Search results for "Biological Psychiatry"
showing 10 items of 1387 documents
Public Opinion on Psychotropic Drugs: An Analysis of the Factors Influencing Acceptance or Rejection
1997
Widespread negative attitudes and irrational beliefs about psychotropic drugs held by the public affect patients' treatment compliance. This study was an attempt to identify factors influencing people's acceptance or rejection of psychotropic drugs. An opinion poll was taken by a representative group of 2,176 adults in Germany. In addition to their attitudes toward psychotropic and cardiac drugs and their ratings of perceived risks and benefits, they were also asked about their drug knowledge, their fear of losing self-control, and their fundamental political values. Our results show that even for the treatment of severe mental disease, psychotropic drugs generally are not well accepted com…
Effects of Pulsed High-Frequency Electromagnetic Fields on Human Sleep
1996
In the present study we investigated the influence of pulsed high-frequency electromagnetic fields of digital mobile radio telephones on sleep in healthy humans. Besides a hypnotic effect with shortening of sleep onset latency, a REM suppressive effect with reduction of duration and percentage of REM sleep was found. Moreover, spectral analysis revealed qualitative alterations of the EEG signal during REM sleep with an increased spectral power density. Knowing the relevance of REM sleep for adequate information processing in the brain, especially concerning mnestic functions and learning processes, the results emphasize the necessity to carry out further investigations on the interaction of…
Methylphenidate, modafinil, and caffeine for cognitive enhancement in chess: A double-blind, randomised controlled trial.
2017
Stimulants and caffeine have been proposed for cognitive enhancement by healthy subjects. This study investigated whether performance in chess - a competitive mind game requiring highly complex cognitive skills - can be enhanced by methylphenidate, modafinil or caffeine. In a phase IV, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 39 male chess players received 2×200mg modafinil, 2×20mg methylphenidate, and 2×200mg caffeine or placebo in a 4×4 crossover design. They played twenty 15-minute games during two sessions against a chess program (Fritz 12; adapted to players' strength) and completed several neuropsychological tests. Marked substance effects were observed since all three subs…
A preliminary characterisation of cognition and social cognition in spinocerebellar ataxia types 2, 1, and 7.
2010
Over the last decade, studies have implicated the cerebellum not only in motor functioning, but also in cognition and social cognition. Although some aspects of cognition have been explored in the five most common forms of Spinocerebellar Ataxia (SCA), social cognition in these patients has rarely been examined. The present study provides a preliminary characterisation of the severity of cognitive and social cognitive impairments in patients with SCA2, SCA1 and SCA7 using an identical battery to the one previously used in SCA3 and SCA6 patients for comparison. The cognitive profiles of SCA1 and SCA7 patients were comparable to that of SCA6 patients; SCA1 patients had relatively intact profi…
Neuronal and Behavioral Correlates of Health Anxiety: Results of an Illness-Related Emotional Stroop Task
2011
<b><i>Background:</i></b> Health anxiety (HA) is defined as the objectively unfounded fear or conviction of suffering from a severe illness. Predominant attention allocation to illness-related information is regarded as a central process in the development and maintenance of HA, yet little is known about the neuronal correlates of this attentional bias. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> An emotional Stroop task with body symptom, illness, and neutral words was employed to elicit emotional interference in healthy participants with high (HA+, n = 12) and low (HA–, n = 12) HA during functional magnetic resonance imaging. <b><i>Results:</i>…
Neuropsychological, clinical and cognitive insight predictors of outcome in a first episode psychosis study.
2012
The outcome of first episode psychosis (FEP) is highly variable and difficult to predict. We studied prospectively the impact of poor insight and neuropsychological deficits on outcomes in a longitudinal cohort of 127 FEP patients. Participants were assessed on 5 domains of cognitive function and 2 domains of insight (clinical and cognitive). At 12. months, patients were assessed again for symptom severity and psychosocial function. Regression analyses revealed that cognitive insight (a measure of self-reflectiveness and self-certainty) was the best baseline predictor of overall psychopathology at 12. months whereas executive function performance at admission to the study indicated later se…
No evidence for attenuated stress-induced extrastriatal dopamine signaling in psychotic disorder
2015
AbstractStress is an important risk factor in the etiology of psychotic disorder. Preclinical work has shown that stress primarily increases dopamine (DA) transmission in the frontal cortex. Given that DA-mediated hypofrontality is hypothesized to be a cardinal feature of psychotic disorder, stress-related extrastriatal DA release may be altered in psychotic disorder. Here we quantified for the first time stress-induced extrastriatal DA release and the spatial extent of extrastriatal DA release in individuals with non-affective psychotic disorder (NAPD). Twelve healthy volunteers (HV) and 12 matched drug-free NAPD patients underwent a single infusion [18F]fallypride positron emission tomogr…
Domain-specific associations between disability and depression, anxiety, and somatization in primary care patients
2018
Abstract This study explores the associations between different disability domains and the most prevalent symptoms of mental disorders in primary care patients (i.e. depression, anxiety, and somatization). A total of 1241 participants from 28 primary care centres completed self-report measures of depression, anxiety, and somatization. This same sample also completed the Sheehan Disability Scale (SDS) to assess functional impairment in work, social life, and family life domains. Associations between the symptoms and each disability domain were examined using hierarchical regression analyses. Depression emerged as the strongest predictor of all three disability domains. Somatization was assoc…
Reduced oxytocin receptor gene expression and binding sites in different brain regions in schizophrenia: A post-mortem study
2016
Schizophrenia is a severe neuropsychiatric disorder with impairments in social cognition. Several brain regions have been implicated in social cognition, including the nucleus caudatus, prefrontal and temporal cortex, and cerebellum. Oxytocin is a critical modulator of social cognition and the formation and maintenance of social relationships and was shown to improve symptoms and social cognition in schizophrenia patients. However, it is unknown whether the oxytocin receptor is altered in the brain. Therefore, we used qRT-PCR and Ornithine Vasotocin Analog ([125I]OVTA)-based receptor autoradiography to investigate oxytocin receptor expression at both the mRNA and protein level in the left p…