Diez años de investigación traslacional colaborativa en enfermedades mentales: el CIBERSAM

White Noise Speech Illusions: A Trait-Dependent Risk Marker for Psychotic Disorder?

Supported by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program under grant agreement No. HEALTH-F2-2009-241909 (Project EU-GEI)

The EUropean Network of National Schizophrenia Networks Studying Gene-Environment Interactions (EU-GEI)

Funder: FP7 Ideas: European Research Council; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100011199; Grant(s): HEALTH-F2-2010-241909

Gene-environment interaction as a predictor of early adjustment in first episode psychosis.

Abstract Background This study aims to explore the gene-environment interaction hypothesis applied to pre-symptomatic neurodevelopmental phenotypes of first episode psychosis (FEP), that is, genetic factors might increase vulnerability to the effects of environmental adverse conditions occurring at later stages of development. Methods We constructed a schematic ‘two-hit’ model, with Val/Val homozygosity for the catechol- O -methyltransferase ( COMT ) Val158Met polymorphism as the ‘first hit’ and history of obstetric complications and parental socioeconomic status as ‘second hits’. Early adjustment, measured using the Premorbid Adjustment Scale, was considered the main outcome. The study pop…

Transdiagnostic dimensions of psychopathology at first episode psychosis: findings from the multinational EU-GEI study.

Background\ud The value of the nosological distinction between non-affective and affective psychosis has frequently been challenged. We aimed to investigate the transdiagnostic dimensional structure and associated characteristics of psychopathology at First Episode Psychosis (FEP). Regardless of diagnostic categories, we expected that positive symptoms occurred more frequently in ethnic minority groups and in more densely populated environments, and that negative symptoms were associated with indices of neurodevelopmental impairment.\ud \ud Method\ud This study included 2182 FEP individuals recruited across six countries, as part of the EUropean network of national schizophrenia networks st…

The state of psychiatry in Spain

The 1986 General Health Act and the so-called 'psychiatric reform' were key issues in the development of the mental healthcare system (MHCS) in Spain. The World Health Organization Declaration and Action Plan on Mental Health in 2005 gave it a revitalizing impetus and resulted in the first National Health System (NHS) Mental Health Strategy in 2006. A literature search was performed using MEDLINE, Spanish journals, reference lists, national databases, and European and Spanish official documents to describe the current state of the MHCS in Spain. The main results were: (1) existence of great variability among the autonomous communities with respect to mental health resources and provision of…

Synergistic effects of childhood adversity and polygenic risk in first-episode psychosis

The European Network of National Schizophrenia Networks Studying Gene-Environment Interactions (EU-GEI) Project is funded by grant agreement HEALTH-F2-2010-241909 (Project EU-GEI) from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme.

Migration history and risk of psychosis: results from the multinational EU-GEI study.

The European Network of National Schizophrenia Networks Studying Gene-Environment Interactions (EU-GEI) Project was funded by grant agreement Health-F2-2010-241909 (Project EU-GEI) from the European Community’s Seventh Framework programme.

Perceived major experiences of discrimination, ethnic group, and risk of psychosis in a six-country case-control study

AbstractBackgroundPerceived discrimination is associated with worse mental health. Few studies have assessed whether perceived discrimination (i) is associated with the risk of psychotic disorders and (ii) contributes to an increased risk among minority ethnic groups relative to the ethnic majority.MethodsWe used data from the European Network of National Schizophrenia Networks Studying Gene-Environment Interactions Work Package 2, a population-based case−control study of incident psychotic disorders in 17 catchment sites across six countries. We calculated odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for the associations between perceived discrimination and psychosis using mixed-…

Examining the independent and joint effects of genomic and exposomic liabilities for schizophrenia across the psychosis spectrum

The EUGEI project was supported by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program under grant agreement no. HEALTH-F2-2009-241909 (Project EU-GEI). Dr O’Donovan is supported by MRC programme grant (G08005009) and an MRC Centre grant (MR/ L010305/1). Dr Rutten was funded by a VIDI award number 91718336 from the Netherlands Scientific Organisation. Drs Guloksuz and van Os are supported by the Ophelia research project, ZonMw grant number: 636340001. Dr Arango was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation; Instituto de Salud Carlos III (SAM16PE07CP1, PI16/02012, PI19/024); CIBERSAM; Madrid Regional Government (B2017/BMD-3740, AGES-CM-2); Fundación Familia Alonso and Fundac…

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in severe mental illness: A timely diagnosis to advance the process of quitting smoking

This study receives founding by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness, Instituto Carlos III (FIS PI16/00802).

Schizophrenia polygenic risk score and cannabis use modify psychosis expression in first episode psychosis patients and population controls

AbstractBackgroundDiagnostic categories within the psychosis spectrum are widely used in clinical practice, however psychosis may occur on a continuum. Therefore, we explored whether the continuous distribution of psychotic symptoms across categories is a function of genetic as well as environmental risk factors, such as polygenic risk scores (PRSs) and cannabis use.MethodsAs part of the EU-GEI study, we genotyped first episode psychosis patients (FEP) and population controls, for whom transdiagnostic dimensions of psychotic symptoms or experiences were generated using item response bi-factor modelling. Linear regression was used, separately in patients and controls, to test the association…

Spanish validation of the Empirically Developed Clinical Staging Model (EmDe-5) for patients with bipolar disorder

Abstract Introduction Bipolar disorder (BD) has been reconceptualised as a progressive disorder that develops from mild to severe presentations. An empirical staging model – the Empirically Developed Clinical Staging Model for BD (EmDe-5) – was developed in a previous study. This study aims to further validate that model using a larger and more representative Spanish sample. Material and methods 183 BD outpatients were recruited at 11 sites in Spain. Assessment included clinical characteristics of the BD (number of hospitalisations, number of suicide attempts, comorbid personality disorders), physical health (BMI, metabolic syndrome, number of physical illnesses), cognition (SCIP), function…

Transdiagnostic dimensions of psychopathology at first episode psychosis: Findings from the multinational EU-GEI study

The EU-GEI Project was funded by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement No.HEALTH-F2-2010-241909 (Project EU-GEI). The work was further funded by: Clinician Scientist Medical Research Council fellowship (project reference MR/M008436/1) to MDF; Veni grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (grant no. 451-13-022) to UR; Sir Henry Dale Fellowship, jointly funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society (grant no. 101272/Z/13/Z) to JBK; National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London. The Brazilian study was funded b…

Duration of untreated psychosis in first-episode psychosis is not associated with common genetic variants for major psychiatric conditions: results from the multi-center EU-GEI Study

The EU-GEI Project is funded by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement No. HEALTH-F2-2010–241909 (Project EU-GEI).

Spanish consensus on the physical health of patients with depressive disorders

Comorbidity between depression and physical illnesses is very common and has a significant impact on the health and management of the patient. With the support of the Sociedades Espanolas de Psiquiatria y Psiquiatria Biologica, and Sociedad Espanola de Medicos de Atencion Primaria (SEMERGEN) a consensus was prepared on physical health in patients with depression and is summarized in the present work. The literature review highlighted the high frequency of cardiovascular and endocrine-metabolic disorders in patients with depression such as diabetes and obesity, thus making the primary and secondary prevention recommendations for patients with cardiovascular or metabolic risk applicable to pa…

Treatments for Opioid Dependence and Methadone

Abstract This chapter is focused on opioid dependence treatment and is framed in a holistic perspective. Specifically, there are three main approaches to pharmacological treatment of opioid dependence: opioid detoxification, agonist maintenance, and antagonist maintenance. There is a great amount of evidence supporting the efficacy of methadone and buprenorphine or the combination of buprenorphine–naloxone for the treatment of opioid withdrawal and their clinical utility as pharmacotherapy in long-term maintenance programs. Secondary or adjunctive medications such as heroin, naltrexone, and alpha-2-adrenergics are also reviewed. The need for further research and to overcome nonscientificall…

Childhood Maltreatment, Educational Attainment, and IQ: Findings From a Multicentric Case-control Study of First-episode Psychosis (EU-GEI).

[Background and hypothesis] Evidence suggests that childhood maltreatment (ie, childhood abuse and childhood neglect) affects educational attainment and cognition. However, the association between childhood maltreatment and Intelligence Quotient (IQ) seems stronger among controls compared to people with psychosis. We hypothesised that: the association between childhood maltreatment and poor cognition would be stronger among community controls than among people with first-episode of psychosis (FEP); compared to abuse, neglect would show stronger associations with educational attainment and cognition; the association between childhood maltreatment and IQ would be partially accounted for by ot…

Long term outcomes of pharmacological treatments for opioid dependence: does methadone still lead the pack?

The aim of this review was to update and summarize the scientific knowledge on the long term outcomes of the different pharmacological treatment options for opioid dependence currently available and to provide a critical discussion on the different treatment options based on these results. We performed a literature search using the PubMed databases and the reference lists of the identified articles. Data from research show that the three pharmacological options reviewed are effective treatments for opioid dependence with positive long term outcomes. However, each one has its specific target population and setting. While methadone and buprenorphine are first line options, heroin-assisted tre…

Functional remediation for patients with bipolar II disorder: improvement of functioning and subsyndromal symptoms.

Recently, Functional Remediation (FR) has proven to be effective in improving the functional outcome of euthymic bipolar patients. The aim of this study was to test the efficacy of the FR program in a subsample of euthymic bipolar II patients (BPII). A post-hoc analyses were undertaken using data of 53 BPII outpatients who had participated in a multicenter, rater-blind, randomized, controlled trial exploring the efficacy of FR (n=17) as compared with a Psychoeducation group (PSY) (n=19) and a treatment as usual control group (TAU n=17). The primary outcome variable was the functional improvement defined as the mean change in the Functioning Assessment Short Test (FAST) from baseline to endp…

The relationship of symptom dimensions with premorbid adjustment and cognitive characteristics at first episode psychosis: Findings from the EU-GEI study

Premorbid functioning and cognitive measures may reflect gradients of developmental impairment across diagnostic categories in psychosis. In this study, we sought to examine the associations of current cognition and premorbid adjustment with symptom dimensions in a large first episode psychosis (FEP) sample. We used data from the international EU-GEI study. Bifactor modelling of the Operational Criteria in Studies of Psychotic Illness (OPCRIT) ratings provided general and specific symptom dimension scores. Premorbid Adjustment Scale estimated premorbid social (PSF) and academic adjustment (PAF), and WAIS-brief version measured IQ. A MANCOVA model examined the relationship between symptom di…

A replication study of JTC bias, genetic liability for psychosis and delusional ideation

The EUGEI project was supported by the European Community's Seventh Framework Program under grant agreement No. HEALTH-F2-2009-241909 (Project EU-GEI). Dr O'Donovan is supported by MRC programme grant (G08005009) and an MRC Centre grant (MR/L010305/1)

Estimating Exposome Score for Schizophrenia Using Predictive Modeling Approach in Two Independent Samples: The Results From the EUGEI Study

The EUGEI project was supported by the grant agreement HEALTH-F2-2010-241909 from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme. The authors are grateful to the patients and their families for participating in the project. They also thank all research personnel involved in the GROUP project, in particular J. van Baaren, E. Veermans, G. Driessen, T. Driesen, E. van’t Hag and J. de Nijs. Bart PF Rutten was funded by a VIDI award number 91718336 from the Netherlands Scientific Organisation.

Impact of NTRK2, DRD2 and ACE polymorphisms on prolactin levels in antipsychotic-treated patients with first-episode psychosis.

Background: Hyperprolactinemia is a common side-effect of antipsychotics (APs), which may trigger serious secondary problems and compromise the adherence to treatment which is crucial for prognosis, especially in patients presenting with a first-episode of psychosis (FEP). Aims: We evaluated, in some cases for the first time, the effect of polymorphisms in multiple candidate genes on serum prolactin (PRL) levels in an AP-treated FEP cohort recruited in the multicenter PEPs study (Phenotype − genotype and environmental interaction; Application of a predictive model in first psychotic episodes). Methods: PRL concentration was measured in serum from 222 patients. A total of 167 polymorphisms w…

Jumping To Conclusions, General Intelligence, And Psychosis Liability: Findings From The Multi-Centre EU-GEI Case-Control Study

AbstractBackgroundThe “jumping to conclusions” (JTC) bias is associated with both psychosis and general cognition but their relationship is unclear. In this study, we set out to clarify the relationship between the JTC bias, IQ, psychosis and polygenic liability to schizophrenia and IQ.Methods817 FEP patients and 1294 population-based controls completed assessments of general intelligence (IQ), and JTC (assessed by the number of beads drawn on the probabilistic reasoning “beads” task) and provided blood or saliva samples from which we extracted DNA and computed polygenic risk scores for IQ and schizophrenia.ResultsThe estimated proportion of the total effect of case/control differences on J…

A polygenic approach to the association between smoking and schizophrenia.

Smoking prevalence in schizophrenia is considerably larger than in general population, playing an important role in early mortality. We compared the polygenic contribution to smoking in schizophrenic patients and controls to assess if genetic factors may explain the different prevalence. Polygenic risk scores (PRSs) for smoking initiation and four genetically correlated traits were calculated in 1108 schizophrenic patients (64.4% smokers) and 1584 controls (31.1% smokers). PRSs for smoking initiation, educational attainment, body mass index and age at first birth were associated with smoking in patients and controls, explaining a similar percentage of variance in both groups. Attention-defi…

Treated Incidence of Psychotic Disorders in the Multinational EU-GEI Study

Importance: Psychotic disorders contribute significantly to the global disease burden, yet the latest international incidence study of psychotic disorders was conducted in the 1980s. Objectives: To estimate the incidence of psychotic disorders using comparable methods across 17 catchment areas in 6 countries and to examine the variance between catchment areas by putative environmental risk factors. Design, Setting, and Participants: An international multisite incidence study (the European Network of National Schizophrenia Networks Studying Gene-Environment Interactions) was conducted from May 1, 2010, to April 1, 2015, among 2774 individuals from England (2 catchment areas), France (3 catch…

Factors associated with poor functional outcome in bipolar disorder: sociodemographic, clinical, and neurocognitive variables.

Objective: The current investigation aimed at studying the sociodemographic, clinical, and neuropsychological variables related to functional outcome in a sample of euthymic patients with bipolar disorder(BD) presenting moderate-severe levels of functional impairment. Methods: Two-hundred and thirty-nine participants with BD disorders and with Functioning Assessment Short Test(FAST) scores equal or above 18 were administered a clinical and diagnostic interview, and the administration of mood measure scales and a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. Analyses involved preliminary Pearson bivariate correlations to identify sociodemographic and clinical variables associated with the FAST t…

Use of multiple Polygenic Risk Scores for distinguishing Schizophrenia-spectrum disorder and Affective psychosis categories; the EUGEI study

ABSTRACTSchizophrenia (SZ), Bipolar Disorder (BD) and Depression (D) run in families. This susceptibility is partly due to hundreds or thousands of common genetic variants, each conferring a fractional risk. The cumulative effects of the associated variants can be summarised as a polygenic risk score (PRS). Using data from the EUGEI case-control study, we aimed to test whether PRSs for three major psychiatric disorders (SZ, BD, D) and for intelligent quotient (IQ) as a neurodevelopmental proxy, can discriminate affective psychosis (AP) from schizophrenia-spectrum disorder (SSD). Participants (573 cases, 1005 controls) of european ancestry from 17 sites as part of the EUGEI study were succes…

The EUropean Network of National Schizophrenia Networks Studying Gene-Environment Interactions (EU-GEI): Incidence and First-Episode Case-Control Programme. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol

Purpose: The EUropean Network of National Schizophrenia Networks Studying Gene-Environment Interactions (EU-GEI) study contains an unparalleled wealth of comprehensive data that allows for testing hypotheses about (1) variations in incidence within and between countries, including by urbanicity and minority ethnic groups; and (2) the role of multiple environmental and genetic risk factors, and their interactions, in the development of psychotic disorders. Methods: Between 2010 and 2015, we identified 2774 incident cases of psychotic disorders during 12.9 million person-years at risk, across 17 sites in 6 countries (UK, The Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, and Brazil). Of the 2774 incident…

"Readiness to Change" Predicts Efficacy of Reduction among Smokers with Severe Mental Illness.

<b><i>Aims:</i></b> Smoking cessation in subjects with a severe mental illness (SMI) is a challenging but attainable goal. Furthermore, the identification of variables involved in the quitting process is a highly relevant factor in clinical practice. This study aimed to analyze the influence of smokers’ motivation in smoking reduction and cessation and select the most suitable way of measuring motivation. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> This is a secondary analysis of a 9-month, multicenter trial examining a Multicomponent Smoking Cessation Program in 82 adult outpatients with SMI. At the end of the preparation stage, the smokers’ motivational level wa…

Consensus guideline for the evaluation of physical health in patients with schizophrenia

Premorbid Adjustment and IQ in Patients With First-Episode Psychosis: A Multisite Case-Control Study of Their Relationship With Cannabis Use

Abstract Psychotic patients with a lifetime history of cannabis use generally show better cognitive functioning than other psychotic patients. Some authors suggest that cannabis-using patients may have been less cognitively impaired and less socially withdrawn in their premorbid life. Using a dataset comprising 948 patients with first-episode psychosis (FEP) and 1313 population controls across 6 countries, we examined the extent to which IQ and both early academic (Academic Factor [AF]) and social adjustment (Social Factor [SF]) are related to the lifetime frequency of cannabis use in both patients and controls. We expected a higher IQ and a better premorbid social adjustment in psychotic p…

Influence of social cognition as a mediator between cognitive reserve and psychosocial functioning in patients with first episode psychosis

This work was supported by the Carlos III Institute of Health and European Fund for Regional Development (PI08/1213, PI11/01977, PI14/01900, PI08/01026, PI11/02831, PI14/01621, PI08/1161, PI16/00359, PI16/01164, PI18/00805), the Basque Foundation for Health Innovation and Research (BIOEF), the Secretaria d´Universitats I Recerca del Departament d´Economia I Coneixement (2017 SGR 1365), and R&D activities in Biomedicine, Madrid Regional Government and Structural Funds of the European Union (S2017/BMD-3740 (AGES-CM 2-CM)).

The independent and combined influence of schizophrenia polygenic risk score and heavy cannabis use on risk for psychotic disorder: A case-control analysis from the EUGEI study.

Background: Some recent studies have challenged the direction of causality for the association between cannabis use and psychotic disorder, suggesting that cannabis use initiation is explained by common genetic variants associated with risk of schizophrenia. We used data from the European Union Gene-Environment Interaction consortium (EUGEI) case-control study to test for the independent and combined effect of heavy cannabis use, and of Schizophrenia Polygenic risk score (SZ PRS), on risk for psychotic disorder. Methods: Genome-wide data were obtained from 492 first episode psychosis patients (FEPp) and from 787 controls of European Ancestry, and used to generate SZ PRS from the summary res…

Effects of functional remediation on neurocognitively impaired bipolar patients: enhancement of verbal memory

BackgroundFunctional remediation is a novel intervention with demonstrated efficacy at improving functional outcome in euthymic bipolar patients. However, in a previous trial no significant changes in neurocognitive measures were detected. The objective of the present analysis was to test the efficacy of this therapy in the enhancement of neuropsychological functions in a subgroup of neurocognitively impaired bipolar patients.MethodA total of 188 out of 239 DSM-IV euthymic bipolar patients performing below two standard deviations from the mean of normative data in any neurocognitive test were included in this subanalysis. Repeated-measures analyses of variance were conducted to assess the i…

Could structural changes in the retinal layers be a new biomarker of mental disorders? A systematic review and thematic synthesis.

It has recently been suggested that alterations of the layers of the retina could be a biomarker of specific mental disorders since they originate in the same embryonic layer as the brain and both are interconnected through the optic nerve. The purpose of this article is to offer a systematic review of the literature and a thematic synthesis on the current state of the alterations of the retina layers identified by optical coherence tomography in patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression. For this purpose, we performed a bibliographic search, a systematic review of the studies and a thematic synthesis of the reported findings. Patients with schizophrenia have more a…

Jumping to conclusions, general intelligence, and psychosis liability: Findings from the multi-centre EU-GEI case-control study

This study was funded by the Medical Research Council, the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program grant [agreement HEALTH-F2-2009-241909 (Project EU-GEI)], São Paulo Research Foundation (grant 2012/0417-0), the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London, the NIHR BRC at University College London and the Wellcome Trust (grant 101272/Z/12/Z).

The prevention of relapses in first episodes of schizophrenia: The 2EPs Project, background, rationale and study design.

Up to 80% of first-episode psychosis patients suffer a relapse within five years of the remission. Relapse should be an important focus of prevention given the potential harm to the patient and family. It threatens to disrupt their psychosocial recovery, increases the risk of resistance to treatment and has been associated with greater direct and indirect costs for society. Based on a previous project entitled "Genotype-phenotype and environment. Application to a predictive model in first psychotic episodes" (PEPs Project), the project "Clinical and neurobiological determinants of second episodes of schizophrenia. Longitudinal study of first episode of psychosis" was designed, also known as…

Social disadvantage, linguistic distance, ethnic minority status and first-episode psychosis: Results from the EU-GEI case-control study

The European Network of National Schizophrenia Networks Studying Gene-Environment Interactions (EU-GEI) Project was funded by grant agreement Health-F2-2010-241909 (Project EU-GEI) from the European Community’s Seventh Framework programme. The Brazilian study was funded by grant 2012-0417-0 from the São Paulo Research Foundation. Dr Jongsma is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant ES/S011714/1). Dr Kirkbride is funded by the Wellcome Trust and Royal Society (Grant 101272/Z/13/Z). Dr Jongsma and Professor Jones are funded by the National Institute of Health Research Collaboration of Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care East of England. Professor Rutten is funded…

Evidence, and replication thereof, that molecular-genetic and environmental risks for psychosis impact through an affective pathway

AbstractBackgroundThere is evidence that environmental and genetic risk factors for schizophrenia spectrum disorders are transdiagnostic and mediated in part through a generic pathway of affective dysregulation.MethodsWe analysed to what degree the impact of schizophrenia polygenic risk (PRS-SZ) and childhood adversity (CA) on psychosis outcomes was contingent on co-presence of affective dysregulation, defined as significant depressive symptoms, in (i) NEMESIS-2 (n = 6646), a representative general population sample, interviewed four times over nine years and (ii) EUGEI (n = 4068) a sample of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorder, the siblings of these patients and controls.ResultsT…

Smoking does not impact social and non-social cognition in patients with first episode psychosis.

Abstract Background Many studies having shown significant improvements in non-social and social cognitive performance in smoking FEP patients compared to non-smoking FEP patients. The findings are controversial. This study analyzed the effects of tobacco use on non-social and social cognitive function in a large group of FEP patients and a matched healthy control group. Methods A sample of 335 patients with FEP and 253 healthy controls was divided into four subgroups: control tobacco users (CTU), control non-tobacco users (CNTU), patient tobacco users (PTU) and patient non-tobacco users (PNTU). Demographic variables, tobacco use variables (presence or absence, frequency and duration of toba…

Early Parental Death and Risk of Psychosis in Offspring: A Six-Country Case-Control Study

Evidence for early parental death as a risk factor for psychosis in offspring is inconclusive. We analyzed data from a six-country, case-control study to examine the associations of early parental death, type of death (maternal, paternal, both), and child’s age at death with psychosis, both overall and by ethnic group. In fully adjusted multivariable mixed-effects logistic regression models, experiencing early parental death was associated with 1.54-fold greater odds of psychosis (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.23, 1.92). Experiencing maternal death had 2.27-fold greater odds (95% CI: 1.18, 4.37), paternal death had 1.14-fold greater odds (95% CI: 0.79, 1.64), and both deaths had 4.4…

Facial Emotion Recognition in Psychosis and Associations With Polygenic Risk for Schizophrenia

The EU-GEI Project was funded by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement No. HEALTH-F2-2010-241909 (Project EU-GEI). The Brazilian study was funded by the Säo Paulo Research Foundation under grant number 2012/0417-0.

Examining facial emotion recognition as an intermediate phenotype for psychosis: Findings from the EUGEI study

The EUGEI project was supported by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program under grant agreement No. HEALTH-F2- 2009-241909 (Project EU-GEI). Dr. Arango was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation; Instituto de Salud Carlos III (SAM16-PE07CP1, PI16/02012, PI19/024); CIBERSAM (...)

Use of multiple polygenic risk scores for distinguishing schizophrenia-spectrum disorder and affective psychosis categories in a first-episode sample; the EU-GEI study

This work was supported by funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement No. HEALTH-F2-2010-241909 (Project EU-GEI). (...) CA was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation; Instituto de Salud Carlos III (SAM16PE07CP1, PI16/02012, PI19/024), co-financed by ERDF Funds from the European Commission, ‘A way of making Europe’, CIBERSAM. Madrid Regional Government (B2017/BMD-3740 AGES-CM-2), Fundación Familia Alonso and Fundación Alicia Koplowitz. MB was supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitivity (PI08/0208; PI11/00325; PI14/00612), Instituto de Salud Carlos III – ERDF Funds from the European Commission, ‘A way of making Europ…

Los cambios estructurales de la retina, ¿nuevos biomarcadores de los trastornos mentales? Una revisión sistemática y síntesis temática de la literatura

Resumen Recientemente se ha planteado que las alteraciones de las capas de la retina podrian ser un biomarcador de determinados trastornos mentales, al derivar esta de la misma capa embrionaria que el cerebro y estar conectada con este a traves del nervio optico. El objeto del presente articulo es ofrecer una revision sistematica de la literatura y una sintesis tematica sobre el estado actual de las alteraciones de las capas de la retina identificadas mediante tomografia de coherencia optica en los pacientes con esquizofrenia, trastorno bipolar y depresion mayor. Para ello se realizo una busqueda sistematica de la literatura, la lectura critica de los articulos seleccionados y la sintesis t…

The Independent Effects of Psychosocial Stressors on Subclinical Psychosis: Findings from the Multinational EU-GEI Study

The influence of psychosocial stressors on psychosis risk has usually been studied in isolation and after the onset of the disorder, potentially ignoring important confounding relationships or the fact that some stressors that may be the consequence of the disorder rather than preexisting. The study of subclinical psychosis could help to address some of these issues. In this study, we investigated whether there was (i) an association between dimensions of subclinical psychosis and several psychosocial stressors including: childhood trauma, self-reported discrimination experiences, low social capital, and stressful life experiences, and (ii) any evidence of environment-environment (ExE) inte…

Do patients with bipolar disorder and subsyndromal symptoms benefit from functional remediation? A 12-month follow-up study

We analyzed the efficacy of functional remediation, in a sample of patients with bipolar disorder who presented with subsyndromal symptoms. From a total sample of 239 patients with bipolar I and II disorder, according to DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria, entering a randomized clinical trial, those patients who presented with subsyndromal symptoms were selected based on a method already described by Berk and colleagues was applied. It consists of using the Clinical Global Impression-Bipolar version (CGI-BP) to establish the scores of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) and of the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) that correspond with 1 in the CGI-BP. Functional outcome and mood symptoms …

Replication of previous genome-wide association studies of psychiatric diseases in a large schizophrenia case-control sample from Spain.

Genome wide association studies (GWAS) has allowed the discovery of some interesting risk variants for schizophrenia (SCZ). However, this high-throughput approach presents some limitations, being the most important the necessity of highly restrictive statistical corrections as well as the loss of statistical power inherent to the use of a Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) analysis approach. These problems can be partially solved through the use of a polygenic approach. We performed a genotyping study in SCZ using 86 previously associated SNPs identified by GWAS of SCZ, bipolar disorder (BPD) and autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) patients. The sample consisted of 3063 independent cases wit…

Brief assessment of schizotypal traits: A multinational study

The Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire-Brief (SPQ-B) was developed with the aim of examining variations in healthy trait schizotypy, as well as latent vulnerability to psychotic-spectrum disorders. No previous study has studied the cross-cultural validity of the SPQ-B in a large cross-national sample. The main goal of the present study was to analyze the reliability and the internal structure of SPQ-B scores in a multinational sample of 28,426 participants recruited from 14 countries. The mean age was 22.63. years (SD = 7.08; range 16-68. years), 37.7% (n = 10,711) were men. The omega coefficients were high, ranging from 0.86 to 0.92 for the total sample. Confirmatory factor analysis rev…

Examining the association between exposome score for schizophrenia and functioning in schizophrenia, siblings, and healthy controls: results from the EUGEI study

European Community's Seventh Framework Program, European Commission [HEALTH-F2-2009-241909]; Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, 2219 International Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program; Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, Instituto de Salud Carlos III (SAM16PE07CP1, PI16/02012, and PI19/024)...

The contribution of cannabis use to variation in the incidence of psychotic disorder across Europe (EU-GEI): a multicentre case-control study.

Background: Cannabis use is associated with increased risk of later psychotic disorder but whether it affects incidence of the disorder remains unclear. We aimed to identify patterns of cannabis use with the strongest effect on odds of psychotic disorder across Europe and explore whether differences in such patterns contribute to variations in the incidence rates of psychotic disorder. Methods: We included patients aged 18–64 years who presented to psychiatric services in 11 sites across Europe and Brazil with first-episode psychosis and recruited controls representative of the local populations. We applied adjusted logistic regression models to the data to estimate which patterns of canna…

Identifying gene-environment interactions in schizophrenia: contemporary challenges for integrated, large-scale investigations

European Community Recent years have seen considerable progress in epidemiological and molecular genetic research into environmental and genetic factors in schizophrenia, but methodological uncertainties remain with regard to validating environmental exposures, and the population risk conferred by individual molecular genetic variants is small. There are now also a limited number of studies that have investigated molecular genetic candidate gene-environment interactions (G x E), however, so far, thorough replication of findings is rare and G x E research still faces several conceptual and methodological challenges. in this article, we aim to review these recent developments and illustrate h…

The continuity of effect of schizophrenia polygenic risk score and patterns of cannabis use on transdiagnostic symptom dimensions at first-episode psychosis: findings from the EU-GEI study

The work was supported by Guarantors of Brain post-doctoral clinical fellowship to DQ; Clinician Scientist Medical Research Council fellowship (project reference MR/M008436/1) to MDF; Heisenberg professorship from the German Research Founda- tion (grant no. 389624707) to UR; the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care. The EU-GEI Project is funded by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement No. HEALTH-F2-…

Unraveling the relationship of loneliness and isolation in schizophrenia: Polygenic dissection and causal inference

ABSTRACTThere is increasing recognition of the association between loneliness and social isolation (LNL-ISO) with schizophrenia. Here, we demonstrate significant LNL-ISO polygenic score prediction on schizophrenia in an independent case-control sample (N=3,488). We then dissect schizophrenia predisposing variation into subsets of variants based on their effect on LNL-ISO. Genetic variation with concordant effects in both phenotypes show significant SNP-based heritability enrichment, higher polygenic predictive ability in females and positive covariance with other mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity, alcohol use disorder, and autism. Conversely, gene…

Consenso español de salud física del paciente con depresión

Comorbidity between depression and physical illnesses is very common and has a significant impact on the health and management of the patient. With the support of the Sociedades Espanolas de Psiquiatria y Psiquiatria Biologica, and Sociedad Espanola de Medicos de Atencion Primaria (SEMERGEN) a consensus was prepared on physical health in patients with depression and is summarized in the present work. The literature review highlighted the high frequency of cardiovascular and endocrine-metabolic disorders in patients with depression such as diabetes and obesity, thus making the primary and secondary prevention recommendations for patients with cardiovascular or metabolic risk applicable to pa…

Smoking in hospitalized patients. A great opportunity

The objective of this study is to describe the characteristics of smokers admitted to different medical and surgical services in a university hospital and the perception of patients regarding the need for a specialized intervention. The sample comprises a total of 307 patients (mean age of 59.4 years), being 40% (n = 123) non-smokers, 42.7% (n = 131) ex-smokers, and 17.3% (n = 53) smokers. The average consumption of smokers was 22.2 cigarettes / day and the severity of nicotine dependence evaluated with the Fagerstrom test exceeded 5 points in more than half of the sample. On the other hand, 77.7% had made at least one previous attempt to quit tobacco use. Almost the entire sample (89.9 %) …