGC is the National Guideline Clearinghouse.

NGC is the National Guideline Clearinghouse.