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Sample records for twenty schizophrenia patients

  1. Targeting anxiety to improve quality of life in patients with schizophrenia.

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    Buonocore, M; Bosia, M; Bechi, M; Spangaro, M; Cavedoni, S; Cocchi, F; Bianchi, L; Guglielmino, C; Mastromatteo, A R; Cavallaro, R

    2017-09-01

    Several studies suggested that anxiety can significantly affect the outcome of schizophrenia. Despite this evidence, non-pharmacological interventions targeting anxiety are still heterogenous. This study aims to test the efficacy of a novel training specifically designed to target anxiety in patients with schizophrenia. Innovatively, this training, beyond psychoeducation and problem solving, also targets Theory of Mind, as it provides coping strategies. Twenty-seven outpatients with schizophrenia received a novel rehabilitative training targeting anxiety (Anxiety Management Group [AMG]) combined with a Computer-Assisted Cognitive Remediation (CACR), and twenty received CACR plus a control intervention (Control Newspaper discussion Group [CNG]). All patients were assessed at baseline and after treatment for quality of life, neurocognition and anxiety. After training, patients treated with AMG+CACR showed significantly greater improvements on anxiety. A significant increase in quality of life was observed only for AMG+CACR group. Moreover, the participants' appraisal showed a significant difference between treatment groups with higher ratings among patients who received the AMG+CACR. This study thus suggests feasibility and efficacy of the proposed intervention, that could be implemented in rehabilitative programs for patients with schizophrenia with potential benefits also on disease course and outcome. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

  2. Naltrexone and Bupropion Combination Treatment for Smoking Cessation and Weight Loss in Patients With Schizophrenia

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    Xuechan Lyu; Jiang Du; Guilai Zhan; Yujie Wu; Hang Su; Youwei Zhu; Fredrik Jarskog; Min Zhao; Min Zhao; Xiaoduo Fan

    2018-01-01

    Objective: The rates of obesity and cigarette smoking are much higher in patients with schizophrenia compared to the general population. This study was to examine whether naltrexone and bupropion combination treatment can help weight loss and smoking cessation in patients with schizophrenia.Methods: Obese male schizophrenia patients with current cigarette smoking were randomized to receive adjunctive naltrexone (25 mg/day) and bupropion (300 mg/day) combination or placebo for 24 weeks. Twenty...

  3. Relationship between abstract thinking and eye gaze pattern in patients with schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-01-01

    Background Effective integration of visual information is necessary to utilize abstract thinking, but patients with schizophrenia have slow eye movement and usually explore limited visual information. This study examines the relationship between abstract thinking ability and the pattern of eye gaze in patients with schizophrenia using a novel theme identification task. Methods Twenty patients with schizophrenia and 22 healthy controls completed the theme identification task, in which subjects selected which word, out of a set of provided words, best described the theme of a picture. Eye gaze while performing the task was recorded by the eye tracker. Results Patients exhibited a significantly lower correct rate for theme identification and lesser fixation and saccade counts than controls. The correct rate was significantly correlated with the fixation count in patients, but not in controls. Conclusions Patients with schizophrenia showed impaired abstract thinking and decreased quality of gaze, which were positively associated with each other. Theme identification and eye gaze appear to be useful as tools for the objective measurement of abstract thinking in patients with schizophrenia. PMID:24739356

  4. Deficient gaze pattern during virtual multiparty conversation in patients with schizophrenia.

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    Han, Kiwan; Shin, Jungeun; Yoon, Sang Young; Jang, Dong-Pyo; Kim, Jae-Jin

    2014-06-01

    Virtual reality has been used to measure abnormal social characteristics, particularly in one-to-one situations. In real life, however, conversations with multiple companions are common and more complicated than two-party conversations. In this study, we explored the features of social behaviors in patients with schizophrenia during virtual multiparty conversations. Twenty-three patients with schizophrenia and 22 healthy controls performed the virtual three-party conversation task, which included leading and aiding avatars, positive- and negative-emotion-laden situations, and listening and speaking phases. Patients showed a significant negative correlation in the listening phase between the amount of gaze on the between-avatar space and reasoning ability, and demonstrated increased gaze on the between-avatar space in the speaking phase that was uncorrelated with attentional ability. These results suggest that patients with schizophrenia have active avoidance of eye contact during three-party conversations. Virtual reality may provide a useful way to measure abnormal social characteristics during multiparty conversations in schizophrenia. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Schizophrenia causes significant burden to patients' and caregivers' lives.

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    Szkultecka-Dębek, Monika; Miernik, Katarzyna; Stelmachowski, Jarosław; Jakovljević, Miro; Jukić, Vlado; Aadamsoo, Kaire; Janno, Sven; Bitter, István; Tolna, Judit; Jarema, Marek; Jankovic, Slobodan; Pecenak, Jan; Vavrusova, Livia; Tavčar, Rok; Walczak, Jacek; Talbot, Darren; Augustyńska, Joanna

    2016-06-01

    Schizophrenia is a serious public health problem and is ranked among the most disabling diseases in the world. The sub-study presented here was part of a larger project to characterize the burden of schizophrenia on healthcare systems and on individuals living with the disease in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). This sub-study aimed to assess and analyze the impact of schizophrenia on many aspects of the lives of patients and caregivers. Psychiatrists from selected centers in seven Central and Eastern European countries were asked to complete a questionnaire in order to collect information about the disease history, characteristics, treatment protocols and resources used for each randomly selected patient. All data were statistically analyzed and compared between countries. Data from 961 patients with schizophrenia (mean age 40.7 years, 45.1% female) were included in the analysis. The mean number of days spent in hospital per patient per year across all seven countries was 25.3 days. Hospitalization occurred on average once per year, with psychiatrist visits 9.4 times per year. Of the patients in the study, 61% were single, 12% divorced and 22% married or cohabiting. Almost 84% were living with relatives or a partner; only 17% lived alone and, on average, 25% of patients received support from social workers. Relatives provided care for approximately 60% of patients and 4% of them had to stop working in order to do so. Twenty-nine percent of the patients were unemployed, and 56% received a disability pension or were retired, with only 19% in full-time employment or education. Schizophrenia has a significant effect on the lives of patients and caregivers and impacts their social integration.

  6. Language Disorder In Schizophrenia Patient: A Case Study Of Five Schizophrenia Paranoid Patients In Simeulue District Hospital

    OpenAIRE

    Kurnia, Beby Febri

    2015-01-01

    Language disorder in schizophrenia patients is an acquired language disorder due to thought disorder. This analysis analyzed language disorder in schizophrenia paranoid patients in Simeulue District Hospital. The objective of this analysis were: (1) to find out the types of schizophrenic speech found in schizophrenia paranoid patients, (2) to find out the most dominant type of schizophrenia speech found in schizophrenia paranoid patients, and (3) to find out which patient has most severe lang...

  7. Mismatch negativity is a stronger indicator of functional outcomes than neurocognition or theory of mind in patients with schizophrenia.

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    Lee, Seung-Hwan; Sung, Kyongae; Lee, Kyong-Sang; Moon, Eunok; Kim, Chang-Gyu

    2014-01-03

    Mismatch negativity (MMN) is known to be associated with neurocognition, social cognition, and functional outcomes. The present study explored the relationships of MMN with neurocognition, theory of mind, and functional outcomes in patients with schizophrenia, first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia, and healthy controls. Twenty-five patients with schizophrenia, 21 first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia, and 29 healthy controls were recruited. We examined symptom severity, neurocognition, theory of mind, functional outcomes, and MMN. MMN amplitudes decreased in order of patients with schizophrenia, then first-degree relatives, then healthy controls. MMN amplitude was significantly correlated with measures of neurocognition, theory of mind, and functional outcome measurements in patients with schizophrenia. However, the most powerful correlations were those between MMN in the frontal region and measures of functional outcomes. The power and frequency of the correlations were weaker in first-degree relatives and healthy controls than in patients with schizophrenia. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that functional outcomes (relative to measures of neurocognition and theory of mind) constituted the most powerful predictor of MMN. Our results suggest that MMN reflects functional outcomes more efficiently than do measures of neurocognition and theory of mind in patients with schizophrenia. © 2013.

  8. Effect of Olanzapine on Clinical and Polysomnography Profiles in Patients with Schizophrenia

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    Mohammad Zia Ul Haq Katshu

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Acute and short-term administration of olanzapine has a favorable effect on sleep in schizophrenia patients. This study aimed to clarify the effect of olanzapine on polysomnographic profiles of schizophrenia patients during the acute phase of illness after controlling for previous drug exposure. Twenty-five drug-naïve or drug-free schizophrenia patients were assessed at baseline and after six weeks of olanzapine treatment on Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS, Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS, and Udvalg for Kliniske Undersogelser (UKU side-effect rating scale and a whole-night polysomnography; fifteen patients completed the study. There was a significant reduction in all psychopathological variables with maximum reduction in PANSS total, BPRS total, and PANSS positive scores. A significant increase in total sleep time (TST, sleep efficiency (SE, nonrapid eye movement (NREM stage 1 duration, stage 3 duration, stage 4 duration, and stage 4 percentage of TST, number of rapid eye movement (REM periods, REM duration, and REM percentage of TST was observed. REM latency at baseline inversely predicted the reduction in BPRS total and PANSS total and positive scores. In summary, short-term treatment with olanzapine produced significant improvement in clinical and polysomnography profiles of patients with schizophrenia with shorter REM latency predicting a good clinical response.

  9. Naltrexone and Bupropion Combination Treatment for Smoking Cessation and Weight Loss in Patients With Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lyu, Xuechan; Du, Jiang; Zhan, Guilai; Wu, Yujie; Su, Hang; Zhu, Youwei; Jarskog, Fredrik; Zhao, Min; Fan, Xiaoduo

    2018-01-01

    Objective: The rates of obesity and cigarette smoking are much higher in patients with schizophrenia compared to the general population. This study was to examine whether naltrexone and bupropion combination treatment can help weight loss and smoking cessation in patients with schizophrenia. Methods: Obese male schizophrenia patients with current cigarette smoking were randomized to receive adjunctive naltrexone (25 mg/day) and bupropion (300 mg/day) combination or placebo for 24 weeks. Twenty-two patients were enrolled in the study, and 21 patients completed the study (11 in the treatment group, and 10 in the placebo group). Body weight, body mass index (BMI), fasting lipids, smoking urge, expired carbon monoxide (CO) level and cigarettes smoked per week were measured at baseline and week 24. Results: There was no significant difference between two groups in changes in weight, BMI, fasting lipids, or cigarette smoking measures ( p 's > 0.05) Conclusion: Naltrexone and bupropion combination treatment didn't show weight loss or smoking cessation effect in patients with schizophrenia in this pilot study.Implications for future studies were discussed. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02736474.

  10. Decreased Left Putamen and Thalamus Volume Correlates with Delusions in First-Episode Schizophrenia Patients

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    Xiaojun Huang

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available BackgroundDelusional thinking is one of the hallmark symptoms of schizophrenia. However, the underlying neural substrate for delusions in schizophrenia remains unknown. In an attempt to further our understanding of the neural basis of delusions, we explored gray matter deficits and their clinical associations in first-episode schizophrenia patients with and without delusions.MethodsTwenty-four first-episode schizophrenia patients with delusions and 18 without delusions as well as 26 healthy controls (HC underwent clinical assessment and whole-brain structural imaging which were acquired a 3.0 T scanner. Voxel-based morphometry was used to explore inter-group differences in gray matter volume using analysis of covariance, and Spearman correlation coefficients (rho between the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS-delusion scores and mean regional brain volumes was obtained.ResultsPatients with delusions showed decreased brain gray matter volumes in the left putamen, thalamus, and caudate regions compared with HC. Patients with delusions also showed decreased regional volume in the left putamen and thalamus compared with patients without delusions. SAPS-delusion scores were negatively correlated with the gray matter volumes of the left putamen and thalamus.DiscussionLeft putamen and thalamus volume loss may be biological correlates of delusions in schizophrenia.

  11. Influence of empathetic pain processing on cognition in schizophrenia.

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    Hu, Kesong; Lijffijt, Marijn; Beauchaine, Theodore P; Fan, Zhiwei; Shi, Hui; He, Shuchang

    2015-10-01

    Deficits in both empathy and cognition have been reported widely in patients with schizophrenia. However, little is known about how these deficits interact among such patients. In the present study, we used pain portraying pictures preceding a color-word Stroop task to investigate the effect of empathetic pain observation on cognition among patients with schizophrenia. Twenty patients with schizophrenia and twenty healthy controls were included. The control group showed increased Stroop facilitation and decreased interference during the empathetic pain condition compared with the non-empathetic condition. Although patients with schizophrenia exhibited deficits in cognition, they demonstrated a similar empathy effect to controls on Stroop facilitation, but a somewhat larger empathy effect on Stroop interference (a more decreased effect). In particular, the groups did not differ in either automatic or controlled processing during the non-empathetic condition, suggesting general rather than specific cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. Together, we interpret our findings in terms of two opposing effects of empathy on cognition in schizophrenia, with possible neuromodulatory mechanism. Whereas prior studies showed empathy to be impaired, our outcomes indicate that at least some components of empathetic pain processing are preserved in such patients.

  12. Temporal lobe structures and facial emotion recognition in schizophrenia patients and nonpsychotic relatives.

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    Goghari, Vina M; Macdonald, Angus W; Sponheim, Scott R

    2011-11-01

    Temporal lobe abnormalities and emotion recognition deficits are prominent features of schizophrenia and appear related to the diathesis of the disorder. This study investigated whether temporal lobe structural abnormalities were associated with facial emotion recognition deficits in schizophrenia and related to genetic liability for the disorder. Twenty-seven schizophrenia patients, 23 biological family members, and 36 controls participated. Several temporal lobe regions (fusiform, superior temporal, middle temporal, amygdala, and hippocampus) previously associated with face recognition in normative samples and found to be abnormal in schizophrenia were evaluated using volumetric analyses. Participants completed a facial emotion recognition task and an age recognition control task under time-limited and self-paced conditions. Temporal lobe volumes were tested for associations with task performance. Group status explained 23% of the variance in temporal lobe volume. Left fusiform gray matter volume was decreased by 11% in patients and 7% in relatives compared with controls. Schizophrenia patients additionally exhibited smaller hippocampal and middle temporal volumes. Patients were unable to improve facial emotion recognition performance with unlimited time to make a judgment but were able to improve age recognition performance. Patients additionally showed a relationship between reduced temporal lobe gray matter and poor facial emotion recognition. For the middle temporal lobe region, the relationship between greater volume and better task performance was specific to facial emotion recognition and not age recognition. Because schizophrenia patients exhibited a specific deficit in emotion recognition not attributable to a generalized impairment in face perception, impaired emotion recognition may serve as a target for interventions.

  13. Naltrexone and Bupropion Combination Treatment for Smoking Cessation and Weight Loss in Patients With Schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xuechan Lyu

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Objective: The rates of obesity and cigarette smoking are much higher in patients with schizophrenia compared to the general population. This study was to examine whether naltrexone and bupropion combination treatment can help weight loss and smoking cessation in patients with schizophrenia.Methods: Obese male schizophrenia patients with current cigarette smoking were randomized to receive adjunctive naltrexone (25 mg/day and bupropion (300 mg/day combination or placebo for 24 weeks. Twenty-two patients were enrolled in the study, and 21 patients completed the study (11 in the treatment group, and 10 in the placebo group. Body weight, body mass index (BMI, fasting lipids, smoking urge, expired carbon monoxide (CO level and cigarettes smoked per week were measured at baseline and week 24.Results: There was no significant difference between two groups in changes in weight, BMI, fasting lipids, or cigarette smoking measures (p's > 0.05Conclusion: Naltrexone and bupropion combination treatment didn't show weight loss or smoking cessation effect in patients with schizophrenia in this pilot study.Implications for future studies were discussed.ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02736474.

  14. Listening to Sentences in Noise: Revealing Binaural Hearing Challenges in Patients with Schizophrenia.

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    Abdul Wahab, Noor Alaudin; Zakaria, Mohd Normani; Abdul Rahman, Abdul Hamid; Sidek, Dinsuhaimi; Wahab, Suzaily

    2017-11-01

    The present, case-control, study investigates binaural hearing performance in schizophrenia patients towards sentences presented in quiet and noise. Participants were twenty-one healthy controls and sixteen schizophrenia patients with normal peripheral auditory functions. The binaural hearing was examined in four listening conditions by using the Malay version of hearing in noise test. The syntactically and semantically correct sentences were presented via headphones to the randomly selected subjects. In each condition, the adaptively obtained reception thresholds for speech (RTS) were used to determine RTS noise composite and spatial release from masking. Schizophrenia patients demonstrated significantly higher mean RTS value relative to healthy controls (p=0.018). The large effect size found in three listening conditions, i.e., in quiet (d=1.07), noise right (d=0.88) and noise composite (d=0.90) indicates statistically significant difference between the groups. However, noise front and noise left conditions show medium (d=0.61) and small (d=0.50) effect size respectively. No statistical difference between groups was noted in regards to spatial release from masking on right (p=0.305) and left (p=0.970) ear. The present findings suggest an abnormal unilateral auditory processing in central auditory pathway in schizophrenia patients. Future studies to explore the role of binaural and spatial auditory processing were recommended.

  15. Effect of perceived intimacy on social decision-making in patients with schizophrenia.

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    Park, Sunyoung; Shin, Jung Eun; Han, Kiwan; Shin, Yu-Bin; Kim, Jae-Jin

    2014-01-01

    Social dysfunctions including emotional perception and social decision-making are common in patients with schizophrenia. The aim of this study was to determine the level of intimacy formation and the effect of intimacy on social decision in patients with schizophrenia using virtual reality tasks, which simulate complicated social situations. Twenty-seven patients with schizophrenia and 30 healthy controls performed the 2 virtual social tasks: the intimacy task and the social decision task. The first one was to estimate repeatedly how intimate participants felt with each avatar after listening to what avatars said. The second one was to decide whether or not participants accepted the requests of easy, medium, or hard difficulty by the intimate or distant avatars. During the intimacy task, the intimacy rating scores for intimate avatars were not significantly different between groups, but those for distant avatars were significantly higher in patients than in controls. During the social decision task, the difference in the acceptance rate between intimate and distant avatars was significantly smaller in patients than in controls. In detail, a significant group difference in the acceptance rate was found only for the hard requests, but not for the easy and medium difficulty requests. These results suggest that patients with schizophrenia have a deficit in emotional perception and social decision-making. Various factors such as a peculiarity of emotional deficits, motivational deficits, concreteness, and paranoid tendency may contribute to these abnormalities.

  16. Characteristics of social anxiety from virtual interpersonal interactions in patients with schizophrenia.

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    Park, Il Ho; Kim, Jae-Jin; Ku, Jeonghun; Jang, Hee Jeong; Park, Sung-Hyouk; Kim, Chan-Hyung; Kim, In Young; Kim, Sun I

    2009-01-01

    Dysfunctional emotional processing affects social functioning in patients with schizophrenia. However, the relationship between emotional perception and response in social interaction has not been elucidated. Twenty-seven patients with schizophrenia and 27 normal controls performed a virtual reality social encounter task in which they introduced themselves to avatars expressing happy, neutral, or angry emotions while verbal response duration and onset time were measured and perception of emotional valence and arousal, and state anxiety were rated afterwards. Self-reported trait-affective scale scores and the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) ratings were also obtained. Patient group significantly underestimated the valence and arousal of angry emotions expressed by an avatar. While valence and arousal ratings of happy avatars were comparable between groups, patient group reported significantly higher state anxiety in response to happy avatars. State anxiety ratings significantly decreased from encounters with neutral to happy avatars in normal controls while no significant decrease was observed in the patient group. The Social Anhedonia Scale and PANSS negative symptom subscale scores (blunted affect, emotional withdrawal, and passive/ apathetic social withdrawal items) were significantly correlated with state anxiety ratings of the encounters with happy avatars. These results suggest that patients with schizophrenia have interference with the experience of pleasure in social interactions which may be associated with negative symptoms.

  17. Detecting allocentric and egocentric navigation deficits in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder using virtual reality.

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    Mohammadi, Alireza; Hesami, Ehsan; Kargar, Mahmoud; Shams, Jamal

    2018-04-01

    Present evidence suggests that the use of virtual reality has great advantages in evaluating visuospatial navigation and memory for the diagnosis of psychiatric or other neurological disorders. There are a few virtual reality studies on allocentric and egocentric memories in schizophrenia, but studies on both memories in bipolar disorder are lacking. The objective of this study was to compare the performance of allocentric and egocentric memories in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. For this resolve, an advanced virtual reality navigation task (VRNT) was presented to distinguish the navigational performances of these patients. Twenty subjects with schizophrenia and 20 bipolar disorder patients were compared with 20 healthy-matched controls on the newly developed VRNT consisting of a virtual neighbourhood (allocentric memory) and a virtual maze (egocentric memory). The results demonstrated that schizophrenia patients were significantly impaired on all allocentric, egocentric, visual, and verbal memory tasks compared with patients with bipolar disorder and normal subjects. Dissimilarly, the performance of patients with bipolar disorder was slightly lower than that of control subjects in all these abilities, but no significant differences were observed. It was concluded that allocentric and egocentric navigation deficits are detectable in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder using VRNT, and this task along with RAVLT and ROCFT can be used as a valid clinical tool for distinguishing these patients from normal subjects.

  18. Postural Stability of Patients with Schizophrenia during Challenging Sensory Conditions: Implication of Sensory Integration for Postural Control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teng, Ya-Ling; Chen, Chiung-Ling; Lou, Shu-Zon; Wang, Wei-Tsan; Wu, Jui-Yen; Ma, Hui-Ing; Chen, Vincent Chin-Hung

    2016-01-01

    Postural dysfunctions are prevalent in patients with schizophrenia and affect their daily life and ability to work. In addition, sensory functions and sensory integration that are crucial for postural control are also compromised. This study intended to examine how patients with schizophrenia coordinate multiple sensory systems to maintain postural stability in dynamic sensory conditions. Twenty-nine patients with schizophrenia and 32 control subjects were recruited. Postural stability of the participants was examined in six sensory conditions of different level of congruency of multiple sensory information, which was based on combinations of correct, removed, or conflicting sensory inputs from visual, somatosensory, and vestibular systems. The excursion of the center of pressure was measured by posturography. Equilibrium scores were derived to indicate the range of anterior-posterior (AP) postural sway, and sensory ratios were calculated to explore ability to use sensory information to maintain balance. The overall AP postural sway was significantly larger for patients with schizophrenia compared to the controls [patients (69.62±8.99); controls (76.53±7.47); t1,59 = -3.28, pmaintain balance compared to the controls.

  19. Prediction of changes in memory performance by plasma homovanillic acid levels in clozapine-treated patients with schizophrenia.

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    Sumiyoshi, Tomiki; Roy, A; Kim, C-H; Jayathilake, K; Lee, M A; Sumiyoshi, C; Meltzer, H Y

    2004-12-01

    Cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia has been demonstrated to be dependent, in part, on dopaminergic activity. Clozapine has been found to improve some domains of cognition, including verbal memory, in patients with schizophrenia. This study tested the hypothesis that plasma homovanillic acid (pHVA) levels, a peripheral measure of central dopaminergic activity, would predict the change in memory performance in patients with schizophrenia treated with clozapine. Twenty-seven male patients with schizophrenia received clozapine treatment for 6 weeks. Verbal list learning (VLL)-Delayed Recall (VLL-DR), a test of secondary verbal memory, was administered before and after clozapine treatment. Blood samples to measure pHVA levels were collected at baseline. Baseline pHVA levels were negatively correlated with change in performance on VLL-DR; the lower baseline pHVA level was associated with greater improvement in performance on VLL-DR during treatment with clozapine. Baseline pHVA levels in subjects who showed improvement in verbal memory during clozapine treatment ( n=13) were significantly lower than those in subjects whose memory performance did not improve ( n=14). The results of this study indicate that baseline pHVA levels predict the ability of clozapine to improve memory performance in patients with schizophrenia.

  20. Altered functional connectivity during self- and close other-reflection in patients with bipolar disorder with past psychosis and patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Liwen; Vander Meer, Lisette; Opmeer, Esther M; Marsman, Jan-Bernard C; Ruhé, Henricus G; Aleman, André

    2016-12-01

    Disturbances in implicit self-processing have been reported both in psychotic patients with bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenia. It remains unclear whether these two psychotic disorders show disturbed functional connectivity during explicit self-reflection, which is associated with social functioning and illness symptoms. Therefore, we investigated functional connectivity during explicit self-reflection in BD with past psychosis and schizophrenia. Twenty-three BD-patients, 17 schizophrenia-patients and 21 health controls (HC) performed a self-reflection task, including the conditions self-reflection, close other-reflection and semantic control. Functional connectivity was investigated with generalized psycho-physiological interaction (gPPI). During self-reflection compared to semantic, BD-patients had decreased connectivity between several cortical-midline structures (CMS) nodes (i.e., anterior cingulate cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex), the insula and the head of the caudate while HC showed increased connectivities. Schizophrenia-patients, during close other-reflection compared to semantic, demonstrated reduced ventral-anterior insula-precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) functional connectivity, whereas this was increased in HC. There were no differences between BD and schizophrenia during self- and close other-reflection. We propose that decreased functional connectivity between the CMS nodes/insula and head of the caudate in BD-patients may imply a reduced involvement of the motivational system during self-reflection; and the reduced functional connectivity between the ventral-anterior insula and precuneus/PCC during close other-reflection in schizophrenia-patients may subserve difficulties in information integration of autobiographical memory and emotional awareness in relation to close others. These distinctive impaired patterns of functional connectivity in BD and schizophrenia (compared to HC) deserve further investigation to determine their

  1. Influence of contact with schizophrenia on implicit attitudes towards schizophrenia patients held by clinical residents

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    Omori Ataru

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Patients with schizophrenia and their families have suffered greatly from stigmatizing effects. Although many efforts have been made to eradicate both prejudice and stigma, they still prevail even among medical professionals, and little is known about how contact with schizophrenia patients affects their attitudes towards schizophrenia. Methods We assessed the impact of the renaming of the Japanese term for schizophrenia on clinical residents and also evaluated the influence of contact with schizophrenia patients on attitudes toward schizophrenia by comparing the attitudes toward schizophrenia before and after a one-month clinical training period in psychiatry. Fifty-one clinical residents participated. Their attitudes toward schizophrenia were assessed twice, before and one month after clinical training in psychiatry using the Implicit Association Test (IAT as well as Link’s devaluation-discrimination scale. Results The old term for schizophrenia, “Seishin-Bunretsu-Byo”, was more congruent with criminal than the new term for schizophrenia, “Togo-Shitcho-Sho”, before clinical training. However, quite opposite to our expectation, after clinical training the new term had become even more congruent with criminal than the old term. There was no significant correlation between Link's scale and IAT effect. Conclusions Renaming the Japanese term for schizophrenia still reduced the negative images of schizophrenia among clinical residents. However, contact with schizophrenia patients unexpectedly changed clinical residents’ attitudes towards schizophrenia negatively. Our results might contribute to an understanding of the formation of negative attitudes about schizophrenia and assist in developing appropriate clinical training in psychiatry that could reduce prejudice and stigma concerning schizophrenia.

  2. Psychosis among "healthy" siblings of schizophrenia patients

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    Arajärvi, Ritva; Ukkola, Jonna; Haukka, Jari; Suvisaari, Jaana; Hintikka, Jukka; Partonen, Timo; Lönnqvist, Jouko

    2006-01-01

    Abstract Background Schizophrenia aggregates in families and accurate diagnoses are essential for genetic studies of schizophrenia. In this study, we investigated whether siblings of patients with schizophrenia can be identified as free of any psychotic disorder using only register information. We also analyzed the emergence of psychotic disorders among siblings of patients with schizophrenia during seven to eleven years of follow-up. Methods A genetically homogenous population isolate in no...

  3. Registered criminality and sanctioning of schizophrenia patients

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Munkner, Runa; Haastrup, Soeren; Joergensen, Torben

    2009-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Patients with schizophrenia have been shown to have an increased risk of criminality, especially violent crimes. AIMS: The aim of the current study was to describe the pattern of crimes committed by Danish patients with schizophrenia and examine the sanctions given for crimes in relat...... than imprison, individuals with schizophrenia. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that greater alertness is needed in the judicial system for individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia....

  4. Frontal D2/3 Receptor Availability in Schizophrenia Patients Before and After Their First Antipsychotic Treatment

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nørbak-Emig, Henrik; Ebdrup, Bjørn H; Fagerlund, Birgitte

    2016-01-01

    the relation between frontal D2/3 receptor availability and treatment effect on positive symptoms. METHODS: Twenty-five antipsychotic-naïve first-episode schizophrenia patients were examined with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, tested with the cognitive test battery Cambridge Neuropsychological Test......BACKGROUND: We have previously reported associations between frontal D2/3 receptor binding potential positive symptoms and cognitive deficits in antipsychotic-naïve schizophrenia patients. Here, we examined the effect of dopamine D2/3 receptor blockade on cognition. Additionally, we explored.......56, P=.003; D2/3 receptor binding potential right frontal cortex rho = 0.48, P=.016). CONCLUSIONS: Our data support the hypothesis of a negative influence of D2/3 receptor blockade on specific cognitive functions in schizophrenia. This is highly clinically relevant given the well-established association...

  5. Theory of mind correlates with clinical insight but not cognitive insight in patients with schizophrenia.

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    Zhang, Qi; Li, Xu; Parker, Giverny J; Hong, Xiao-Hong; Wang, Yi; Lui, Simon S Y; Neumann, David L; Cheung, Eric F C; Shum, David H K; Chan, Raymond C K

    2016-03-30

    Research on the relationship between insight and social cognition, in particular Theory of Mind (ToM), in schizophrenia has yielded mixed findings to date. Very few studies, however, have assessed both clinical insight and cognitive insight when examining their relationships with ToM in schizophrenia. The current study thus investigated the relationship between clinical insight, cognitive insight, and ToM in a sample of 56 patients with schizophrenia and 30 healthy controls. Twenty-seven patients were classified as low in clinical insight according to their scores on the 'insight' item (G12) of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Moreover, cognitive insight and ToM were assessed with the Beck Cognitive Insight Scale (BCIS) and the Yoni task, respectively. The results indicated that patients with poor clinical insight performed worse on tasks of second-order cognitive and affective ToM, while the ToM performance of patients with high clinical insight was equivalent to that of healthy controls. Furthermore, while clinical insight was correlated with ToM and clinical symptoms, cognitive insight did not correlate with clinical insight, ToM, or clinical symptoms. Clinical insight thus appears to be an important factor related to ToM in schizophrenia. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. Handwriting Movement Analyses for Monitoring Drug-Induced Motor Side Effects in Schizophrenia Patients Treated with Risperidone

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    Caligiuri, Michael P.; Teulings, Hans-Leo; Dean, Charles E.; Niculescu, Alexander B.; Lohr, James

    2009-01-01

    Epidemiologic studies indicate that nearly 60% of schizophrenia (SZ) patients treated with conventional antipsychotic drugs develop extrapyramidal side effects (EPS) such as parkinsonism and tardive dyskinesia. Although the prevalence of EPS has decreased due to the newer antipsychotics, EPS continue to limit the effectiveness of these medicines. Ongoing monitoring of EPS is likely to improve treatment outcome or compliance and reduce the frequency of re-hospitalization. A quantitative analysis of handwriting kinematics was used to evaluate effects of antipsychotic medication type and dose in schizophrenia patients. Twenty-seven schizophrenia patients treated with risperidone, six schizophrenia patients who received no antipsychotic medication and 46 healthy comparison participants were enrolled. Participants performed a 20-minute handwriting task consisting of loops of various sizes and a sentence. Data were captured and analyzed using MovAlyzeR software. Results indicated that risperidone-treated participants exhibited significantly more dysfluent handwriting movements than either healthy or untreated SZ participants. Risperidone-treated participants exhibited lower movement velocities during production of simple loops compared to unmedicated patients. Handwriting dysfluency during sentence writing increased with dose. A 3-factor model consisting of kinematic variables derived from sentence writing accounted for 83% (r = .91) of the variability in medication dose. In contrast, we found no association between observer-based EPS severity ratings and medication dose. These findings support the importance of handwriting-based measures to monitor EPS in medicated schizophrenia patients. PMID:19692133

  7. Functional deficit in the medial prefrontal cortex during a language comprehension task in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dollfus, Sonia; Razafimandimby, Annick; Maiza, Olivier; Lebain, Pierrick; Brazo, Perrine; Beaucousin, Virginie; Lecardeur, Laurent; Delamillieure, Pascal; Mazoyer, Bernard; Tzourio-Mazoyer, Nathalie

    2008-02-01

    We and others have observed that patients with schizophrenia commonly presented a reduced left recruitment in language semantic brain regions. However, most studies include patients with leftward and rightward lateralizations for language. We investigated whether a cohort comprised purely of patients with typical lateralization (leftward) presented a reduced left recruitment in semantic regions during a language comprehension task. The goal was to reduce the inter-subject variability and thus improve the resolution for studying functional abnormalities in the language network. Twenty-three patients with schizophrenia (DSM-IV) were matched with healthy subjects in age, sex, level of education and handedness. All patients exhibited leftward lateralization for language. Functional MRI was performed as subjects listened to a story comprising characters and social interactions. Functional MRI signal variations were analyzed individually and compared among groups. Although no differences were observed in the recruitment of the semantic language network, patients with schizophrenia presented significantly lower signal variations compared to controls in the medial part of the left superior frontal gyrus (MF1) (x=-6, y=58, z=20; Z(score)=5.6; pTheory of Mind (ToM) network. Only 5 of the 23 patients (21.7%) and 21 of the 23 (91.3%) control subjects demonstrated a positive signal variation in this area. A left functional deficit was observed in a core region of the ToM network in patients with schizophrenia and typical lateralizations for language. This functional defect could represent a neural basis for impaired social interaction and communication in patients with schizophrenia.

  8. Registered criminality and sanctioning of schizophrenia patients

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Munkner, Runa; Haastrup, Soeren; Joergensen, Torben

    2009-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Patients with schizophrenia have been shown to have an increased risk of criminality, especially violent crimes. AIMS: The aim of the current study was to describe the pattern of crimes committed by Danish patients with schizophrenia and examine the sanctions given for crimes...... in relation to the different periods in the patients' lives: not yet known to the psychiatric hospital system, known to the system but not yet diagnosed with schizophrenia, and after being diagnosed with schizophrenia. METHODS: Information from the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register was correlated...... with data from the Danish National Crime Register. RESULTS: One of the more prominent findings was that 16% of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia receive a prison sentence or a suspended prison sentence, despite the fact that Denmark is a co-signatory of the European Prison Rules and should treat, rather...

  9. Do patients think cannabis causes schizophrenia? - A qualitative study on the causal beliefs of cannabis using patients with schizophrenia

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    Schaub Michael

    2010-09-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background There has been a considerable amount of debate among the research community whether cannabis use may cause schizophrenia and whether cannabis use of patients with schizophrenia is associated with earlier and more frequent relapses. Considering that studies exploring patients' view on controversial topics have contributed to our understanding of important clinical issues, it is surprising how little these views have been explored to add to our understanding of the link between cannabis and psychosis. The present study was designed to elucidate whether patients with schizophrenia who use cannabis believe that its use has caused their schizophrenia and to explore these patients other beliefs and perceptions about the effects of the drug. Methods We recruited ten consecutive patients fulfilling criteria for paranoid schizophrenia and for a harmful use of/dependence from cannabis (ICD-10 F20.0 + F12.1 or F12.2 from the in- and outpatient clinic of the Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich. They were interviewed using qualitative methodology. Furthermore, information on amount, frequency, and effects of use was obtained. A grounded theory approach to data analysis was taken to evaluate findings. Results None of the patients described a causal link between the use of cannabis and their schizophrenia. Disease models included upbringing under difficult circumstances (5 or use of substances other than cannabis (e. g. hallucinogens, 3. Two patients gave other reasons. Four patients considered cannabis a therapeutic aid and reported that positive effects (reduction of anxiety and tension prevailed over its possible disadvantages (exacerbation of positive symptoms. Conclusions Patients with schizophrenia did not establish a causal link between schizophrenia and the use of cannabis. We suggest that clinicians consider our findings in their work with patients suffering from these co-occurring disorders. Withholding treatment or excluding

  10. Increased plasma agmatine levels in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Uzbay, Tayfun; Goktalay, Gokhan; Kayir, Hakan; Eker, Salih S; Sarandol, Asli; Oral, Sema; Buyukuysal, Levent; Ulusoy, Gokhan; Kirli, Selcuk

    2013-08-01

    Agmatine is an endogenous substance, synthesized from l-arginine, and it is proposed to be a new neurotransmitter. Preclinical studies indicated that agmatine may have an important role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. This study was organized to investigate plasma agmatine in patients with schizophrenia and in healthy controls. Eighteen patients with schizophrenia and 19 healthy individuals constituted the subjects. Agmatine levels in the plasma were measured using the HPLC method. The S100B protein level, which is a peripheral biomarker for brain damage, was also measured using the ELISA method. While plasma levels of agmatine in patients with schizophrenia were significantly increased (p agmatine levels as a clinical diagnostic test would significantly differentiate between patients with schizophrenia and those in the control group (predictive value: 0.969; p  0.05). A multiple regression analysis revealed that the age of the patient and the severity of the illness, as indicated by the PANSS score, significantly contributed the plasma agmatine levels in patients with schizophrenia. These results support the hypothesis that an excess agmatine release is important in the development of schizophrenia. The findings also imply that the plasma agmatine level may be a potential biomarker of schizophrenia. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. Comorbidities and risk factors among patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harrison, Christopher; Charles, Janice; Britt, Helena

    2015-01-01

    General practitioners (GPs) are charged with maintaining a holistic approach to their patients' health. While most patients with schizophrenia attend public mental health services and/or non-government organisations supporting people with mental illness, 88.2% of people with a psychotic illness (the majority being schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder) had visited a GP in the previous year. For at least 30-40% of people living with schizophrenia in Australia, ongoing management is provided by their GP alone. Moreover, there is evidence that patients with schizophrenia value the help provided by GPs. Patients with schizophrenia have reduced life expectancy. Overseas research (primarily from the UK and US) has found that the poor physical health of patients with schizophrenia can be attributed to a number of factors such as modifiable lifestyle risk factors and side effects of medication, compounded by causes intrinsic to the illness such as mental stress and loss of initiative.

  12. Conflict adaptation in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abrahamse, Elger; Ruitenberg, Marit; Boddewyn, Sarah; Oreel, Edith; de Schryver, Maarten; Morrens, Manuel; van Dijck, Jean-Philippe

    2017-11-01

    Cognitive control impairments may contribute strongly to the overall cognitive deficits observed in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. In the current study we explore a specific cognitive control function referred to as conflict adaptation. Previous studies on conflict adaptation in schizophrenia showed equivocal results, and, moreover, were plagued by confounded research designs. Here we assessed for the first time conflict adaptation in schizophrenia with a design that avoided the major confounds of feature integration and stimulus-response contingency learning. Sixteen patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and sixteen healthy, matched controls performed a vocal Stroop task to determine the congruency sequence effect - a marker of conflict adaptation. A reliable congruency sequence effect was observed for both healthy controls and patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. These findings indicate that schizophrenia is not necessarily accompanied by impaired conflict adaptation. As schizophrenia has been related to abnormal functioning in core conflict adaptation areas such as anterior cingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, further research is required to better understand the precise impact of such abnormal brain functioning at the behavioral level. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  13. Motor Synchronization in Patients With Schizophrenia: Preserved Time Representation With Abnormalities in Predictive Timing

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    Hélène Wilquin

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available Objective: Basic temporal dysfunctions have been described in patients with schizophrenia, which may impact their ability to connect and synchronize with the outer world. The present study was conducted with the aim to distinguish between interval timing and synchronization difficulties and more generally the spatial-temporal organization disturbances for voluntary actions. A new sensorimotor synchronization task was developed to test these abilities.Method: Twenty-four chronic schizophrenia patients matched with 27 controls performed a spatial-tapping task in which finger taps were to be produced in synchrony with a regular metronome to six visual targets presented around a virtual circle on a tactile screen. Isochronous (time intervals of 500 ms and non-isochronous auditory sequences (alternated time intervals of 300/600 ms were presented. The capacity to produce time intervals accurately versus the ability to synchronize own actions (tap with external events (tone were measured.Results: Patients with schizophrenia were able to produce the tapping patterns of both isochronous and non-isochronous auditory sequences as accurately as controls producing inter-response intervals close to the expected interval of 500 and 900 ms, respectively. However, the synchronization performances revealed significantly more positive asynchrony means (but similar variances in the patient group than in the control group for both types of auditory sequences.Conclusion: The patterns of results suggest that patients with schizophrenia are able to perceive and produce both simple and complex sequences of time intervals but are impaired in the ability to synchronize their actions with external events. These findings suggest a specific deficit in predictive timing, which may be at the core of early symptoms previously described in schizophrenia.

  14. Attitudes of Medical and Pharmacy Students Towards Patients Suffering from Schizophrenia

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    Ignjatovic-Ristic Dragana

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Research over the past twenty years has shown that the attitudes of health care workers and students towards people who are suffering from schizophrenia have become more negative. The aim of our study was to investigate the attitudes of medical and pharmacy students towards patients with schizophrenia and explore the differences in attitudes between study groups and students in different years. Materials and methods: Second- and fifth-year medical and pharmacy students from the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of Kragujevac were included in an observational, prospective, cross-sectional study. The sample consisted of 113 students from the pharmacy and medical schools who were chosen via random sampling. The students completed a two-part questionnaire. Th e first part contained questions about sociodemographic characteristics, whereas the second part was a translated version of the Mental Illness: Clinician’s Attitudes (MICA v4 scale. Results: There is a statistically significant difference (р<0.05 in the attitudes towards people with schizophrenia between second- and fifth-year medical and pharmacy students (with lower scores in both groups in fifth-year students. Of the total number of students who had lower summed scores on the Likert scale, 51.3% had previously finished medical high school, whereas 28.3% had previously finished regular high school. Conclusion: Our results showed a statistically significant difference in attitudes towards people with schizophrenia between second- and fifth-year students as well as a difference related to previous high school education. This stresses the importance of levels of knowledge about schizophrenia to reducing the stigmatization of patients who suffer from this disorder.

  15. Subjective burden on spouses of schizophrenia patients

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    Surekha Kumari

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available Background : There is limited information from India on subjective burden on spouses of schizophrenia patients. The aim of the present study was to assess and compare patterns of subjective burden on spouses of schizophrenia patients. Materials and Methods: The present study was conducted at the OPD level, and follow-up was done at the Ranchi Institute of Neuropsychiatry and Sciences (RINPAS during the period May 2008 to November 2008. Tools utilized were sociodemographic data sheet, Family Burden Interview Schedule developed by Pai and R. L. Kapur (1981. The sample comprised of 50 samples of spouses (25 male and 25 female spouses of schizophrenia patients. Results: The findings suggest that both the groups, viz., male and female spouses of schizophrenia patients, showed moderate level of subjective burden, i.e., 13 (52% and 15 (60% male and female spouses, respectively, which was statistically found to be insignificant. Conclusion : No significant difference was found between male and female spouses of schizophrenia patients with regard to the level of subjective burden.

  16. Evidence for regional hippocampal damage in patients with schizophrenia

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Singh, Sadhana; Khushu, Subash; Kumar, Pawan; Goyal, Satnam; Bhatia, Triptish; Deshpande, Smita N.

    2018-01-01

    Schizophrenia patients show cognitive and mood impairments, including memory loss and depression, suggesting damage in the brain regions. The hippocampus is a brain structure that is significantly involved in memory and mood function and shows impairment in schizophrenia. In the present study, we examined the regional hippocampal changes in schizophrenia patients using voxel-based morphometry (VBM), Freesurfer, and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy ( 1 H MRS) procedures. 1 H MRS and high-resolution T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging were collected in both healthy control subjects (N = 28) and schizophrenia patients (N = 28) using 3-Tesla whole body MRI system. Regional hippocampal volume was analyzed using VBM and Freesufer procedures. The relative ratios of the neurometabolites were calculated using linear combination model (LCModel). Compared to controls, schizophrenia patients showed significantly decreased gray matter volume in the hippocampus. Schizophrenia patients also showed significantly reduced glutamate (Glu) and myo-inositol (mI) ratios in the hippocampus. Additionally, significant positive correlation between gray matter volume and Glu/tCr was also observed in the hippocampus in schizophrenia. Our findings provide an evidence for a possible association between structural deficits and metabolic alterations in schizophrenia patients. (orig.)

  17. Evidence for regional hippocampal damage in patients with schizophrenia

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Singh, Sadhana; Khushu, Subash; Kumar, Pawan [DRDO, NMR Research Centre, Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS), Delhi (India); Goyal, Satnam; Bhatia, Triptish; Deshpande, Smita N. [RML Hospital, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), New Delhi (India)

    2018-02-15

    Schizophrenia patients show cognitive and mood impairments, including memory loss and depression, suggesting damage in the brain regions. The hippocampus is a brain structure that is significantly involved in memory and mood function and shows impairment in schizophrenia. In the present study, we examined the regional hippocampal changes in schizophrenia patients using voxel-based morphometry (VBM), Freesurfer, and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy ({sup 1}H MRS) procedures. {sup 1}H MRS and high-resolution T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging were collected in both healthy control subjects (N = 28) and schizophrenia patients (N = 28) using 3-Tesla whole body MRI system. Regional hippocampal volume was analyzed using VBM and Freesufer procedures. The relative ratios of the neurometabolites were calculated using linear combination model (LCModel). Compared to controls, schizophrenia patients showed significantly decreased gray matter volume in the hippocampus. Schizophrenia patients also showed significantly reduced glutamate (Glu) and myo-inositol (mI) ratios in the hippocampus. Additionally, significant positive correlation between gray matter volume and Glu/tCr was also observed in the hippocampus in schizophrenia. Our findings provide an evidence for a possible association between structural deficits and metabolic alterations in schizophrenia patients. (orig.)

  18. Psychosis among "healthy" siblings of schizophrenia patients

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    Partonen Timo

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Schizophrenia aggregates in families and accurate diagnoses are essential for genetic studies of schizophrenia. In this study, we investigated whether siblings of patients with schizophrenia can be identified as free of any psychotic disorder using only register information. We also analyzed the emergence of psychotic disorders among siblings of patients with schizophrenia during seven to eleven years of follow-up. Methods A genetically homogenous population isolate in north-eastern Finland having 365 families with 446 patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia was initially identified in 1991 using four nationwide registers. Between 1998 and 2002, 124 patients and 183 siblings in 110 families were contacted and interviewed using SCID-I, SCID-II and SANS. We also compared the frequency of mental disorders between siblings and a random population comparison group sample. Results Thirty (16% siblings received a diagnosis of psychotic disorder in the interview. 14 siblings had had psychotic symptoms already before 1991, while 16 developed psychotic symptoms during the follow-up. Over half of the siblings (n = 99, 54% had a lifetime diagnosis of any mental disorder in the interview. Conclusion Register information cannot be used to exclude psychotic disorders among siblings of patients with schizophrenia. The high rate of emergence of new psychotic disorders among initially healthy siblings should be taken into account in genetic analysis.

  19. A mentally retarded patient with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rabia, K; Khoo, Em

    2008-01-01

    Schizophrenia is one of the most incapacitating forms of mental disorder that runs a chronic and relapsing course. It typically starts in adolescence or early adulthood and can be life-long. It is more common in people with learning disabilities than in the general population. Its prodromal features include depression, anxiety, suspiciousness, social isolation and bizarre behaviour. It may result in significant functional, social and economic impairments. The care of patients with schizophrenia places a considerable burden on all carers including patient's family, health and social services. Treatment includes pharmacotherapy and psychosocial interventions. In this case report we describe a thirteen-year-old patient with schizophrenia who has a background history of mental retardation.

  20. Processes of in-hospital psychiatric care and subsequent criminal behaviour among patients with schizophrenia: a national population-based, follow-up study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pedersen, Charlotte Gjørup; Olrik Wallenstein Jensen, Signe; Johnsen, Søren Paaske; Nordentoft, Merete; Mainz, Jan

    2013-09-01

    It is unknown whether evidence-based, in-hospital processes of care may influence the risk of criminal behaviour among patients with schizophrenia. Our study aimed to examine the association between guideline recommended in-hospital psychiatric care and criminal behaviour among patients with schizophrenia. Danish patients with schizophrenia (18 years or older) discharged from a psychiatric ward between January 2004 and March 2009 were identified using a national population-based schizophrenia registry (n = 10 757). Data for in-hospital care and patient characteristics were linked with data on criminal charges obtained from the Danish Crime Registry until November 2010. Twenty per cent (n = 2175) of patients were charged with a crime during follow-up (median = 428 days). Violent crimes accounted for 59% (n = 1282) of the criminal offences. The lowest risk of crime was found among patients receiving the most processes of in-hospital care (top quartile of received recommended care, compared with bottom quartiles, adjusted hazard ratio = 0.86, 95% CI 0.75 to 0.99). The individual processes of care associated with the lowest risk of criminal behaviour were antipsychotic treatment and staff contact with relatives. High-quality, in-hospital psychiatric care was associated with a lower risk of criminal behaviour after discharge among patients with schizophrenia.

  1. Assessment of the psychopathological effects of a horticultural therapy program in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oh, Yun-Ah; Park, Sin-Ae; Ahn, Byung-Eun

    2018-02-01

    This study assessed the psychopathological effects of participation in a 10-session horticultural therapy program in patients with schizophrenia. The study design was pre and post test design of experimental and control groups. Twenty-eight Korean patients with schizophrenia, recruited from a mental health clinic and two mental health rehabilitation centers in Suwon, South Korea, were voluntarily assigned to either a control group (average age: 33.4±9.4years) or a horticultural therapy group (average age: 42.1±13.0years). The participants in the horticultural therapy group participated in a 10-session horticultural therapy program designed around various plant cultivating activities. The horticultural therapy program involved sessions once a week from April 2017 to June 2017. A psychiatrist evaluated the psychopathological symptoms of schizophrenic patients in both groups. To assess the clinical psychopathological effects, the Korean version of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) were used. The horticultural therapy group significantly improved in terms of positive, negative, and general symptoms on the PANSS after the 10-session horticultural therapy program. Moreover, the horticultural therapy group significantly improved in terms of clinical symptoms of schizophrenia in BPRS after the 10-session horticultural therapy program. However, there was no change in the PANSS and BPRS scores in the control group. This study showed the potential of horticultural therapy in improving psychopathological symptoms in psychiatric patients. Future studies should investigate the effects of long-term horticultural therapy program on the chronic symptoms of patients with schizophrenia. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  2. Extrastriatal dopamine D-2/3 receptors and cortical grey matter volumes in antipsychotic-naive schizophrenia patients before and after initial antipsychotic treatment

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nørbak-Emig, Henrik; Pinborg, Lars H.; Raghava, Jayachandra M.

    2017-01-01

    OBJECTIVES: Long-term dopamine D2/3 receptor blockade, common to all antipsychotics, may underlie progressive brain volume changes observed in patients with chronic schizophrenia. In the present study, we examined associations between cortical volume changes and extrastriatal dopamine D2/3 recept...... binding potentials (BPND) in first-episode schizophrenia patents at baseline and after antipsychotic treatment. METHODS: Twenty-two initially antipsychotic-naïve patients underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), [(123)I]epidepride single-photon emission computerised tomography (SPECT......), and psychopathology assessments before and after 3 months of treatment with either risperidone (N = 13) or zuclopenthixol (N = 9). Twenty healthy controls matched on age, gender and parental socioeconomic status underwent baseline MRI and SPECT. RESULTS: Neither extrastriatal D2/3 receptor BPND at baseline, nor...

  3. Increased suicidal risk among smoking schizophrenia patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iancu, Iulian; Sapir, Anna Piccone; Shaked, Ginette; Poreh, Amir; Dannon, Pinhas Nadim; Chelben, Joseph; Kotler, Moshe

    2006-01-01

    Schizophrenia patients display a high suicidal risk, although this risk is difficult to predict. One of the variables associated with increased suicide risk is smoking. In the present study, we assessed the suicidal risk in schizophrenia patients, smokers and nonsmokers. We also evaluated the impact of various variables such as psychotic symptoms, impulsivity, and extra-pyramidal side effects on suicidal risk. Sixty-one schizophrenia patients responded to a battery of measures, including the suicidal risk scale (SRS), the positive and negative syndrome scale (PANSS), the impulsivity control scale, and the Simpson Angus Scale for extrapyramidal side effects. The effect of smoking on the various measures, especially suicidal risk, was examined. Schizophrenia patients who smoke obtained higher PANSS scores (both total score and positive and negative subscales), but did not differ on the Simpson Angus scale of extrapyramidal side effects. They also exhibited higher suicide risk as reflected by higher scores on the SRS, and a trend for higher impulsivity as measured by the impulsivity control scale. Women that smoked had higher SRS scores as compared with female nonsmokers, and also higher than in males, smokers and nonsmokers. Smoking and a history of suicide attempt predicted in our regression analysis a higher SRS score. When conducting separate analyses for the male and female patients, the significant contributors were the PANSS total score among the males and the number of pack-years among the female patients. Despite hints toward the role of smoking in suicidal behavior in Schizophrenia, especially among female patients, more studies are needed to elucidate the association between smoking and suicidality in schizophrenia patients.

  4. Neural correlates of prospective memory impairments in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Xing-jie; Wang, Ya; Wang, Yi; Yang, Tian-xiao; Zou, Lai-quan; Huang, Jia; Li, Feng-hua; Chen, An-tao; Wang, Wei-hong; Zheng, Han-feng; Cheung, Eric F C; Shum, David H K; Chan, Raymond C K

    2016-02-01

    Prospective memory (PM) refers to the ability to remember to carry out intended actions after a delay. PM impairments are common in schizophrenia patients and are thought to be related to their prefrontal cortex dysfunction; however, this has not yet been examined directly in the research literature. The current study aimed to examine abnormalities in brain activation during PM task performance in schizophrenia patients. Twenty-two schizophrenia patients and 25 matched healthy controls were scanned in a 3-T MRI machine while performing a PM task. The results showed that compared to the healthy controls, schizophrenia patients performed significantly worse on the PM task. Furthermore, they exhibited decreased brain activation in frontal cortex including the right superior frontal gyri (Brodmann area 10), and other related brain areas like the anterior cingulate gyrus, parietal and temporal cortex, including precuneus, and some subcortext, including parahippocampal gyrus and putamen. These findings confirm the involvement and importance of the prefrontal cortex in PM and show evidence of hypofrontality in schizophrenia patients while performing a PM task. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved.

  5. Review: Burden on Family Caregivers Caring for Patients with Schizophrenia and Its Related Factors

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    Imas Rafiyah

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Family caregiver is the most important person who cares for patient with schizophrenia. However when care is provided for long time, he/she may experiences the burden.Purpose: The purpose was to review concept and factors related to burden on family caregivers caring for patients with schizophrenia.Method: A literatures were searched from databases: Pubmed, CINAHL, and Science Direct. Key words used to retrieve literature include caregiver burden and schizophrenia. Searching was limited in English language, full text, and the year of publication from 2000 to 2009 was used.Results: Twenty two studies were reviewed in this paper. The result showed that the caregivers caring for patients with schizophrenia experience burden. Burden was defined as a negative impact of caring for the impaired person experienced by caregiver on their activity (objective burden or feeling (subjective burden that involves emotional, physical health, social life, and financial status. Factors related to burden on family caregiver were grouped into: 1 caregiver‟s factors included age, gender, educational level, income, health status, and spent time per day, knowledge of schizophrenia, culture, and coping; 2 patient‟s factors included age, clinical symptoms, and disability in daily life; 3 environmental factors included mental health service and social support.Conclusion: Definition of burden have quite same meaning and mostly factors focus on the patient‟s symptoms, demographic factors of caregiver, and time spent per day. Most of studies cannot be generalized due to small sample used in the study and that too conducted in western countries. For further research, the correlation between burden and resources of family caregiver should be investigated particularly in eastern country.Key words: burden on family caregiver, caring, schizophrenia.

  6. Study of Attention Deficit in Patients with Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

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    SM Kafi

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background & aim: Attention deficit has significant effect on the life of patients suffering from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The aim of this study was to assess the attention deficit in patients with schizophrenia. Methods: In the present post-hoc study, 132 patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder were selected via non-randomized sampling at Shafa Hospital (Rasht, Iran and then divided into four equal groups: chronic schizophrenia patients, first-episode patients, chronic bipolar patients, and first-episode bipolar patients. Thirty-three healthy individuals were selected as the control group. Subjects were evaluated by Stroop color-word test. The gathered Data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA. Results: Attention deficit among chronic schizophrenics and patients suffering from bipolar disease was higher than the control group (p <1. Chronic schizophrenic patients compared with schizophrenia bipolar disease and first round schizophrenia showed more attention deficit. There was no significant difference among the first bipolar disease and schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, as well as the first round schizophrenia (p<0.05. Conclusion: Attention deficit is more severe in schizophrenic patients than bipolar disorder, and chronicity is more effective in schizophrenic patients. Key words: Attention, Schizophrenia, Chronicity

  7. Treatment patterns for schizoaffective disorder and schizophrenia among Medicaid patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Olfson, Mark; Marcus, Steven C; Wan, George J

    2009-02-01

    This study compared background characteristics, pharmacologic treatment, and service use of adults treated for schizoaffective disorder and adults treated for schizophrenia. Medicaid claims data from two states were analyzed with a focus on adults treated for schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia. Patient groups were compared regarding demographic characteristics, pharmacologic treatment, and health service use during 180 days before and after a claim for either schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. A larger proportion of patients were treated for schizophrenia (N=38,760; 70.1%) than for schizoaffective disorder (N=16,570; 29.9%). During the 180 days before the index diagnosis claim, significantly more patients with schizoaffective disorder than those with schizophrenia were treated for depressive disorder (19.6% versus 11.4%, pschizoaffective disorder, 87.3%; schizophrenia, 87.0%), although patients with schizoaffective disorder were significantly more likely than patients with schizophrenia to receive antidepressants (61.7% versus 44.0%, pschizoaffective disorder were also significantly more likely than patients with schizophrenia to receive psychotherapy (23.4% versus 13.0%, pSchizoaffective disorder is commonly diagnosed among Medicaid beneficiaries. These patients often receive complex pharmacologic regimens, and many also receive treatment for mood disorders. Differences in service use patterns between schizoaffective disorder and schizophrenia argue for separate consideration of their health care needs.

  8. Criterion and construct validity of the CogState Schizophrenia Battery in Japanese patients with schizophrenia.

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    Taisuke Yoshida

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The CogState Schizophrenia Battery (CSB, a computerized cognitive battery, covers all the same cognitive domains as the Measurement and Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery but is briefer to conduct. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the criterion and construct validity of the Japanese language version of the CSB (CSB-J in Japanese patients with schizophrenia. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Forty Japanese patients with schizophrenia and 40 Japanese healthy controls with matching age, gender, and premorbid intelligence quotient were enrolled. The CSB-J and the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia, Japanese-language version (BACS-J were performed once. The structure of the CSB-J was also evaluated by a factor analysis. Similar to the BACS-J, the CSB-J was sensitive to cognitive impairment in Japanese patients with schizophrenia. Furthermore, there was a significant positive correlation between the CSB-J composite score and the BACS-J composite score. A factor analysis showed a three-factor model consisting of memory, speed, and social cognition factors. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This study suggests that the CSB-J is a useful and rapid automatically administered computerized battery for assessing broad cognitive domains in Japanese patients with schizophrenia.

  9. Systematic Suicide Risk Assessment for Patients With Schizophrenia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pedersen, Charlotte Gjørup; Wallenstein Jensen, Signe Olrik; Gradus, Jaimie

    2013-01-01

    Objectives: Systematic suicide risk assessment is recommended for patients with schizophrenia; however, little is known about the implementation of suicide risk assessment in routine clinical practice. The study aimed to determine the use of systematic suicide risk assessment at discharge...... and predictors of suicide attempt among hospitalized patients with schizophrenia in Denmark. Methods: A one-year follow-up study was conducted of 9,745 patients with schizophrenia who were discharged from psychiatric wards and registered in a national population-based schizophrenia registry between 2005 and 2009....... Results: The proportion of patients receiving suicide risk assessment at discharge from a psychiatric ward increased from 72% (95% confidence interval [CI]=71%-74%) in 2005, when the national monitoring began, to 89% (CI.89%-90%) in 2009. Within one year after discharge, 1% of all registered patients had...

  10. Working memory assessment in schizophrenia and its correlation with executive functions ability.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berberian, Arthur A; Trevisan, Bruna T; Moriyama, Tais S; Montiel, José M; Oliveira, José Ari C; Seabra, Alessandra G

    2009-09-01

    Working memory impairment is common in schizophrenia and is possibly a cause of multiple features of the disorder. However few studies have replicated such findings of impairment patterns in Brazilian samples. The main target of this study was to assess auditory and visual working memory in patients with schizophrenia, to assess if they work as separate systems, and to correlate working memory deficits with executive functions. Twenty subjects with schizophrenia and twenty healthy subjects matched by gender, age, and schooling have participated. The abilities assessed were auditory and visual working memory, selective attention, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and planning. Patients showed declines in all measures evaluated, except for a measure reaction time of inhibitory control. Auditory working memory was correlated to selective attention, inhibition, flexibility and planning while Visual working memory to planning and flexibility. The present study suggests that working memory and executive functions deficits are present in patients with schizophrenia in the Brazilian sample evaluated. Alterations in executive functions may lead to incapacity of operation of processes of working memory. These findings may contribute to delineate and develop new strategies of schizophrenia treatment in the Brazilian population.

  11. Pleasure Experience and Emotion Expression in Patients with Schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    CHU, Min-yi; LI, Xu; LV, Qin-yu; Yl, Zheng-hui; CHEUNG, Eric F. C.; CHAN, Raymond C. K.

    2017-01-01

    Background Impairments in emotional experience and expression have been observed in patients with schizophrenia. However, most previous studies have been limited to either emotional experience (especially anhedonia) or expression. Few studies have examined both the experience and expression of emotion in schizophrenia patients at the same time. Aims The present study aimed to examine pleasure experience and emotion expression in patients with schizophrenia. In particular, we specifically examined the relationship between emotion impairments (both pleasure experience and expression) and negative symptoms. Methods One hundred and fifty patients completed the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale and Emotional Expressivity Scale. Results Schizophrenia patients exhibited deficits in experiencing pleasure, but showed intact reported emotion expression. Patients with prominent negative symptoms showed reduced anticipatory pleasure, especially in abstract anticipatory pleasure. Conclusion The present findings suggest that patients with schizophrenia have deficits in pleasure experience, while their abilities to express emotion appear intact. Such deficits are more severe in patients with prominent negative symptoms. PMID:29276350

  12. Further evidence for a deficit in switching attention in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, G L; Large, M M; Kavanagh, D J; Karayanidis, F; Barrett, N A; Michie, P T; O'Sullivan, B T

    1998-08-01

    In this study, sustained, selective, divided, and switching attention, and reloading of working memory were investigated in schizophrenia by using a newly developed Visual Attention Battery (VAB). Twenty-four outpatients with schizophrenia and 24 control participants were studied using the VAB. Performance on VAB components was correlated with performance of standard tests. Patients with schizophrenia were significantly impaired on VAB tasks that required switching of attention and reloading of working memory but had normal performance on tasks involving sustained attention or attention to multiple stimulus features. Switching attention and reloading of working memory were highly correlated with Trails (B-A) score for patients. The decline in performance on the switching-attention task in patients with schizophrenia met criteria for a differential deficit in switching attention. Future research should examine the neurophysiological basis of the switching deficit and its sensitivity and specificity to schizophrenia.

  13. False memories for affective information in Schizophrenia

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    Beth Fairfield

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available Studies have shown a direct link between memory for emotionally salient experiences and false memories. In particular, emotionally arousing material of negative and positive valence enhanced reality monitoring compared to neutral material since emotional stimuli can be encoded with more contextual details and thereby facilitate the distinction between presented and imagined stimuli. Individuals with schizophrenia appear to be impaired in both reality monitoring and memory for emotional experiences. However, the relationship between the emotionality of the-to-be-remembered material and false memory occurrence has not yet been studied. In this study, twenty-four patients and twenty-four healthy adults completed a false memory task with everyday episodes composed of 12 photographs that depicted positive, negative or neutral outcomes. Results showed how patients with schizophrenia made a higher number of false memories than normal controls (p0.05 resulting from erroneous inferences but did interact with plausible, script consistent errors in patients (i.e. neutral episodes yielded a higher degree of errors than positive and negative episodes. Affective information reduces the probability of generating causal errors in healthy adults but not in patients suggesting that emotional memory impairments may contribute to deficits in reality monitoring in schizophrenia when affective information is involved.

  14. Comparison of peripheral and central schizophrenia biomarker profiles.

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    Laura W Harris

    Full Text Available We have recently shown that a molecular biomarker signature comprised of inflammatory, hormonal and growth factors occurs in the blood serum from first onset schizophrenia patients. Here, we use the same platform to investigate post mortem brain tissue (Brodmann area 10 from schizophrenia patients who were mainly chronically ill and drug treated. Twenty-one analytes are differentially expressed in post-mortem brain tissue. Comparison with our previous mRNA profiling studies of the same patient samples in another frontal cortical area showed that 9 of these molecules were also altered at the transcriptional level. Furthermore, 9 of the molecules were also altered in serum from living first onset schizophrenia patients compared to controls. We propose a model in which the brain and periphery are coordinated through hormones and other regulatory molecules released into the blood via the diffuse neuroendocrine system. These findings provide further evidence for the systemic nature of schizophrenia and give added validity to the concept that schizophrenia can be investigated through studies of blood-based biomarkers.

  15. A MENTALLY RETARDED PATIENT WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA

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    KHOO EM

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available Schizophrenia is one of the most incapacitating forms of mental disorder that runs a chronic and relapsing course. It typically starts in adolescence or early adulthood and can be life-long. It is more common in people with learning disabilities than in the general population. Its prodromal features include depression, anxiety, suspiciousness, social isolation and bizarre behaviour. It may result in significant functional, social and economic impairments. The care of patients with schizophrenia places a considerable burden on all carers including patient’s family, health and social services. Treatment includes pharmacotherapy and psychosocial interventions. In this case report we describe a thirteen-year-old patient with schizophrenia who has a background history of mental retardation.

  16. Twenty year multi-follow-up of different types of hallucinations in schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and depression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goghari, Vina M; Harrow, Martin

    2016-10-01

    Hallucinations are a salient feature of both psychotic and mood disorders. Currently there is a call for more research on the phenomenology of different forms of hallucinations, in a broader array of disorders, to further both theoretical knowledge and clinical utility. We investigated auditory, visual, and olfactory hallucinations at index hospitalization and auditory and visual hallucinations prospectively for 20years in 150 young patients, namely 51 schizophrenia, 25 schizoaffective, 28 bipolar, and 79 unipolar depression. For the index hospitalization, the data showed schizophrenia and schizoaffective patients had a greater rate of auditory and visual hallucinations than bipolar and depression patients. However, over the longitudinal trajectory of their illness, a greater percentage of schizophrenia patients had auditory and visual hallucinations than schizoaffective patients, as well as bipolar and depression patients. Also, in contrast to the initial period, schizoaffective patients did not differentiate themselves over the follow-up period from bipolar patients. Bipolar and depression patients did not significantly differ at index hospitalization or at follow-up. We found visual hallucinations differentiated the groups to a greater degree over the 20year course than did auditory hallucinations. These findings suggest the longitudinal course is more important for differentiating schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, whereas the initial years may be more useful to differentiate schizoaffective disorder from bipolar disorder. Furthermore, we found that the early presence of auditory hallucinations was associated with a reduced likelihood for a future period of recovery. No olfactory hallucinations were present at the index hospitalization in any patients. Over the course of 20years, a minority of schizophrenia patients presented with olfactory hallucinations, and very few schizoaffective and bipolar patients presented with olfactory hallucinations. This

  17. Theory of mind reasoning in schizophrenia patients and non-psychotic relatives.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cassetta, Briana; Goghari, Vina

    2014-08-15

    Research consistently demonstrates that schizophrenia patients have theory of mind (ToM) impairments. Additionally, there is some evidence that family members of schizophrenia patients also demonstrate impairments in ToM, suggesting a genetic vulnerability for the disorder. This study assessed ToM abilities (i.e., sarcasm comprehension) in schizophrenia patients and their first-degree biological relatives during video-taped social interactions, to be representative of real-world interactions and to assess for disease-specific and/or genetic liability effects. Additionally, we assessed whether ToM abilities predicted social and global functioning in schizophrenia patients, and whether symptoms were associated with ToM deficits. Schizophrenia patients demonstrated impairments in sarcasm comprehension compared to controls and relatives, whereas relatives showed intact comprehension. Symptoms of schizophrenia significantly predicted worse ToM abilities. Furthermore, in schizophrenia patients, impaired ToM reasoning predicted worse social and global functioning. Given schizophrenia patients demonstrated impairments in ToM reasoning in a task that resembles real-life interactions, this might be a key area for remediation. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. Motivation and Social Cognition in Patients with Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fervaha, Gagan; Siddiqui, Ishraq; Foussias, George; Agid, Ofer; Remington, Gary

    2015-07-01

    Social cognition, referring to one's ability to perceive and process social cues, is an important domain in schizophrenia. Numerous studies have demonstrated that patients with schizophrenia have poorer performance on tests assessing social cognition relative to healthy comparison participants. However, whether variables such as motivation are related to performance on these tests in patients with schizophrenia is unclear. One thousand three-hundred and seventy-eight patients with schizophrenia completed the Facial Emotion Discrimination Task as a measure of emotional processing, a key facet of social cognition. Level of motivation was also evaluated in these patients using a derived measure from the Quality of Life Scale. The relationship between motivation and task performance was examined using bivariate correlations and logistic regression modeling, controlling for the impact of age and overall severity of psychopathology, the latter evaluated using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Motivation was positively related to performance on the social cognition test, and this relationship remained significant after controlling for potential confounding variables such as age and illness severity. Social cognition was also related to functioning, and the relationship was mediated by level of motivation. The present study found a significant relationship between motivation and performance on a test of social cognition in a large sample of patients with schizophrenia. These findings suggest that amotivation undermines task performance, or alternatively that poor social cognitive ability impedes motivation. Future studies evaluating social cognition in patients with schizophrenia should concurrently assess for variables such as effort and motivation.

  19. Investigation of cigarette smoking among male schizophrenia patients.

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    Jundong Jiang

    Full Text Available Male schizophrenia patients are known to have a heavier smoking pattern compared with the general population. However, the mechanism for this association is not known, though hypothesis that smoking could alleviate symptomatology of schizophrenia and reduce side effects of antipsychotics has been suggested. The aims of this study were to validate the heavier smoking pattern among male schizophrenia patients and to investigate the possible mechanisms for the association. To enhance the reliability of the study, we recruited two large independent samples with 604 and 535 male Chinese schizophrenia patients, and compared their smoking pattern with that of 535 healthy male controls recruited from general population. Validated multiple indicators and multiple causes structure equation model and regression models were used to investigate the association of smoking with factors of schizophrenia symptomatology and with the usage of antipsychotics and their extra-pyramidal side effects (EPS. Schizophrenia patients had significantly heavier smoking pattern compared with healthy controls in our sample (42.4% vs. 16.8%, p<0.001 for current smoking prevalence; 23.5% vs. 43.3%, p<0.001 for smoking cessation rate; 24.5% vs. 3.0%, p<0.001 for heavy smoker proportion. Their smoking status was also found to be consistently and significantly associated with reduced negative factor scores for schizophrenia symptomatology (β = -0.123, p = 0.051 for sample-A; β = -0.103, p = 0.035 for sample-B; β = -0.082, p = 0.017 for the combined sample. However, no significant association was found between smoking and antipsychotics usage or risk of EPS. These results support that smoking is associated with improved negative symptoms, which could account for the heavier smoking pattern among schizophrenia patients.

  20. Unrecognised myocardial infarction in patients with schizophrenia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Jimmi; Juel, Jacob; Alzuhairi, Karam

    2015-01-01

    OBJECTIVE: Schizophrenia is associated with a reduction of the lifespan by 20 years, with type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease contributing the most to the increased mortality. Unrecognised or silent myocardial infarction (MI) occurs in ~30% of the population, but the rates of unrecognised...... MI in patients with schizophrenia have only been sparsely investigated. METHOD: Electrocardiograms (ECG) from three psychiatric hospitals in Denmark were manually interpreted for signs of previous MI. Subsequently, ECGs were linked to the National Patient Registry in order to determine whether...... with unrecognised MI in a stepwise multiple logistic regression model compared with patients with no history of MI, OR: 1.03 per year of age, 95% CI: 1.00-1.06, p=0.021. CONCLUSION: Unrecognised MI is common among patients with schizophrenia and may contribute to the increased mortality found in this patient group....

  1. Prevalence of obsessive compulsive symptoms among patients with schizophrenia

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    Smita Hemrom

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Obsessive compulsive symptoms in schizophrenia are well recognized but are a less-researched entity. These symptoms have important implications for management and prognosis. Aim: To find out the prevalence of obsessive compulsive symptoms among patients with schizophrenia. Materials and Methods: A total of 90 hospitalized patients with schizophrenia diagnosed according to DCR of ICD-10 criteria were selected for the study. Padua inventory and Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale were applied to find out the prevalence and nature of obsessive compulsive symptoms . Results: It was found that 10% of schizophrenic patients had obsessive compulsive symptoms. Conclusion: Obsessive compulsive symptoms are prevalent in patients with schizophrenia. The presence of comorbidity should be explored for adequate management.

  2. Dementia in middle-aged patients with schizophrenia.

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    Nicolas, Gaël; Beherec, Laurène; Hannequin, Didier; Opolczynski, Gaëlle; Rothärmel, Maud; Wallon, David; Véra, Pierre; Martinaud, Olivier; Guillin, Olivier; Campion, Dominique

    2014-01-01

    Although numerous studies have assessed cognitive dysfunction in patients with schizophrenia, very few have focused on the diagnosis of dementia. Our objectives were to accurately diagnose dementia in a cohort of middle-aged patients with schizophrenia and to assess the type of dementia. 96 patients with schizophrenia (46 inpatients and 50 outpatients), aged 50 to 70 years, underwent a psychiatric, neurological, and neuropsychological evaluation at baseline and after a 20-month follow-up. We established a 3-step procedure: 1) diagnose dementia according to the DSM-IV criteria, using the Mattis Dementia Rating and Activities of Daily Living scales; 2) characterize dementia using brain imaging, perfusion by 99mTc-ECD-SPECT and laboratory tests including Alzheimer's disease cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers; and 3) search for genetic determinants. Fourteen patients fulfilled the diagnostic criteria of dementia. Four were diagnosed with possible or probable behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), two with probable Alzheimer's disease, two with probable vascular dementia (including one due to CADASIL), one with CNS inflammatory disease, and six could not be fully characterized. The diagnosis of dementia in middle-aged patients with schizophrenia is challenging but possible, using a multistep procedure. The most frequent condition, bvFTD, could reflect the presence of an evolutive neurodegenerative process in some patients.

  3. Sex-specific associations between peripheral oxytocin and emotion perception in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rubin, Leah H; Carter, C Sue; Drogos, Lauren; Jamadar, Rhoda; Pournajafi-Nazarloo, Hossein; Sweeney, John A; Maki, Pauline M

    2011-08-01

    We previously reported that higher levels of peripheral oxytocin are associated with lower levels of positive, general, and overall symptoms in women but not in men with schizophrenia. Here we investigate the influence of sex, sex steroid hormone fluctuations, and peripheral oxytocin levels on emotional processing in men and women with schizophrenia. Twenty-two women with schizophrenia and 31 female controls completed the Penn Emotion Acuity Test (PEAT), a facial emotion recognition and perception task, during two menstrual cycle phases: 1) early follicular (Days 2-4; low estrogen/progesterone) and 2) midluteal (Days 20-22; high estrogen/progesterone). Twenty-six males with schizophrenia and 26 male controls completed testing at comparable intervals. We obtained plasma hormone assays of estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and oxytocin. No sex differences were noted on the PEAT. Plasma oxytocin levels did not fluctuate across phases of the menstrual cycle. However, female patients and controls more accurately identified facial emotions during the early follicular versus midluteal phase (pmen. Like healthy women, women with schizophrenia demonstrate menstrual-cycle dependent fluctuations in recognizing emotional cues. Like healthy women, female patients with higher levels of oxytocin perceived faces as happier. Future studies need to address whether this sex-specific relationship is associated with trust and other positive emotions, and whether exogenous oxytocin might enhance mood states and social interaction in female or all schizophrenia patients. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  4. Low serum vitamin D concentrations in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Itzhaky, Dganit; Amital, Daniela; Gorden, Katya; Bogomolni, Alisa; Arnson, Yoav; Amital, Howard

    2012-02-01

    Vitamin D is increasingly associated with the pathology of cognition and mental illness. Vitamin D receptors have been detected on neurons that regulate behavior. To assess vitamin D serum concentrations in patients with major depression and schizophrenia as compared to healthy controls and to determine if a correlation exists between serum levels of vitamin D and disease activity. We recruited 50 patients with schizophrenia and compared them to 33 patients with major depression and 50 controls with no major psychopathology. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) for schizophrenia and the Hamilton Depression scale for depression were administered on the same day the blood samples were drawn. We used LIAISON 25-OH vitamin D (DiaSorin) immunoassay to measure serum concentrations of 25-OH vitamin D. Lower serum vitamin D concentrations were detected among patients with schizophrenia (15.0 +/- 7.3 ng/ml) compared to patients with depression (19.6 +/- 8.3 ng/ml) and to controls (20.2 +/- 7.8 ng/ml, P vitamin D levels. Serum vitamin D levels were lower in patients with schizophrenia as compared to patients with depression and to healthy controls. No correlation was found between serum concentration and disease activity. Additional studies are needed to elucidate the role of vitamin D in the autoimmune mechanism and in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia.

  5. Proverb comprehension impairments in schizophrenia are related to executive dysfunction.

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    Thoma, Patrizia; Hennecke, Marie; Mandok, Tobias; Wähner, Alfred; Brüne, Martin; Juckel, Georg; Daum, Irene

    2009-12-30

    The study aimed to investigate the pattern of proverb comprehension impairment and its relationship to proverb familiarity and executive dysfunction in schizophrenia. To assess the specificity of the impairment pattern to schizophrenia, alcohol-dependent patients were included as a psychiatric comparison group, as deficits of executive function and theory of mind as well as dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex, which have been related to proverb comprehension difficulties, are common in both disorders. Twenty-four schizophrenia patients, 20 alcohol-dependent patients and 34 healthy controls were administered a multiple-choice proverb interpretation task incorporating ratings of subjective familiarity and measures of executive function. Schizophrenia patients chose the correct abstract and meaningful interpretations less frequently and instead chose the incorrect concrete (both meaningless and meaningful) proverb interpretations more often than alcohol-dependent patients and healthy controls. Relative to healthy controls, schizophrenia patients also chose more abstract-meaningless response alternatives and were impaired in all executive domains. Impaired divided attention was most consistently associated with proverb interpretation deficits in both patient groups. Taken together, schizophrenia patients showed a specific pattern of proverb comprehension impairments related to executive dysfunction and symptoms. The comparison with the alcohol-dependent subgroup suggests that a more comprehensive and severe impairment of complex higher-order cognitive functions including executive behavioural control and non-literal language comprehension might be associated with frontal dysfunction in schizophrenia as compared to alcohol use disorder.

  6. Prevalence of schizophrenia in patients with psoriasis: a nationwide study

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    Hung-Pin Tu

    2017-03-01

    Conclusion: Schizophrenia is more prevalent in patients with psoriasis. Although the exact mechanisms remain to be clarified, the finding that psoriatic patients with comorbid cerebrovascular disease or chronic pulmonary disease have higher odds for schizophrenia may imply psoriatic patients with those comorbidities are likely to have higher inflammatory burden, which would contribute to the development of schizophrenia if a disruption of the blood–brain barrier is present. Further investigations are indicated to validate the hypothesis explaining the association between known comorbidies of psoriasis and schizophrenia.

  7. Regional brain activity during early visual perception in unaffected siblings of schizophrenia patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Junghee; Cohen, Mark S; Engel, Stephen A; Glahn, David; Nuechterlein, Keith H; Wynn, Jonathan K; Green, Michael F

    2010-07-01

    Visual masking paradigms assess the early part of visual information processing, which may reflect vulnerability measures for schizophrenia. We examined the neural substrates of visual backward performance in unaffected sibling of schizophrenia patients using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Twenty-one unaffected siblings of schizophrenia patients and 19 healthy controls performed a backward masking task and three functional localizer tasks to identify three visual processing regions of interest (ROI): lateral occipital complex (LO), the motion-sensitive area, and retinotopic areas. In the masking task, we systematically manipulated stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). We analyzed fMRI data in two complementary ways: 1) an ROI approach for three visual areas, and 2) a whole-brain analysis. The groups did not differ in behavioral performance. For ROI analysis, both groups increased activation as SOAs increased in LO. Groups did not differ in activation levels of the three ROIs. For whole-brain analysis, controls increased activation as a function of SOAs, compared with siblings in several regions (i.e., anterior cingulate cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, inferior prefrontal cortex, inferior parietal lobule). The study found: 1) area LO showed sensitivity to the masking effect in both groups; 2) siblings did not differ from controls in activation of LO; and 3) groups differed significantly in several brain regions outside visual processing areas that have been related to attentional or re-entrant processes. These findings suggest that LO dysfunction may be a disease indicator rather than a risk indicator for schizophrenia. Copyright 2010 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Mismatch Negativity in Han Chinese Patients with Schizophrenia: A Meta-Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xiong, Yanbing; Ll, Xianbin; Zhao, Lei; Wang, Chuanyue

    2017-10-25

    Previous meta-analysis revealed that mismatch negativity(MMN) amplitude decreased in patients with schizophrenia compared with healthy controls (Cohen's d, d about 1), leading to the possibility of mismatch negativity being used as a biomarker for schizophrenia. However, it is unknown whether MMN is reliably changed in Chinese patients. It is necessary to carry out a meta-analysis on MMN of Han Chinese patients with schizophrenia. To investigate whether MMN could be used as a biomarker for Han Chinese patients with schizophrenia. A literature search was conducted to identify clinical trials on MMN in Han Chinese schizophrenia patients published before May 8, 2017, by searching the Chinese language databases CNKI, WanFang Data, VIP Data and PubMed. The effects of MMN deficits were evaluated for MMN amplitude by calculating standard mean difference (SMDs) between schizophrenia patient groups and healthy control groups. A total of 11 studies were included in the analysis. The total quality of all the studies were more than 6 as evaluated by Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS). Meta-analysis of data from these studies had a pooled sample of 432 patients with schizophrenia and 392 healthy controls. There exists significant MMN deficit in schizophrenia patients compared to healthy controls (Cohen's d =1.004). When studies were excluded due to heterogeneity, the pooled effect size of the MMN differences between the patient group and healthy controls dropped to 0.79 (Cohen's d =0.79). Subgroup analysis showed that MMN amplitude deficits of schizophrenia over three years had the pooled effect size of 0.95, and less than three years had the pooled effect size of 0.77. Publication bias conducted via Egger regression test ( t = 1.83; p = 0.101), suggested that there was no publication bias. The effect size of MMN amplitude between Chinese patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls is consistent with other meta-analyses published on this topic, suggesting that Han Chinese

  9. Emotion recognition and oxytocin in patients with schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Averbeck, B. B.; Bobin, T.; Evans, S.; Shergill, S. S.

    2012-01-01

    Background Studies have suggested that patients with schizophrenia are impaired at recognizing emotions. Recently, it has been shown that the neuropeptide oxytocin can have beneficial effects on social behaviors. Method To examine emotion recognition deficits in patients and see whether oxytocin could improve these deficits, we carried out two experiments. In the first experiment we recruited 30 patients with schizophrenia and 29 age- and IQ-matched control subjects, and gave them an emotion recognition task. Following this, we carried out a second experiment in which we recruited 21 patients with schizophrenia for a double-blind, placebo-controlled cross-over study of the effects of oxytocin on the same emotion recognition task. Results In the first experiment we found that patients with schizophrenia had a deficit relative to controls in recognizing emotions. In the second experiment we found that administration of oxytocin improved the ability of patients to recognize emotions. The improvement was consistent and occurred for most emotions, and was present whether patients were identifying morphed or non-morphed faces. Conclusions These data add to a growing literature showing beneficial effects of oxytocin on social–behavioral tasks, as well as clinical symptoms. PMID:21835090

  10. Twenty-four hour care for schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Macpherson, Rob; Edwards, Thomas Rhys; Chilvers, Rupatharshini; David, Chris; Elliott, Helen J

    2009-04-15

    Despite modern treatment approaches and a focus on community care, there remains a group of people who cannot easily be discharged from psychiatric hospital directly into the community. Twenty-four hour residential rehabilitation (a 'ward-in-a-house') is one model of care that has evolved in association with psychiatric hospital closure programmes. To determine the effects of 24 hour residential rehabilitation compared with standard treatment within a hospital setting. We searched the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group Trials Register (May 2002 and February 2004). We included all randomised or quasi-randomised trials that compared 24 hour residential rehabilitation with standard care for people with severe mental illness. Studies were reliably selected, quality assessed and data extracted. Data were excluded where more than 50% of participants in any group were lost to follow-up. For binary outcomes we calculated the relative risk and its 95% confidence interval. We identified and included one study with 22 participants with important methodological shortcomings and limitations of reporting. The two-year controlled study evaluated "new long stay patients" in a hostel ward in the UK. One outcome 'unable to manage in the placement' provided usable data (n=22, RR 7.0 CI 0.4 to 121.4). The trial reported that hostel ward residents developed superior domestic skills, used more facilities in the community and were more likely to engage in constructive activities than those in hospital - although usable numerical data were not reported. These potential advantages were not purchased at a price. The limited economic data was not good but the cost of providing 24 hour care did not seem clearly different from the standard care provided by the hospital - and it may have been less. From the single, small and ill-reported, included study, the hostel ward type of facility appeared cheaper and positively effective. Currently, the value of this way of supporting people - which could be

  11. Prevalence of dental caries in hospitalized patients with schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Đorđević Vladan

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Background/Aim. It is considered that over 450 million people worldwide suffer from some form of mental disorder. Previous studies in other countries have shown that schizophrenia is among the most frequent. Oral health is significant for general health and should not be separated from mental health. Studies in other countries have shown an increased incidence of carious and extracted teeth, and less incidence of filled teeth in this group of psychiatric patients. The aim of this study was to establish condition of the existing teeth, to determine the prevalence of caries and to consider possible risk factors that contribute to the current oral health status of hospitalized patients with schizophrenia. Methods. The study comprised 190 patients with schizophrenia, hospitalized at the Clinic for Psychiatric Disorders “Dr. Laza Lazarević” in Belgrade, and 190 mentally healthy patients at the Clinic for Periodontology and Oral Medicine, Faculty of Dental Medicine in Belgrade. The decayed, missing, filled (DMF index, sociodemographic and economic characteristics were registered in both groups, as well as characteristics of the primary disease of hospitalized patients with schizophrenia. Results. The value of DMF index (representing the sum of carious, extracted and filled teeth, in the hospitalized patients with schizophrenia was 18.57 ± 7.07 and 12.47 ± 5.64 in the healthy group (p = 0.000. The structure of the DMF index in the study group showed that caries and extracted teeth dominated with 88.1%; in the control group, filled teeth dominated with 55.6%, which was a statistically significant difference for all the three observed variables. Conclusion. Hospitalized patients with schizophrenia had twice as many caries and extracted teeth, and five time less filled teeth than healthy people. The patient’s age and taking antiparkinsonics were established as predictors of the increased DMF index in hospitalized patients with schizophrenia.

  12. Using patient-reported outcomes in schizophrenia: the Scottish Schizophrenia Outcomes Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hunter, Robert; Cameron, Rosie; Norrie, John

    2009-02-01

    The primary aim of the Scottish Schizophrenia Outcomes Study (SSOS) was to assess the feasibility and utility of routinely collecting outcome data in everyday clinical settings. Data were collected over three years in the Scottish National Health Service (NHS). There were two secondary aims of SSOS: first, to compare data from patient-rated, objective, and clinician-rated outcomes, and second, to describe trends in outcome data and service use across Scotland over the three years of the study (2002-2005). This study used a naturalistic, longitudinal, observational cohort design. A representative sample of 1,015 persons with ICD-10 F20-F29 diagnoses (schizophrenia, schizotypal disorders, or delusional disorders) was assessed annually using the clinician-rated measure, the Health of the Nation Outcome Scale (HoNOS), and the patient-reported assessment, the Avon Mental Health Measure (Avon). Objective outcomes data and information on services and interventions were collected. Data were analyzed with regression modeling. Of the 1,015 persons recruited, 78% of the cohort (N=789) completed the study. Over the study period, significant decreases were seen in the number of hospitalizations, incidence of attempted suicide and self-harm, and civil detentions. Avon scores indicated significant improvement on all subscales (behavior, social, access, and mental health) and on the total score. However, HoNOS scores on the behavior and symptom subscales did not change, scores on the impairment subscale increased significantly (indicating increased levels of impairment), and scores on the social subscale decreased significantly (indicating improved social functioning). This study has demonstrated that it is feasible within the Scottish NHS to routinely collect meaningful outcomes data in schizophrenia. Patient-reported assessments were also successfully collected and used in care plans. This model shows that it is possible to incorporate patient-reported assessments into routine

  13. P50 suppression deficits and psychopathology in Han Chinese patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Xiao Lin; Tan, Shu Ping; Wang, Zhi Ren; Zhang, Jin Guo; Li, Dong; Fan, Feng Mei; Zhao, Yan Li; Zou, Yi Zhuang; Tan, Yun Long; Yang, Fu De; Zhang, Xiang Yang

    2017-07-13

    Numerous studies have reported P50 gating deficits in schizophrenia, though with mixed results. Moreover, few studies have explored the association between P50 gating deficits and psychopathology in Chinese patients with schizophrenia. In the present study, we investigated the P50 auditory sensory gating patterns and their correlations with clinical symptoms in a large sample of Han Chinese patients with schizophrenia. We assessed P50 sensory gating with a 64-channel electroencephalography system in 133 patients with schizophrenia and 148 healthy controls. The schizophrenia symptomatology was assessed with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Patients with schizophrenia had a significantly higher P50 gating ratio (pschizophrenia. These findings suggest that the P50 sensory gating deficits identified in Chinese patients with schizophrenia may not be involved in the psychopathology of the illness. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  14. The Twenty-Year Trajectory of Suicidal Activity among Post-Hospital Psychiatric Men and Women with Mood Disorders and Schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaplan, Kalman J.; Harrow, Martin; Clews, Kelsey

    2016-01-01

    The Chicago Follow-up Study has followed the course of severe mental illness among psychiatric patients for over 20 years after their index hospitalization. Among these patients are 97 schizophrenia patients, 45 patients with schizoaffective disorders, 102 patients with unipolar nonpsychotic depression, and 53 patients with a bipolar disorder. Maximum suicidal activity (suicidal ideation, suicidal attempts and suicide completions) generally declines over the three time periods (early, middle, and late follow-ups) following discharge from the acute psychiatric hospitalization for both males and females across diagnostic categories with two exceptions: female schizophrenia patients and female bipolar patients. A weighted mean suicidal activity score tended to decrease across follow-ups for male patients in the schizophrenia, schizoaffective and depressive diagnostic groups with an uneven trend in this direction for the male bipolars. No such pattern emerges for our female patients except for female depressives. Males’ suicidal activity seems more triggered by psychotic symptoms and potential chronic disability while females’ suicidal activity seems more triggered by affective symptoms. PMID:26881891

  15. Suicidal behavior in the older patient with schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kasckow, John; Montross, Lori; Prunty, Laurie; Fox, Lauren; Zisook, Sidney

    2011-01-01

    Little is known about treating elderly suicidal patients with schizophrenia. The purpose of this article is to review the literature dealing with this population and to discuss what is required to advance this field. Most available studies from middle-aged and older individuals suggest that risk factors include hopelessness, lower quality of life, past traumatic events, depressive symptoms, lifetime suicidal ideation and past attempts; it is not clear whether these findings are generalizable to geriatric populations. Although little treatment research has been performed in older suicidal patients with schizophrenia, an integrated psychosocial and pharmacologic approach is recommended. In addition, one recent study augmented antipsychotic treatment with an SSRI (i.e., citalopram) in a sample of middle-aged and older individuals with schizophrenia with subsyndromal depression; in that study, serotonin selective reuptake inhibitor augmentation reduced depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation. More research is required to better understand suicidal behavior in older patients with schizophrenia. PMID:22028735

  16. Postural Stability of Patients with Schizophrenia during Challenging Sensory Conditions: Implication of Sensory Integration for Postural Control.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ya-Ling Teng

    Full Text Available Postural dysfunctions are prevalent in patients with schizophrenia and affect their daily life and ability to work. In addition, sensory functions and sensory integration that are crucial for postural control are also compromised. This study intended to examine how patients with schizophrenia coordinate multiple sensory systems to maintain postural stability in dynamic sensory conditions. Twenty-nine patients with schizophrenia and 32 control subjects were recruited. Postural stability of the participants was examined in six sensory conditions of different level of congruency of multiple sensory information, which was based on combinations of correct, removed, or conflicting sensory inputs from visual, somatosensory, and vestibular systems. The excursion of the center of pressure was measured by posturography. Equilibrium scores were derived to indicate the range of anterior-posterior (AP postural sway, and sensory ratios were calculated to explore ability to use sensory information to maintain balance. The overall AP postural sway was significantly larger for patients with schizophrenia compared to the controls [patients (69.62±8.99; controls (76.53±7.47; t1,59 = -3.28, p<0.001]. The results of mixed-model ANOVAs showed a significant interaction between the group and sensory conditions [F5,295 = 5.55, p<0.001]. Further analysis indicated that AP postural sway was significantly larger for patients compared to the controls in conditions containing unreliable somatosensory information either with visual deprivation or with conflicting visual information. Sensory ratios were not significantly different between groups, although small and non-significant difference in inefficiency to utilize vestibular information was also noted. No significant correlations were found between postural stability and clinical characteristics. To sum up, patients with schizophrenia showed increased postural sway and a higher rate of falls during challenging sensory

  17. Influence of facial feedback during a cooperative human-robot task in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cohen, Laura; Khoramshahi, Mahdi; Salesse, Robin N; Bortolon, Catherine; Słowiński, Piotr; Zhai, Chao; Tsaneva-Atanasova, Krasimira; Di Bernardo, Mario; Capdevielle, Delphine; Marin, Ludovic; Schmidt, Richard C; Bardy, Benoit G; Billard, Aude; Raffard, Stéphane

    2017-11-03

    Rapid progress in the area of humanoid robots offers tremendous possibilities for investigating and improving social competences in people with social deficits, but remains yet unexplored in schizophrenia. In this study, we examined the influence of social feedbacks elicited by a humanoid robot on motor coordination during a human-robot interaction. Twenty-two schizophrenia patients and twenty-two matched healthy controls underwent a collaborative motor synchrony task with the iCub humanoid robot. Results revealed that positive social feedback had a facilitatory effect on motor coordination in the control participants compared to non-social positive feedback. This facilitatory effect was not present in schizophrenia patients, whose social-motor coordination was similarly impaired in social and non-social feedback conditions. Furthermore, patients' cognitive flexibility impairment and antipsychotic dosing were negatively correlated with patients' ability to synchronize hand movements with iCub. Overall, our findings reveal that patients have marked difficulties to exploit facial social cues elicited by a humanoid robot to modulate their motor coordination during human-robot interaction, partly accounted for by cognitive deficits and medication. This study opens new perspectives for comprehension of social deficits in this mental disorder.

  18. Approaches to improve adherence to pharmacotherapy in patients with schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shuler KM

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available Kimberly M Shuler Shuler Counseling and Consulting, Fayetteville, AR, USA Purpose: In patients with schizophrenia, nonadherence to prescribed medications increases the risk of patient relapse and hospitalization, key contributors to the costs associated with treatment. The objectives of this review were to evaluate the impact of nonadherence to pharmacotherapy in patients with schizophrenia as it relates to health care professionals, particularly social workers, and to identify effective team approaches to supporting patients based on studies assessing implementation of assertive community treatment teams. Materials and methods: A systematic review of the medical literature was conducted by searching the Scopus database to identify articles associated with treatment adherence in patients with schizophrenia. Articles included were published from January 1, 2003, through July 15, 2013, were written in English, and reported findings concerning any and all aspects of nonadherence to prescribed treatment in patients with schizophrenia. Results: Of 92 unique articles identified and formally screened, 47 met the inclusion criteria for the systematic review. The burden of nonadherence in schizophrenia is significant. Factors with the potential to affect adherence include antipsychotic drug class and formulation, patient-specific factors, and family/social support system. There is inconclusive evidence suggesting superior adherence with an atypical versus typical antipsychotic or with a long-acting injectable versus an oral formulation. Patient-specific factors that contribute to adherence include awareness/denial of illness, cognitive issues, stigma associated with taking medication, substance abuse, access to health care, employment/poverty, and insurance status. Lack of social or family support may adversely affect adherence, necessitating the assistance of health care professionals, such as social workers. Evidence supports the concept that an

  19. Correlations between physical activity and neurocognitive domain functions in patients with schizophrenia: a cross-sectional study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kurebayashi, Yusuke; Otaki, Junichi

    2017-01-05

    Neurocognitive dysfunction is a critical target symptom of schizophrenia treatment. A positive correlation between physical activity level and neurocognitive function has been reported in healthy individuals, but it is unclear whether such a correlation exists in patients with schizophrenia and whether the relationship is different according to inpatients or outpatients. This study aimed to examine the differences in the correlations between physical activity and multiple neurocognitive domains in inpatients and outpatients with schizophrenia and obtain suggestions for further study to facilitate this field. Twenty-nine patients with schizophrenia were examined (16 inpatients and 13 outpatients, 56.0 ± 11.4 years of age). Current symptoms were assessed using the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale and neurocognitive functions using Cognitrax, which yields a composite neurocognitive index (NCI) and 11 domain scores. After testing, participants wore an HJA-750C accelerometer for one week to measure physical activity levels and durations. Partial correlation analyses were performed between exercise and cognitive parameters. In the outpatient group, higher physical activity was associated with faster Motor and Psychomotor Speeds in outpatients. However, higher physical activity was associated with lower overall NCI, Attention score, and Memory scores in inpatients. Although higher physical activity was associated with better neurocognitive functions of outpatients, in inpatients with non-remitted schizophrenia, higher physical activity was associated with worsening of several cognitive domains. In a future study examining the relationship between physical activity and neurocognitive function for facilitating this research field, separation between inpatients and outpatients are needed because the relationship is different between inpatients and outpatients.

  20. Approaches to improve adherence to pharmacotherapy in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shuler, Kimberly M

    2014-01-01

    In patients with schizophrenia, nonadherence to prescribed medications increases the risk of patient relapse and hospitalization, key contributors to the costs associated with treatment. The objectives of this review were to evaluate the impact of nonadherence to pharmacotherapy in patients with schizophrenia as it relates to health care professionals, particularly social workers, and to identify effective team approaches to supporting patients based on studies assessing implementation of assertive community treatment teams. A systematic review of the medical literature was conducted by searching the Scopus database to identify articles associated with treatment adherence in patients with schizophrenia. Articles included were published from January 1, 2003, through July 15, 2013, were written in English, and reported findings concerning any and all aspects of nonadherence to prescribed treatment in patients with schizophrenia. Of 92 unique articles identified and formally screened, 47 met the inclusion criteria for the systematic review. The burden of nonadherence in schizophrenia is significant. Factors with the potential to affect adherence include antipsychotic drug class and formulation, patient-specific factors, and family/social support system. There is inconclusive evidence suggesting superior adherence with an atypical versus typical antipsychotic or with a long-acting injectable versus an oral formulation. Patient-specific factors that contribute to adherence include awareness/denial of illness, cognitive issues, stigma associated with taking medication, substance abuse, access to health care, employment/poverty, and insurance status. Lack of social or family support may adversely affect adherence, necessitating the assistance of health care professionals, such as social workers. Evidence supports the concept that an enhanced team-oriented approach to managing patients with schizophrenia improves adherence and supports corresponding reductions in relapse

  1. Schizophrenia patients differentiation based on MR vascular perfusion and volumetric imaging

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spanier, A. B.; Joskowicz, L.; Moshel, S.; Israeli, D.

    2015-03-01

    Candecomp/Parafac Decomposition (CPD) has emerged as a framework for modeling N-way arrays (higher-order matrices). CPD is naturally well suited for the analysis of data sets comprised of observations of a function of multiple discrete indices. In this study we evaluate the prospects of using CPD for modeling MRI brain properties (i.e. brain volume and gray-level) for schizophrenia diagnosis. Taking into account that 3D imaging data consists of millions of pixels per patient, the diagnosis of a schizophrenia patient based on pixel analysis constitutes a methodological challenge (e.g. multiple comparison problem). We show that the CPD could potentially be used as a dimensionality redaction method and as a discriminator between schizophrenia patients and match control, using the gradient of pre- and post Gd-T1-weighted MRI data, which is strongly correlated with cerebral blood perfusion. Our approach was tested on 68 MRI scans: 40 first-episode schizophrenia patients and 28 matched controls. The CPD subject's scores exhibit statistically significant result (P schizophrenia with MRI, the results suggest that the CPD could potentially be used to discriminate between schizophrenia patients and matched control. In addition, the CPD model suggests for brain regions that might exhibit abnormalities in schizophrenia patients for future research.

  2. The care needs of elderly patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Meesters, P.D.; Comijs, H.C.; Dröes, R.M.; de Haan, L.; Smit, J.H.; Eikelenboom, P.; Beekman, A.T.F.; Stek, M.L.

    2013-01-01

    Objective: Elderly patients constitute the fastest growing segment of the schizophrenia population. Still, their needs for care are poorly understood. This study aimed to gain insight into the care needs of older patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Setting and Participants: Patients,

  3. Emotions, Ideas and Experiences of Caregivers of Patients With Schizophrenia About "Family to Family Support Program".

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bademli, Kerime; Duman, Zekiye Çetinkaya

    2016-06-01

    "Family to Family Support Program" is a significant intervention program to assist families by informing them about treatment procedures and coping strategies, increasing their functionality, helping them to overcome the challenges of the disease. This study was particularly designed to investigate the emotions, thoughts, and experiences of caregivers of schizophrenia patients who participated in "Family to Family Support Program." The study was conducted with one of the qualitative research methods, phenomenological method. The study sample included caregivers who care for schizophrenia patients and participated in the "Family to Family Support Program". Twenty caregivers were included in the sample. The study was carried out in İzmir Schizophrenia Support Association. The study data were collected with four open ended questions. The average age of the participants was 56,77 ± 72,89, 10 male caregivers and 10 female caregivers, 9 caregivers were fathers, 6 caregivers were mothers, and 5 of them were siblings. The thematic analysis indicated that the emotions, thoughts and experiences of caregivers can be categorized in four groups: "I learned to deal with my problems", "I am conscious in my interaction with the patient and I know and I am not alone", "I feel much better", and "Schizophrenia is not the end of the road, knowledge sorts things out." Caregivers who participated in "Family to Family Support Program" expressed their satisfaction that they were benefited from the program, their coping skills were improved, they experienced less challenges when providing care, they understood the disease better, and it felt comfortable. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  4. Caregiver burden among relatives of patients with schizophrenia in ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Background. Caring for patients with schizophrenia places an enormous burden on the caregivers. The magnitude of this problem remains largely unknown in sub-Saharan Africa. Objective. The objective of this study was to determine the nature of the burden reported by caregiving relatives of patients with schizophrenia.

  5. Schizophrenia, culture and neuropsychology: sensory deficits, language impairments and social functioning in Chinese-speaking schizophrenia patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, L; Chen, S; Chen, C-M; Khan, F; Forchelli, G; Javitt, D C

    2012-07-01

    While 20% of schizophrenia patients worldwide speak tonal languages (e.g. Mandarin), studies are limited to Western-language patients. Western-language patients show tonal deficits that are related to impaired emotional processing of speech. However, language processing is minimally affected. In contrast, in Mandarin, syllables are voiced in one of four tones, with word meaning varying accordingly. We hypothesized that Mandarin-speaking schizophrenia patients would show impairments in underlying basic auditory processing that, unlike in Western groups, would relate to deficits in word recognition and social outcomes. Altogether, 22 Mandarin-speaking schizophrenia patients and 44 matched healthy participants were recruited from New York City. The auditory tasks were: (1) tone matching; (2) distorted tunes; (3) Chinese word discrimination; (4) Chinese word identification. Social outcomes were measured by marital status, employment and most recent employment status. Patients showed deficits in tone-matching, distorted tunes, word discrimination and word identification versus controls (all pneuropsychology and language among Mandarin-speaking schizophrenia patients. As predicted, patients were highly impaired in both tone and auditory word processing, with these two measures significantly correlated. Tonally impaired patients showed significantly worse employment-status function than tonally intact patients, suggesting a link between sensory impairment and employment status outcome. While neuropsychological deficits appear similar cross-culturally, their consequences may be language- and culture-dependent.

  6. [Researching subordinate personality atavism in schizophrenia from the perspective of physical, mental and spiritual healing, and helping the patient to recover].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hsu, Tien-Sheng

    2007-06-01

    Schizophrenia is not an incurable condition. If we had not understood the operating model of schizophrenia in its spiritual phase, we would not know what its causes were, and there would be no cure for it. The author has studied The Seth Material for more than twenty years. New Age thinking has it that schizophrenia can be redefined as a phenomenon of subordinate personality or secondary personality. This new definition has directly pointed out and solved the core problems of schizophrenia. It has provided a perfect explanation of phenomenology. Also, the etiology of schizophrenia has been built. A guide to diagnosis and the new treatment has been produced. The secondary personality, as described above, prevents the patient from being willing to face and grow with his main personality, and causes him to split from it. A new vision of mind and spirit enables a schizophrenic episode to be seen in fact as a process which forces him to face himself and push him to grow into one and self-heal. According to the symptoms of schizophrenia (auditory hallucinations, thought withdrawal, insertion and interruption, thought broadcasting, somatic hallucinations, delusional perception, external agents), which are the key points of recovery, the author proposes the theory of recorder as a spiritual prescription for healing which has succeeded in helping our patients.

  7. Risk for schizophrenia and schizophrenia-like psychosis among patients with epilepsy: population based cohort study

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Qin, Ping; Xu, Huylan; Laursen, Thomas Munk

    2005-01-01

    .20) in people with a history of epilepsy. The effect of epilepsy was the same in men and in women and increased with age. Family history of psychosis and a family history of epilepsy were significant risk factors for schizophrenia and schizophrenia-like psychosis, and the effect of epilepsy, both in cases......OBJECTIVES: To investigate whether age at onset of epilepsy, type of epilepsy, family history of psychosis, or family history of epilepsy affect the risk of schizophrenia or schizophrenia-like psychosis among patients with epilepsy. DESIGN: Comparison of population based data. SETTING: Danish...... and families, was greater among people with no family history of psychosis. In addition, the increased risk for schizophrenia or schizophrenia-like psychosis did not differ by type of epilepsy but increased with increasing number of admissions to hospital and, particularly, was significantly greater for people...

  8. Attitudes and beliefs about mental illness among relatives of patients with schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ajak Manguak Agau

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available Background: Schizophrenia is a mental disease with inability to differentiate real from unreal. In many African cultures a traditional view on mental disease results in stigma, negative attitudes, and ignorance of the patient and their symptoms. Objective: To explore the different attitudes and beliefs amongst relatives of patients having schizophrenia. Method: Cross-sectional survey among relatives of patients with schizophrenia treated at Butabika Mental Hospital, Kampala, Uganda. Results: A total of 44 were included. 30% believed schizophrenia to be a brain disease, 32% thought the cause was supernatural. The majority (80% thought that schizophrenia can be treated and preferably in hospitals (91%; 66% felt the best way to reduce schizophrenia was to pray to God, and many stated that being with the patients (73% or letting them be part of the community (80% was good ways of helping the patients. Conclusion: Beliefs about supernatural causes of schizophrenia and stigmatizing are still present in Uganda. However among participants many had positive attitude towards letting the patients be part of community. Education of the communities could be a way of improving the awareness of mental disorders and the role that the community play in recovery from mental illness.

  9. Risk factors for violence among patients with schizophrenia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bo, Sune; Abu-Akel, Ahmad; Kongerslev, Mickey

    2011-01-01

    with schizophrenia. We identified two different trajectories for violent behavior in schizophrenia: one pertains to patients with no prior history of violence or criminal behavior and for whom positive symptoms appear to explain violent behavior, and another where personality pathology, including psychopathy...

  10. Impaired coherence of life narratives of patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Allé, Mélissa C; Potheegadoo, Jevita; Köber, Christin; Schneider, Priscille; Coutelle, Romain; Habermas, Tilmann; Danion, Jean-Marie; Berna, Fabrice

    2015-08-10

    Self-narratives of patients have received increasing interest in schizophrenia since they offer unique material to study patients' subjective experience related to their illness, in particular the alteration of self that accompanies schizophrenia. In this study, we investigated the life narratives and the ability to integrate and bind memories of personal events into a coherent narrative in 27 patients with schizophrenia and 26 controls. Four aspects of life narratives were analyzed: coherence with cultural concept of biography, temporal coherence, causal-motivational coherence and thematic coherence. Results showed that in patients cultural biographical knowledge is preserved, whereas temporal coherence is partially impaired. Furthermore, causal-motivational and thematic coherence are significantly impaired: patients have difficulties explaining how events have modeled their identity, and integrating different events along thematic lines. Impairment of global causal-motivational and thematic coherence was significantly correlated with patients' executive dysfunction, suggesting that cognitive impairment observed in patients could affect their ability to construct a coherent narrative of their life by binding important events to their self. This study provides new understanding of the cognitive deficits underlying self-disorders in patients with schizophrenia. Our findings suggest the potential usefulness of developing new therapeutic interventions to improve autobiographical reasoning skills.

  11. Left globus pallidus abnormality in never-medicated patients with schizophrenia

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Early, T.S.; Reiman, E.M.; Raichle, M.E.; Spitznagel, E.L.

    1987-01-01

    Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder characterized by onset in young adulthood, the occurrence of hallucinations and delusions, and the development of enduring psychosocial disability. The pathophysiology of this disorder remains unknown. Studies of cerebral blood flow and metabolism designed to identify brain abnormalities in schizophrenia have been limited by inadequate methods of anatomical localization and the possibility of persistent medication effects. The authors have now used positron emission tomography and a validated method of anatomical localization in an attempt to identify abnormalities of regional cerebral blood flow in newly diagnosed never-medicated patients with schizophrenia. An exploratory study of 5 patients and 10 normal control subjects identified abnormally high blood flow in the left globus pallidus of patients with schizophrenia. A replication study of 5 additional patients and 10 additional control subjects confirmed this finding. No other abnormalities were found

  12. Do schizophrenia patients age early?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shivakumar, Venkataram; Kalmady, Sunil V; Venkatasubramanian, Ganesan; Ravi, Vasanthapuram; Gangadhar, Bangalore N

    2014-08-01

    The etiopathogenesis of schizophrenia is poorly understood. Within the proposed "neurodegeneration paradigm", observations have been put forth for "accelerated aging" in this disorder. This proposition is largely based on the neuroscience research that demonstrates progressive changes in brain as well as other systemic abnormalities supportive of faster aging process in patients with this disorder. In this review, we have summarized the literature related to the concept of early aging in schizophrenia. These studies include P300 abnormalities & visual motion discrimination, neuroimaging findings, telomere dynamics as well as neuropathology of related brain regions. We also propose a role of vitamin D, neuroimmunological changes and elevated oxidative stress as well as mitochondrial dysfunction in addition to the above factors with 'vitamin-D deficiency' as the central paradox. Put together, the evidence supporting early aging in schizophrenia is compelling and this requires further systematic studies. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  13. Hyperglycemia and diabetes in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Cohen, D; Stolk, RP; Grobbee, DE; Gispen-De Wied, CC

    OBJECTIVE - Pharmacoepidemiological studies have shown an increased prevalence of diabetes in patients with schizophrenia. To address this issue, we decided to assess glucose metabolism in a population of patients With schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS - Oral

  14. Biosocial characteristics of patients with paranoid schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gergana K. Panayotova

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available Schizophrenia is known as a complex disorder that combines both genetic and environmental factors. Different genes have been tested as candidates for association with schizophrenia and different environmental factors have been examined in many studies on epidemiology of schizophrenia. Specific environmental factors, such as nonspecific stress, mental and physical abuse, maternal diet during pregnancy, drug use, living in an urban setting, migration, seasonal effects on birth and exposure to infections, have been discussed as possible risk for schizophrenia. The present preliminary study is focused on the relations between biological and social characteristics of patients with paranoid schizophrenia with different cognitive levels, emotional and creative styles. Descriptive statistics, the Student's t-test and SPSS software, were used to analyse the relations mentioned. Differences between sexes and these concerning age of individuals (risk level of inheritance, ABO blood group distribution, triggering factors, aggressive behavior, single or multiple suicide attempts, levels of education and creative talents were indicated and discussed. The study identifies important trends and discuses essential biosocial relations in context of the knowledge for schizophrenia in Bulgaria. Future comparative investigations, including genetic markers and psychogenetic approaches, should be used in complex, in order to characterize the reasons for developing paranoid schizophrenia and the possible relations between biological, psychological and social factors better.

  15. Structural hippocampal anomalies in a schizophrenia population correlate with navigation performance on a wayfinding task

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrée-Anne eLedoux

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available Episodic memory, related to the hippocampus, has been found to be impaired in schizophrenia. Further, hippocampal anomalies have also been observed in schizophrenia. This study investigated whether average hippocampal grey matter (GM would differentiate performance on a hippocampus-dependent memory task in patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls. Twenty-one patients with schizophrenia and twenty-two control participants were scanned with an MRI while being tested on a wayfinding task in a virtual town (e.g., find the grocery store from the school. Regressions were performed for both groups individually and together using GM and performance on the wayfinding task. Results indicate that controls successfully completed the task more often than patients, took less time, and made fewer errors. Additionally, controls had significantly more hippocampal GM than patients. Poor performance was associated with a GM decrease in the right hippocampus for both groups. Within group regressions found an association between right hippocampi GM and performance in controls and an association between the left hippocampi GM and performance in patients. A second analysis revealed that different anatomical GM regions, known to be associated with the hippocampus, such as the parahippocampal cortex, amygdala, medial and orbital prefrontal cortices, covaried with the hippocampus in the control group. Interestingly, the cuneus and cingulate gyrus also covaried with the hippocampus in the patient group but the orbital frontal cortex did not, supporting the hypothesis of impaired connectivity between the hippocampus and the frontal cortex in schizophrenia. These results present important implications for creating intervention programs aimed at measuring functional and structural changes in the hippocampus in schizophrenia.

  16. Clinical and epidemiological aspects of suicide in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gómez-Durán, Esperanza L; Martin-Fumadó, Carles; Hurtado-Ruíz, Gemma

    2012-01-01

    Suicide is a major cause of death among patients with schizophrenia. Suicide phenomenon's characterization is the best available approach for improved prediction and prevention of suicide. Patients at high risk for suicide need a more intensive monitoring and intervention. The aim of this review is to characterize, from a clinical-epidemiological point of view, the phenomenon of completed suicide in schizophrenia. We performed a systematic review to identify the most relevant studies published between 1994 and 2009, by searching on the international database Medline and among previous reviews references. Patients with schizophrenia experience higher mortality rates than the general population, especially due to the suicide. Most patients with schizophrenia who commit suicide are likely to be young and males, with a higher risk around illness onset and hospitalization periods. Previous suicide attempts are an important risk factor for completed suicide. Suicide risk is associated to psychotic positive symptoms, affective symptoms, depression and substance abuse. Treatment adherence is as protective factor. Patients with schizophrenia are likely to commit suicide by violent means. Suicide prevention should focus on treating affective symptoms and syndromes, improving treatment compliance and providing intensive monitoring to those patients at high risk of suicide, specially around hospitalization periods. Further studies are needed to clarify differential characteristics between suicide behaviour and completed suicide.

  17. An intervention study to prevent relapse in patients with schizophrenia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Meijel, B.; Kruitwagen, C.; van der Gaag, M.; Kahn, R.S.; Grypdonck, M.H.E.

    2006-01-01

    Purpose: To determine whether the use of relapse prevention plans (RPPs) in nursing practice is an effective intervention in reducing relapse rates among patients with schizophrenia. Design and Methods: Experimental design. Patients with schizophrenia (or a related psychotic disorder) and nurses

  18. Alterations of the occipital lobe in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tohid, Hassaan; Faizan, Muhammad; Faizan, Uzma

    2015-07-01

    The relationship of the occipital lobe of the brain with schizophrenia is not commonly studied; however, this topic is considered an essential subject matter among clinicians and scientists. We conducted this systematic review to elaborate the relationship in depth. We found that most schizophrenic patients show normal occipital anatomy and physiology, a minority showed dwindled values, and some demonstrated augmented function and structure. The findings are laborious to incorporate within single disease models that present the involvement of the occipital lobe in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia progresses clinically in the mid-twenties and thirties and its prognosis is inadequate. Changes in the volume, the gray matter, and the white matter in the occipital lobe are quite evident; however, the mechanism behind this involvement is not yet fully understood. Therefore, we recommend further research to explore the occipital lobe functions and volumes across the different stages of schizophrenia.

  19. Alterations of the occipital lobe in schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tohid, Hassaan; Faizan, Muhammad; Faizan, Uzma

    2015-01-01

    The relationship of the occipital lobe of the brain with schizophrenia is not commonly studied; however, this topic is considered an essential subject matter among clinicians and scientists. We conducted this systematic review to elaborate the relationship in depth. We found that most schizophrenic patients show normal occipital anatomy and physiology, a minority showed dwindled values, and some demonstrated augmented function and structure. The findings are laborious to incorporate within single disease models that present the involvement of the occipital lobe in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia progresses clinically in the mid-twenties and thirties and its prognosis is inadequate. Changes in the volume, the gray matter, and the white matter in the occipital lobe are quite evident; however, the mechanism behind this involvement is not yet fully understood. Therefore, we recommend further research to explore the occipital lobe functions and volumes across the different stages of schizophrenia. PMID:26166588

  20. Striatal D2/3 Binding Potential Values in Drug-Naïve First-Episode Schizophrenia Patients Correlate With Treatment Outcome

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wulff, Sanne; Pinborg, Lars Hageman; Svarer, Claus

    2015-01-01

    potential (BP(p)) values and treatment outcome in a cohort of antipsychotic-naïve first-episode schizophrenia patients. Additionally, we wished to investigate associations between striatal dopamine D(2/3) receptor blockade and alterations of negative symptoms as well as functioning and subjective well......-being. Twenty-eight antipsychotic-naïve schizophrenia patients and 26 controls were included in the study. Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with [(123)I]iodobenzamide ([(123)I]-IBZM) was used to examine striatal D(2/3) receptor BP(p). Patients were examined before and after 6 weeks...... of treatment with the D(2/3) receptor antagonist amisulpride. There was a significant negative correlation between striatal D(2/3) receptor BP(p) at baseline and improvement of positive symptoms in the total group of patients. Comparing patients responding to treatment to nonresponders further showed...

  1. Word and nonword repetition in patients with Schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alireza Farnam

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: The assessment of the verbal repetition is important in the study of acquired language disorders and neuropsychology. It is helpful in differential diagnosis of aphasia subtypes, auditory breakdowns, and working memory (WM performance. Though different linguistic disorders have been identified in patients with schizophrenia, very little is known about their verbal repetition ability. Methods: The present study was conducted in the inpatient ward of Razi Psychiatric Hospital, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Iran, during the year 2013. Participants were: 30 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia during the maintenance phase of treatment and 30 healthy people as control group. They were asked to repeat 15 words and 15 nonwords immediately. The stimuli were 1, 2, and 3 syllabic in Turkish language. Any incorrect repetition scored 1 and correct repetitions scored 0. Lexicalization errors were compared between groups too. Results: Both groups repeated words better than nonwords. Patients showed lower ability to repeat nonwords than controls, especially in 3 syllabics. There was no significant difference in the repetition of words between groups though it was better in controls. Patients with schizophrenia made more errors in both words and nonwords and lexicalization errors were twice more. Conclusion: Lower ability to repeat nonwords (than words in patients with schizophrenia may show the involvement of phonological loop of WM. More lexicalization errors may take place because of dis-inhibition.

  2. Normal cognitive conflict resolution in psychosis patients with and without schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smid, Henderikus G O M; Bruggeman, Richard; Martens, Sander

    2016-01-01

    Schizophrenia is thought to be associated with impairments of executive functions, among which conflict control functions play an important role. The available evidence, however, suggests that conflict control is intact in schizophrenia, despite being based on methods that have successfully unveiled conflict control problems in other disorders. Differences between schizophrenia patients and healthy controls in stimulus perception, selective attention, alertness, processing speed and reaction time variability may have been previously overlooked. By controlling for these potential confounders, the present experiments were aimed to be more rigorous tests of the hypothesis that psychosis and schizophrenia are associated with impairments of conflict control. To that end, 27 healthy controls and 53 recent-onset psychosis patients with (n = 27) and without schizophrenia (n = 26) with comparable age, intelligence, and education level, performed three iconic conflict control tasks: the Simon task, the Eriksen flanker task, and the Stroop task, all equipped with neutral trials, and analyzed for various potential confounders. They further performed a battery of standard neuropsychological tests. Schizophrenia patients showed no increased conflict effects in any of the 3 tasks for any alternative measures used. Nonschizophrenia patients only showed abnormally increased response competition in the Simon task. All patients nevertheless demonstrated impaired control of attention and verbal memory. These findings indicate that the type of conflict control engaged by conflict tasks is intact in recent-onset schizophrenia, suggesting that a major component of executive function is spared in schizophrenia. We discuss these findings in terms of proactive and reactive control. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved.

  3. Striatal D2/3 Binding Potential Values in Drug-Naïve First-Episode Schizophrenia Patients Correlate With Treatment Outcome

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wulff, Sanne; Pinborg, Lars Hageman; Svarer, Claus; Jensen, Lars Thorbjørn; Nielsen, Mette Ødegaard; Allerup, Peter; Bak, Nikolaj; Rasmussen, Hans; Frandsen, Erik; Rostrup, Egill; Glenthøj, Birte Yding

    2015-01-01

    One of best validated findings in schizophrenia research is the association between blockade of dopamine D2 receptors and the effects of antipsychotics on positive psychotic symptoms. The aim of the present study was to examine correlations between baseline striatal D2/3 receptor binding potential (BPp) values and treatment outcome in a cohort of antipsychotic-naïve first-episode schizophrenia patients. Additionally, we wished to investigate associations between striatal dopamine D2/3 receptor blockade and alterations of negative symptoms as well as functioning and subjective well-being. Twenty-eight antipsychotic-naïve schizophrenia patients and 26 controls were included in the study. Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with [123I]iodobenzamide ([123I]-IBZM) was used to examine striatal D2/3 receptor BPp. Patients were examined before and after 6 weeks of treatment with the D2/3 receptor antagonist amisulpride. There was a significant negative correlation between striatal D2/3 receptor BPp at baseline and improvement of positive symptoms in the total group of patients. Comparing patients responding to treatment to nonresponders further showed significantly lower baseline BPp in the responders. At follow-up, the patients demonstrated a negative correlation between the blockade and functioning, whereas no associations between blockade and negative symptoms or subjective well-being were observed. The results show an association between striatal BPp of dopamine D2/3 receptors in antipsychotic-naïve first-episode patients with schizophrenia and treatment response. Patients with a low BPp have a better treatment response than patients with a high BPp. The results further suggest that functioning may decline at high levels of dopamine receptor blockade. PMID:25698711

  4. Memory profiles in parents of patients with schizophrenia.

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    Sitskoorn, Margriet M; Ebisch, Sjoerd J H; Appels, Melanie; Nuyen, Jasper; Kahn, René S

    2004-08-30

    Recent research shows that categorizing patients with schizophrenia based on frontal-striatal and frontal-temporal memory profiles may yield neurobiologically meaningful disease subtypes. We hypothesize that parents of patients exhibit similar memory profiles. Both parents of 36 patients with schizophrenia (N = 72) and 26 healthy married control couples (N = 52) participated in this study. All subjects were physically healthy and had no history of neurological illness or alcohol/drug abuse. The presence of a psychiatric and/or personality disorder was assessed with the Comprehensive Assessment of Symptoms and History (CASH) interview, the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia-lifetime (SADS-L) interview and the Structured Interview for DSM-IV Personality Disorders (SIDP-IV), respectively. Cluster analysis of selected measures from the Dutch version of the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) delineated parents into two subgroups with distinct memory deficits and a third subgroup without impairments. Specific frontal-striatal and frontal-temporal subgroups, however, were not found. In addition, our results indicated that mothers seem to be more protected against the negative effects of genetic liability to schizophrenia than fathers. Furthermore, relatives with a higher level of intelligence may have more cognitive reserve to compensate for the negative impact of implied brain dysfunction on verbal memory than relatives with a low level of intelligence. Although the parents of patients with schizophrenia could be delineated into subgroups with primary memory deficits, frontal-striatal and frontal-temporal subgroups could not be unambiguously identified. The association that emerged between level of intelligence, gender and severity of memory impairment deserves further exploration.

  5. Marital adjustment of patients with substance dependence, schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder

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    Shital S Muke

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Marital adjustment is considered as a part of social well-being. Disturbed marital relationship can directly affect the disease adjustment and the way they face disease outcomes and complications. It may adversely affect physical health, mental health, the quality-of-life and even economic status of individuals. Aim: The aim of this study was to compare the marital adjustment among patients with substance dependence, schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder. Materials and Methods: The sample consisted of each 30 patients with substance dependence, bipolar affective disorder and schizophrenia, diagnosed as per international classification of diseases-10 diagnostic criteria for research with a minimum duration of illness of 1 year were evaluated using marital adjustment questionnaire. The data was analyzed using parametric and non-parametric statistics. Results: Prevalence of poor marital adjustment in patients with schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder and substance dependence was 60%, 70% and 50% respectively. There was a significant difference on overall marital adjustment among substance dependence and bipolar affective disorder patients. There was no significant difference on overall marital adjustment among patients with substance dependence and schizophrenia as well as among patients with schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder. On marital adjustment domains, schizophrenia patients had significantly poor sexual adjustment than substance dependence patients while bipolar affective disorder patients had significantly poor sexual and social adjustment compared with substance dependence patients. Conclusion: Patients with substance dependence have significant better overall marital adjustment compared with bipolar affective disorder patients. Patients with substance dependence have significantly better social and sexual adjustment than patients with bipolar affective disorder as well as significantly better sexual

  6. Paliperidone Palmitate Improves and Maintains Functioning in Asia-Pacific Patients with Schizophrenia.

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    Zhang, Hongyan; Turkoz, Ibrahim; Zhuo, Jianmin; Mathews, Maju; Tan, Wilson; Feng, Yu

    2017-11-01

    Post hoc analyses (two single-arm studies) were conducted to determine the impact of once-monthly injection of paliperidone palmitate on functioning in adult patients with schizophrenia in the Asia-Pacific region. Study 1 enrolled hospitalized patients with acute exacerbation of schizophrenia, and study 2 enrolled patients with recently diagnosed schizophrenia unsatisfactorily treated with oral antipsychotics. Patients received paliperidone palmitate, 150 mg eq. on day 1, 100 mg eq. on day 8, then once monthly (50-150 mg eq.) (study 1, days 36 and 64; study 2, 18 months). Functional status was evaluated by Personal and Social Performance score in both studies and employment only in study 2. In study 1, 54 of 184 patients (29.4%) with an unfavorable level of functioning at the baseline improved to a favorable level (Personal and Social Performance score greater than 70) at day 92. This improvement was significantly greater among patients with recently diagnosed schizophrenia (5 years or less) compared with patients with chronic schizophrenia (more than 5 years): 40% versus 22% (p schizophrenia. Janssen-Cilag Asia-Pacific Medical Affairs.

  7. Comparison of first-episode and chronic patients diagnosed with schizophrenia: symptoms and childhood trauma.

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    Wang, Zheng; Xue, Zhimin; Pu, Weidan; Yang, Bo; Li, Li; Yi, Wenyin; Wang, Peng; Liu, Chang; Wu, Guowei; Liu, Zhening; Rosenheck, Robert A

    2013-02-01

    There has been considerable interest in identifying and addressing the specific needs of early-episode patients diagnosed with schizophrenia in the hope that by addressing such needs early, chronic disabilities can be avoided. One hundred twenty-eight early-episode and 571 chronic patients were compared on socio-demographic characteristics, clinical symptoms and history of childhood trauma. Symptoms were measured with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), and trauma with the short version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. First-episode patients scored 9.3% higher than chronic patients on the PANSS positive symptom scale and 16.3% lower on the negative symptom scale. More first episode patients reported childhood sexual abuse (P = 0.033); however, fewer reported childhood emotional neglect (P = 0.01). Childhood trauma was associated with positive symptoms, specifically with hallucinations in first-episode patients (r = 0.174; P = 0.049). Moreover, fewer parents of first episode patients were living alone (P = 0.008). On multiple logistic regression, the first-episode patients were younger (odds ratio = 0.92), had higher PANSS positive symptom scores (odds ratio 1.04) and lower negative symptom scores (odds ratio 0.948 recalculate). More positive symptoms, fewer negative symptoms, less isolated parents and greater risk of childhood sexual abuse might warrant attention in first episode schizophrenia and perhaps should be a focus for the development of targeted interventions. © 2012 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

  8. Reduced but broader prefrontal activity in patients with schizophrenia during n-back working memory tasks: a multi-channel near-infrared spectroscopy study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koike, Shinsuke; Takizawa, Ryu; Nishimura, Yukika; Kinou, Masaru; Kawasaki, Shingo; Kasai, Kiyoto

    2013-09-01

    Caudal regions of the prefrontal cortex, including the dorsolateral (DLPFC) and ventrolateral (VLPFC) prefrontal cortex, are involved in essential cognitive functions such as working memory. In contrast, more rostral regions, such as the frontopolar cortex (FpC), have integrative functions among cognitive functions and thereby contribute crucially to real-world social activity. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have shown patients with schizophrenia had different DLPFC activity pattern in response to cognitive load changes compared to healthy controls; however, the spatial relationship between the caudal and rostral prefrontal activation has not been evaluated under less-constrained conditions. Twenty-six patients with schizophrenia and 26 age-, sex-, and premorbid-intelligence-matched healthy controls participated in this study. Hemodynamic changes during n-back working memory tasks with different cognitive loads were measured using multi-channel near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Healthy controls showed significant task-related activity in the bilateral VLPFC and significant task-related decreased activity in the DLPFC, with greater signal changes when the task required more cognitive load. In contrast, patients with schizophrenia showed activation in the more rostral regions, including bilateral DLPFC and FpC. Neither decreased activity nor greater activation in proportion to elevated cognitive load occurred. This multi-channel NIRS study demonstrated that activation intensity did not increase in patients with schizophrenia associated with cognitive load changes, suggesting hypo-frontality as cognitive impairment in schizophrenia. On the other hand, patients had broader prefrontal activity in areas such as the bilateral DLPFC and FpC regions, thus suggesting a hyper-frontality compensatory response. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Predictors of resocialization of patients with schizophrenia: medico-sociological analysis

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    Zhukova О.A.

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available Processes of urbanization, stressful events and other social trends of the modern world are considered as the social predictors determining the growth of frequency of mental illness. They are directly associated with manifestations of mental disorders, including schizophrenia. The majority of people is subjected to mental disorders living in unfavorable conditions. According to severe social consequences schizophrenia takes the leading position in psychiatry. Course of schizophrenia is one of the main clinical predictors of clinical and social prognosis. The research has established that the clinical predictors determining the severity of non-cancerous condition of patients with schizophrenia are not obligate in the socialization of the patients.

  10. Switching antipsychotics to aripiprazole or blonanserin and plasma monoamine metabolites levels in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miura, Itaru; Shiga, Tetsuya; Katsumi, Akihiko; Kanno-Nozaki, Keiko; Mashiko, Hirobumi; Niwa, Shin-Ichi; Yabe, Hirooki

    2014-03-01

    Blonanserin is a novel atypical antipsychotic drug that has efficacy equal to risperidone. We investigated the effects of aripiprazole and blonanserin on clinical symptoms and plasma levels of homovanillic acid (pHVA) and 3-methoxy-4hydroxyphenylglycol in the switching strategy of schizophrenia. Twenty two Japanese patients with schizophrenia were enrolled into this open study. The antipsychotics of all patients were switched to aripiprazole or blonanserin for the improvement of clinical symptoms or side effects. Plasma monoamine metabolites levels were analyzed with high-performance liquid chromatography. There were no significant effects for time (p = 0.346) or time × group interaction (p = 0.27) on the changes of positive and negative syndrome scale (PANSS) total score, although blonanserin decreased PANSS scores. We observed negative correlation between pHVA at baseline and the change in PANSS total score (rs = -0.450, p = 0.046). We also found positive correlation between the changes in pHVA and the changes in PANSS total (rs = 0.536, p = 0.015) and positive (rs = 0.572, p = 0.008) scores. There were no differences between blonanserin and aripiprazole in the improvement of clinical symptoms. Our results suggest that pHVA may be useful indicator for the switching strategy to aripiprazole or blonanserin in schizophrenia. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  11. High-functioning autism patients share similar but more severe impairments in verbal theory of mind than schizophrenia patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tin, L N W; Lui, S S Y; Ho, K K Y; Hung, K S Y; Wang, Y; Yeung, H K H; Wong, T Y; Lam, S M; Chan, R C K; Cheung, E F C

    2018-06-01

    Evidence suggests that autism and schizophrenia share similarities in genetic, neuropsychological and behavioural aspects. Although both disorders are associated with theory of mind (ToM) impairments, a few studies have directly compared ToM between autism patients and schizophrenia patients. This study aimed to investigate to what extent high-functioning autism patients and schizophrenia patients share and differ in ToM performance. Thirty high-functioning autism patients, 30 schizophrenia patients and 30 healthy individuals were recruited. Participants were matched in age, gender and estimated intelligence quotient. The verbal-based Faux Pas Task and the visual-based Yoni Task were utilised to examine first- and higher-order, affective and cognitive ToM. The task/item difficulty of two paradigms was examined using mixed model analyses of variance (ANOVAs). Multiple ANOVAs and mixed model ANOVAs were used to examine group differences in ToM. The Faux Pas Task was more difficult than the Yoni Task. High-functioning autism patients showed more severely impaired verbal-based ToM in the Faux Pas Task, but shared similar visual-based ToM impairments in the Yoni Task with schizophrenia patients. The findings that individuals with high-functioning autism shared similar but more severe impairments in verbal ToM than individuals with schizophrenia support the autism-schizophrenia continuum. The finding that verbal-based but not visual-based ToM was more impaired in high-functioning autism patients than schizophrenia patients could be attributable to the varied task/item difficulty between the two paradigms.

  12. Grey matter, an endophenotype for schizophrenia? A voxel-based morphometry study in siblings of patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van der Velde, Jorien; Gromann, Paula M; Swart, Marte; de Haan, Lieuwe; Wiersma, Durk; Bruggeman, Richard; Krabbendam, Lydia; Aleman, André

    2015-05-01

    Grey matter, both volume and concentration, has been proposed as an endophenotype for schizophrenia given a number of reports of grey matter abnormalities in relatives of patients with schizophrenia. However, previous studies on grey matter abnormalities in relatives have produced inconsistent results. The aim of the present study was to examine grey matter differences between controls and siblings of patients with schizophrenia and to examine whether the age, genetic loading or subclinical psychotic symptoms of selected individuals could explain the previously reported inconsistencies. We compared the grey matter volume and grey matter concentration of healthy siblings of patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls matched for age, sex and education using voxel-based morphometry (VBM). Furthermore, we selected subsamples based on age (grey matter volume or concentration. Furthermore, specifically selecting participants based on age, genetic loading or subclinical psychotic symptoms did not alter these findings. The main limitation was that subdividing the sample resulted in smaller samples for the subanalyses. Furthermore, we used MRI data from 2 different scanner sites. These results indicate that grey matter measured through VBM might not be a suitable endophenotype for schizophrenia.

  13. [Religiousness of patients with diagnosis of schizophrenia. Wide-ranging studies].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tomczak, Piotr

    2006-01-01

    (1) The correlations between: (1.1) various aspects of religiousness and (1.2) age, anxiety-state, anxiety-trait, locus of control, and, in the group of patients with shizophrenia: span of treatment, rate of therapy, ego psychopathology, paranoid and depression dimensions, self-rating of state of self-feeling, state of feeling of illness, and quality of life and (2) the comparison of various aspects of religiousness of patients with schizophrenia and healthy people were studied. The Scale of Christian Religiousness, Individual Religiousness Scale, Intrinsic, Extrinsic and Quest Religious Orientation Scales, Scale of Fundamentalism, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Rotter's questionnaire of locus of control, Scharfetter's questionnaire of ego psychopathology, Paranoid-Depresivity Scale-abridgment, Frankfurt Self-feeling Scale-abridgment, visual analogy of self-feeling, visual analogy of feeling of illness, and questionnaire of quality of life (WHOQOL-BREF) were used in the study. 91 adults both of sexes, 60 patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia according to ICD-10 and DCR-10 in the diagnostic group and 31 healthy persons were studied. It was noticed that: (1) various correlations are manifested between religiousness and psychopathology of patients with schizophrenia; (2) patients diagnosed as having schizophrenia have a significantly higher level of extrinsic religiousness and fundamentalism than healthy individuals; (3) many results pointed out in the bibliography had no verification in these studies. Intrinsic, extrinsic, quest, and orthodox religiousness and fundamentalism realize significant functions in psychopathology of schizophrenia disorder. The knowledge about religiousness of schizophrenia patients can be important for diagnostic and therapeutic processes of the disorder.

  14. An MR study on widening of the anterior cerebral longitudinal fissure in patients with schizophrenia

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yoshizawa, Masao; Nagumo, Ichiro; Kimura, Hiroko; Yamamoto, Setsuko; Kumagai, Hideo; Ito, Hisao.

    1994-01-01

    One-hundred and four schizophrenics and 27 normal controls underwent magnetic resonance imaging. The angles of the anterior cerebral longitudial (ACL) fissure on T 1 weighted images were measured on the axial slices at the level of the third ventricle. The schizophrenics had significantly larger angles of ACL fissure than controls. However, the effect of aging might be associated with this phenomenon. There was no correlation between subtype of schizophrenia and the augment of the fissure angle, nor correlation between the duration of schizophrenia and that augment. From this study, it can be concluded that if the fissure angle is larger than 12 degree the finding is regarded as abnormal, because 95% confidence region of the control group was at 11.1 degree. Twenty two schizophrenics revealed the findings and great majority of these patients were suffering from emotional withdrawal and blunted affect. (author)

  15. An fMRI study of neuronal activation in schizophrenia patients with and without previous cannabis use

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Else-Marie eLøberg

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available Previous studies have mostly shown positive effects of cannabis use on cognition in patients with schizophrenia, which could reflect lower neurocognitive vulnerability. There are however no studies comparing whether such cognitive differences have neuronal correlates. Thus, the aim of the present study was to compare whether patients with previous cannabis use differ in brain activation from patients who has never used cannabis. The patients groups were compared on the ability to up-regulate an effort mode network during a cognitive task and down-regulate activation in the same network during a task-absent condition. Task-present and task-absent brain activation was measured by functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging (fMRI. Twenty-six patients with a DSM-IV and ICD-10 diagnosis of schizophrenia were grouped into a previous cannabis user group and a no-cannabis group. An auditory dichotic listening task with instructions of attention focus on either the right or left ear stimulus was used to tap verbal processing, attention and cognitive control, calculated as an aggregate score. When comparing the two groups, there were remaining activations in the task-present condition for the cannabis group, not seen in the no-cannabis group, while there was remaining activation in the task-absent condition for the no-cannabis group, not seen in the cannabis group. Thus, the patients with previous cannabis use showed increased activation in an effort mode network and decreased activation in the default mode network as compared to the no-cannabis group. It is concluded that the present study show some differences in brain activation to a cognitively challenging task between previous cannabis and no-cannabis schizophrenia patients.

  16. Social and nonsocial affective processing in schizophrenia - An ERP study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Okruszek, Ł; Wichniak, A; Jarkiewicz, M; Schudy, A; Gola, M; Jednoróg, K; Marchewka, A; Łojek, E

    2016-09-01

    Despite social cognitive dysfunction that may be observed in patients with schizophrenia, the knowledge about social and nonsocial affective processing in schizophrenia is scant. The aim of this study was to examine neurophysiological and behavioural responses to neutral and negative stimuli with (faces, people) and without (animals, objects) social content in schizophrenia. Twenty-six patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) and 21 healthy controls (HC) completed a visual oddball paradigm with either negative or neutral pictures from the Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS) as targets while EEG was recorded. Half of the stimuli within each category presented social content (faces, people). Negative stimuli with social content produced lower N2 amplitude and higher mean LPP than any other type of stimuli in both groups. Despite differences in behavioural ratings and alterations in ERP processing of affective stimuli (lack of EPN differentiation, decreased P3 to neutral stimuli) SCZ were still able to respond to specific categories of stimuli similarly to HC. The pattern of results suggests that with no additional emotion-related task demands patients with schizophrenia may present similar attentional engagement with negative social stimuli as healthy controls. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  17. A family affair: brain abnormalities in siblings of patients with schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hulshoff Pol, Hilleke; Gogtay, Nitin

    2013-01-01

    Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that has a strong genetic basis. Converging evidence suggests that schizophrenia is a progressive neurodevelopmental disorder, with earlier onset cases resulting in more profound brain abnormalities. Siblings of patients with schizophrenia provide an invaluable resource for differentiating between trait and state markers, thus highlighting possible endophenotypes for ongoing research. However, findings from sibling studies have not been systematically put together in a coherent story across the broader age span. We review here the cortical grey matter abnormalities in siblings of patients with schizophrenia from childhood to adulthood, by reviewing sibling studies from both childhood-onset schizophrenia, and the more common adult-onset schizophrenia. When reviewed together, studies suggest that siblings of patients with schizophrenia display significant brain abnormalities that highlight both similarities and differences between the adult and childhood populations, with shared developmental risk patterns, and segregating trajectories. Based on current research it appears that the cortical grey matter abnormalities in siblings are likely to be an age-dependent endophenotype, which normalize by the typical age of onset of schizophrenia unless there has been more genetic or symptom burdening. With increased genetic burdening (e.g. discordant twins of patients) the grey matter abnormalities in (twin) siblings are progressive in adulthood. This synthesis of the literature clarifies the importance of brain plasticity in the pathophysiology of the illness, indicating that probands may lack protective factors critical for healthy development. PMID:23698280

  18. Determinants of subjective quality of life in first-episode schizophrenia: perspective from Malaysia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chee, K Y

    2010-05-01

    This study sought to examine the determinants of subjective quality of life among patients with first-episode schizophrenia in a developing country. One-hundred and twenty patients registered with National Mental Health Registry for Schizophrenia from 1 January 2003 to 31 August 2005 were included. They were diagnosed with first-episode schizophrenia, schizoaffective and schizophreniform disorders and had been compliant to treatment. Sociodemographic data were obtained and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale-Anchored Version, Health of The Nation Outcome Scales, Simpson-Angus Extrapyramidal Side Effects Scale, Barnes Akathisia Scale and the World Health Organization Quality of Life were used to assess psychopathology, side effects from antipsychotics and subjective quality of life. Gender, positive and disorganized symptoms of schizophrenia, and cognitive and physical impairments appeared to be the most important predictors of subjective quality of life among the patients from this centre in Malaysia. Different domains of self-rated quality of life correlated with different sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. Some of the characteristics were malleable and a better understanding of these could lead to improvements in the management of patients with schizophrenia.

  19. Treatment with Ziprasidone for schizophrenia patients with OCD.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Juven-Wetzler, Alzbeta; Fostick, Leah; Cwikel-Hamzany, Shlomit; Balaban, Evgenya; Zohar, Joseph

    2014-09-01

    Comorbidity of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has been observed in about 15% of schizophrenic patients and has been associated with poor prognosis. Therefore, there is a need for specific treatment options for these patients (schizo-obsessive, ScOCD). This is an open, prospective study, aiming to test the efficacy of Ziprasidone (80-200mg/d) in ScOCD patients and comparing the response to the treatment between stable schizophrenic (N=16) and stable ScOCD (N=29) patients. Treatment effect with Ziprasidone was different in schizophrenic patients when stratified based on OCD comorbidity. Overall, the effect on OCD symptoms (as measured by the Yale Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale, YBOCS) was found to be bimodal-either no response or exacerbation (for 45% of the patients, n=13) or significant improvement of symptoms (55%, n=16). Those who improved in OCD symptoms, improved also in negative and general schizophrenia symptoms, while ScOCD-unimproved group worsened in all symptoms. Whereas schizophrenic patients without OCD responded in a modest Gaussian distribution, they improved in schizophrenia negative symptoms and in general anxiety. This data suggests that schizo-obsessive disorder is a distinct and complex condition with more than one underlying pathogenesis. Definition of these ScOCD subgroups defined by their response to Ziprasidone might contribute to personalized medicine within the OCD-schizophrenia spectrum. Moreover, this finding suggests that ScOCD may be considered as a special schizophrenic subtype and its inclusion in schizophrenia treatment studies need to be further explored due to its divergent response. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  20. Body composition in patients with schizophrenia: Comparison with healthy controls

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sugawara Norio

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Recently, a relationship between obesity and schizophrenia has been reported. Although fat- mass and fat free mass have been shown to be more predictive of health risk than body mass index, there are limited findings about body composition among patients suffering from schizophrenia. The aim of this study is to compare the body composition of schizophrenia patients with that of healthy subjects in Japan. Methods We recruited patients (n = 204, aged 41.3 ± 13.8 (mean ± SD years old with the DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia who were admitted to psychiatric hospital using a cross-sectional design. Subjects' anthropometric measurements including weight, height, body mass index (BMI, and medications were also collected. Body fat, percent (% body fat, fat- free mass, muscle mass, and body water were measured using the bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA method. Comparative analysis was performed with schizophrenic subjects and 204 healthy control individuals. Results In a multiple regression model with age, body mass index, and dose in chlorpromazine equivalents, schizophrenia was a significantly linked with more body fat, higher % body fat, lower fat- free mass, lower muscle mass, and lower body water among males. In females, schizophrenia had a significant association with lower % body fat, higher fat- free mass, higher muscle mass, and higher body water. Conclusions Our data demonstrate gender differences with regard to changes in body composition in association with schizophrenia. These results indicate that intervention programs designed to fight obesity among schizophrenic patients should be individualized according to gender.

  1. The influence of idiomatic salience during the comprehension of ambiguous idioms by patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iakimova, Galina; Passerieux, Christine; Denhière, Guy; Laurent, Jean-Paul; Vistoli, Damien; Vilain, Jeanne; Hardy-Baylé, Marie-Christine

    2010-05-15

    This study investigates whether figurative comprehension in schizophrenia is influenced by the salience of idiomatic meaning, and whether it is affected by clinical and demographic factors and IQ. Twenty-seven schizophrenic patients and 25 healthy participants performed a semantic relatedness judgement task which required the comprehension of idioms with two plausible meanings (literal and figurative). The study also used literal expressions. The figurative meaning of the idioms was less salient (ILS), more salient (IFS), or equally salient (IES) compared to the literal meaning. The results showed "a salience effect" (i.e., all participants understood the salient meanings better than the less salient meanings). There was also a "figurativeness effect" (i.e., healthy individuals understood the figurative meaning of IES better than the literal meaning but not schizophrenic patients). In patients, their thought disorder influenced the figurative comprehension of IFS. The verbal IQ influenced the figurative comprehension of ILS. The thought disorder, the verbal IQ, and the educational level influenced the figurative comprehension of IES. The patients' clinically evaluated concretism was associated with a reduced figurative comprehension of IFS and IES evaluated at a cognitive level. The results are discussed in relation to cognitive mechanisms which underscore figurative comprehension in schizophrenia. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  2. Cognitive decision modelling of emotion-based learning impairment in schizophrenia: the role of awareness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cella, Matteo; Dymond, Simon; Cooper, Andrew; Turnbull, Oliver H

    2012-03-30

    Individuals with schizophrenia often lack insight or awareness. Resulting impairment has been observed in various cognitive domains and, recently, linked to problems in emotion-based learning. The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) has been used to assess emotion-based decision-making in patients with schizophrenia, but results have been inconclusive. The current study further investigates emotion-based decision-making in schizophrenia by elucidating the unique contribution of awareness. Twenty-five patients with schizophrenia and 24 healthy controls were assessed with a modified version of the IGT recording awareness at regular intervals. Symptom assessment, medication and medical history were recorded for the clinical group. Patients with schizophrenia underperformed on the IGT compared to controls. Subjective awareness levels were significantly lower in the schizophrenia group and were associated with hallucination severity. Cognitive decision modelling further indicated that patients with schizophrenia had impaired attention to losses, compared to controls. This parameter was positively correlated with awareness. We also found that positive symptoms altered awareness levels and suggest that this disruption may contribute to sub-optimal decision-making. Overall, a lack of awareness may be an important aspect in understanding impaired social cognitive functioning and emotion-based learning observed in schizophrenia. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. Inflammation and elevation of interleukin-12p40 in patients with schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nora eBedrossian

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness with chronic symptoms and significant impairment in psychosocial functioning, which suggests that it likely has neurodegenerative characteristics. Inflammatory markers such as pro-inflammatory cytokines are well-known etiological contributors for psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia. Although the role of inflammation in schizophrenia is becoming evident, the number of studies in this area is relatively scarce, especially in Lebanon, and increased procedural thoroughness is needed. Cytokines play a key role in the activation of the immune system and strongly influence neurotransmission. Previous investigation of plasma levels showed dysregulation of interleukin (IL-12. However, genotypical variations of this interleukin have not been investigated for patients with schizophrenia yet. Thus, in this paper, we aimed to compute and assess IL-12p40 levels in the sera of individuals with schizophrenia from different provinces in Lebanon and compare it to controls. Healthy subjects comprised 60 individuals with a male/female (M/F ratio of 31/29, whereas patients with schizophrenia consisted of 63 subjects with an M/F ratio of 30/33. The mean age for healthy controls was 30 years, whereas that for patients with schizophrenia was 35 years. A standardized ELISA technique was used to measure the concentration of IL-12p40 in all collected sera (n=123. The mean IL-12p40 levels in patients with schizophrenia were significantly higher than in healthy controls (p=0.002. Healthy females had a significantly higher concentration of IL-12p40 than healthy males (p=0.009. Female patients with schizophrenia had significantly higher concentrations of IL-12p40 than their male counterparts (p<0.001, healthy females (p=0.018 and healthy males (p<0.001, respectively. Male patients with schizophrenia had significantly higher concentrations of IL-12p40 than healthy males (p=0.023. The study’s results suggest that IL-12p40

  4. Mismatch Negativity in Patients with Schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aleš Urban

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available Cognitive deficit is considered to be a part of core dysfuncions in schizophrenia. It is associated with social impairment and influences the long-term course of the disorder. In addition to neuropsychological methods, event-related potentials can be used to study cognitive functions. In patients with schizophrenia an association was found between amplitude changes in slow negative component of evoked responses and infrequent deviations in a series of uniform stimuli. This amplitude change is known as „mismatch negativity“ (MMN. It is supposed to be independent of the focused attention and effort that otherwise interfere with neuropsychological testing. Recently accumulated knowledge on MMN as a possible preattentive measure of cognition supports its potential significance for neuropsychological assessment. It may be helpful in more precise diagnosis and functional evaluation of schizophrenia.

  5. A Virtual Reality Task Based on Animal Research - Spatial Learning and Memory in Patients after the First Episode of Schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Iveta eFajnerova

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available Objective: Cognitive deficit is considered to be a characteristic feature of schizophrenia disorder. A similar cognitive dysfunction was demonstrated in animal models of schizophrenia. However, the poor comparability of methods used to assess cognition in animals and humans could be responsible for low predictive validity of current animal models. In order to assess spatial abilities in schizophrenia and compare our results with the data obtained in animal models we designed a virtual analogue of the Morris water maze (MWM, the virtual Four Goals Navigation (vFGN task.Method: Twenty-nine patients after the first psychotic episode with schizophrenia symptoms and a matched group of healthy volunteers performed the vFGN task. They were required to find and remember four hidden goal positions in an enclosed virtual arena. The task consisted of two parts. The Reference memory (RM session with a stable goal position was designed to test spatial learning. The Delayed-matching-to-place (DMP session presented a modified working memory protocol designed to test the ability to remember a sequence of three hidden goal positions.Results: Data obtained in the RM session show impaired spatial learning in schizophrenia patients compared to healthy controls in pointing and navigation accuracy. The DMP session showed impaired spatial memory in schizophrenia during the recall of spatial sequence and similar deficit in spatial bias in probe trials. The pointing accuracy and the quadrant preference showed higher sensitivity toward the cognitive deficit than the navigation accuracy. Direct navigation to the goal was affected by sex and age of the tested subjects. Age affected spatial performance only in healthy controls. Conclusions: Despite some limitations of the study, our results correspond well to previous studies in animal models of schizophrenia and support the decline of spatial cognition in schizophrenia, indicating the usefulness of the vFGN task in

  6. Mass spectrum analysis of serum biomarker proteins from patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Na; Wang, Jie; Yu, Yaqin; Shi, Jieping; Li, Xiaokun; Xu, Bin; Yu, Qiong

    2014-05-01

    Diagnosis of schizophrenia does not have a clear objective test at present, so we aimed to identify the potential biomarkers for the diagnosis of schizophrenia by comparison of serum protein profiling between first-episode schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. The combination of a magnetic bead separation system with matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/TOF-MS) was used to analyze the serum protein spectra of 286 first-episode patients with schizophrenia, 41 chronic disease patients and 304 healthy controls. FlexAnlysis 3.0 and ClinProTools(TM) 2.1 software was used to establish a diagnostic model for schizophrenia. The results demonstrated that 10 fragmented peptides demonstrated an optimal discriminatory performance. Among these fragmented peptides, the peptide with m/z 1206.58 was identified as a fragment of fibrinopeptide A. Receiver operating characteristic analysis for m/z 1206.58 showed that the area under the curve was 0.981 for schizophrenia vs healthy controls, and 0.999 for schizophrenia vs other chronic disease controls. From our result, we consider that the analysis of serum protein spectrum using the magnetic bead separation system and MALDI-TOF/TOF-MS is an objective diagnostic tool. We conclude that fibrinopeptide A has the potential to be a biomarker for diagnosis of schizophrenia. This protein may also help to elucidate schizophrenia disease pathogenesis. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  7. Differential impairment on measures of attention in patients with paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chan, Michelle W C; Yip, James T H; Lee, Tatia M C

    2004-01-01

    The purpose of the present study is to investigate whether patients with different subtypes of schizophrenia are differentially impaired on measures of attention. Forty-eight patients with schizophrenia (19 paranoid and 29 nonparanoid) and 48 healthy controls (matched on chronological age, sex, and years of education) were administered five measures of attention including the Stroop Color-Word Test (SCWT; Stroop, 1935), the Digit Vigilance Test (DVT; Lewis, 1992), the Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT; Smith, 1982), the Backward Digit Span Test (BDST; Wechsler, 1987), and the Color Trails Test (CTT; D'Elia et al., 1996) to assess selective attention, sustained attention, switching attention, and attentional control processing by the latter two tests respectively. Results from the present study showed that patients with schizophrenia performed poorer on the SCWT, the DVT, and the SDMT, relative to their healthy counterparts. Furthermore, patients with different subtypes of schizophrenia also had different degrees of attentional impairment. While patients with paranoid schizophrenia performed worse on the SCWT, those with nonparanoid schizophrenia performed worse on the SDMT. Nevertheless, these findings may suggest that patients with paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenia may have different profiles with respect to their performances on measures of attention.

  8. Differential Neurodevelopmental Trajectories in Patients With Early-Onset Bipolar and Schizophrenia Disorders

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arango, Celso

    2014-01-01

    Schizophrenia and bipolar disorders share not only clinical features but also some risk factors such as genetic markers and childhood adversity, while other risk factors such as urbanicity and obstetric complications seem to be specific to schizophrenia. An intriguing question is whether the well-established abnormal neurodevelopment present in many children and adolescents who eventually develop schizophrenia is also present in bipolar patients. The literature on adult bipolar patients is controversial. We report data on a subgroup of patients with pediatric-onset psychotic bipolar disorder who seem to share some developmental trajectories with patients with early-onset schizophrenia. These early-onset psychotic bipolar patients have low intelligence quotient, more neurological signs, reduced frontal gray matter at the time of their first psychotic episode, and greater brain changes than healthy controls in a pattern similar to early-onset schizophrenia cases. However, patients with early-onset schizophrenia seem to have more social impairment, developmental abnormalities (eg, language problems), and lower academic achievement in childhood than early-onset bipolar patients. We suggest that some of these abnormal developmental trajectories are more related to the phenotypic features (eg, early-onset psychotic symptoms) of these 2 syndromes than to categorically defined Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders disorders. PMID:24371326

  9. Right lateralized white matter abnormalities in first-episode, drug-naive paranoid schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guo, Wenbin; Liu, Feng; Liu, Zhening; Gao, Keming; Xiao, Changqing; Chen, Huafu; Zhao, Jingping

    2012-11-30

    Numerous studies in first-episode schizophrenia suggest the involvement of white matter (WM) abnormalities in multiple regions underlying the pathogenesis of this condition. However, there has never been a neuroimaging study in patients with first-episode, drug-naive paranoid schizophrenia by using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) method. Here, we used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) with TBSS method to investigate the brain WM integrity in patients with first-episode, drug-naive paranoid schizophrenia. Twenty patients with first-episode, drug-naive paranoid schizophrenia and 26 healthy subjects matched with age, gender, and education level were scanned with DTI. An automated TBSS approach was employed to analyze the data. Voxel-wise statistics revealed that patients with paranoid schizophrenia had decreased fractional anisotropy (FA) values in the right superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) II, the right fornix, the right internal capsule, and the right external capsule compared to healthy subjects. Patients did not have increased FA values in any brain regions compared to healthy subjects. There was no correlation between the FA values in any brain regions and patient demographics and the severity of illness. Our findings suggest right-sided alterations of WM integrity in the WM tracts of cortical and subcortical regions may play an important role in the pathogenesis of paranoid schizophrenia. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. Regional Abnormality of Grey Matter in Schizophrenia: Effect from the Illness or Treatment?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ying Yue

    Full Text Available Both schizophrenia and antipsychotic treatment are known to modulate brain morphology. However, it is difficult to establish whether observed structural brain abnormalities are due to disease or the effects of treatment. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of illness and antipsychotic treatment on brain structures in antipsychotic-naïve first-episode schizophrenia based on a longitudinal short-term design. Twenty antipsychotic-naïve subjects with first-episode schizophrenia and twenty-four age- and sex-matched healthy controls underwent 3T MRI scans. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM was used to examine the brain structural abnormality in patients compared to healthy controls. Nine patients were included in the follow-up examination after 8 weeks of treatment. Tensor-based morphometry (TBM was used to identify longitudinal brain structural changes. We observed significantly reduced grey matter volume in the right superior temporal gyrus in antipsychotic-naïve patients with schizophrenia compared with healthy controls. After 8 weeks of treatment, patients showed significantly increased grey matter volume primarily in the bilateral prefrontal cortex, insula, right thalamus, left superior occipital cortex and the bilateral cerebellum. In addition, a greater enlargement of the prefrontal cortex is associated with the improvement in negative symptoms, and a more enlarged thalamus is associated with greater improvement in positive symptoms. Our results suggest the following: (1 the abnormality in the right superior temporal gyrus is present in the early stages of schizophrenia, possibly representing the core region related to schizophrenia; and (2 atypical antipsychotics could modulate brain morphology involving the thalamus, cortical grey matter and cerebellum. In addition, examination of the prefrontal cortex and thalamus might facilitate an efficient response to atypical antipsychotics in terms of symptom improvement.

  11. Relative risk of probabilistic category learning deficits in patients with schizophrenia and their siblings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weickert, Thomas W.; Goldberg, Terry E.; Egan, Michael F.; Apud, Jose A.; Meeter, Martijn; Myers, Catherine E.; Gluck, Mark A; Weinberger, Daniel R.

    2010-01-01

    Background While patients with schizophrenia display an overall probabilistic category learning performance deficit, the extent to which this deficit occurs in unaffected siblings of patients with schizophrenia is unknown. There are also discrepant findings regarding probabilistic category learning acquisition rate and performance in patients with schizophrenia. Methods A probabilistic category learning test was administered to 108 patients with schizophrenia, 82 unaffected siblings, and 121 healthy participants. Results Patients with schizophrenia displayed significant differences from their unaffected siblings and healthy participants with respect to probabilistic category learning acquisition rates. Although siblings on the whole failed to differ from healthy participants on strategy and quantitative indices of overall performance and learning acquisition, application of a revised learning criterion enabling classification into good and poor learners based on individual learning curves revealed significant differences between percentages of sibling and healthy poor learners: healthy (13.2%), siblings (34.1%), patients (48.1%), yielding a moderate relative risk. Conclusions These results clarify previous discrepant findings pertaining to probabilistic category learning acquisition rate in schizophrenia and provide the first evidence for the relative risk of probabilistic category learning abnormalities in unaffected siblings of patients with schizophrenia, supporting genetic underpinnings of probabilistic category learning deficits in schizophrenia. These findings also raise questions regarding the contribution of antipsychotic medication to the probabilistic category learning deficit in schizophrenia. The distinction between good and poor learning may be used to inform genetic studies designed to detect schizophrenia risk alleles. PMID:20172502

  12. Quality of Care and Outcomes of Heart Failure Among Patients With Schizophrenia in Denmark

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jorgensen, Mette; Mainz, Jan; Egstrup, Kenneth

    2017-01-01

    care among patients with schizophrenia included patient-specific factors (age, gender, Global Assessment of Functioning [GAF] score, alcohol or drug abuse, duration of schizophrenia); provider-specific factors (quality of schizophrenia care); and system-specific factors (patient-volume defined......Research on the association between schizophrenia and the quality of care and clinical outcomes of heart failure (HF) remains sparse. This nationwide study compared the quality of care and clinical outcomes of HF among Danish patients with and without schizophrenia. In a population-based cohort...... study, we identified 36,718 patients with incident HF with hospital contacts, including 108 with schizophrenia, using Danish registries between 2004 and 2013. High quality of HF care was defined as receiving ≥ 80% guideline-recommended process-performance measures of care. Potential predictors of HF...

  13. The Correlates of Quality of Life Among Jordanian Patients With Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rayan, Ahmad; Obiedate, Khaldoon

    Addressing the quality of life (QOL) of patients with schizophrenia is of special importance in the Arab world, where little knowledge is available about their well-being, and most of them experience stigma and living in poverty. The purpose of this study was to examine the association of sociodemographic characteristics, severity of depressive symptoms, and various aspects of public stigma against mental illness, with QOL among Jordanian patients with schizophrenia. In this descriptive correlational study, 160 Jordanian outpatients diagnosed with schizophrenia completed measures of demographic characteristics, perceived public stigma against mental illness, severity of depression, and QOL. Participants had poor QOL. Age, marital status, relapse, education level, stigma against mental illness, and severity of depression were significantly associated with QOL among Jordanian patients with schizophrenia. Data analysis revealed that the severity of depression accounted for an additional 27% of the variance above and beyond the 36.7% accounted for by age of the participants and perceived public stigma against mental illness. Health care professionals should develop culturally competent nursing practice considering the specific factors associated with QOL among Arab patients with schizophrenia.

  14. The Basis of Feeling-of-Knowing Judgments in Patients with Schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bacon, Elisabeth; Pillot, Mathieu; Izaute, Marie; Schwartz, Bennett L.

    2018-01-01

    We examined the basis of feeling-of-knowing judgments (FOK) in patients with schizophrenia. Such patients typically have impaired memory and awareness, but not metamemory-accuracy deficits. The magnitude of FOKs are lower for patients with schizophrenia than for healthy participants, but judgments equally predict memory performance. In healthy…

  15. Brain volumes in relatives of patients with schizophrenia - A meta-analysis

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Boos, Heleen B. M.; Aleman, Andre; Cahn, Wiepke; Pol, Hilleke Hulshoff; Kahn, Rene S.

    Context: Smaller brain volumes have consistently been found in patients with schizophrenia, particularly in gray matter and medial temporal lobe structures. Although several studies have investigated brain volumes in nonpsychotic relatives of patients with schizophrenia, results have been

  16. A systematic review of controlled interventions to reduce overweight and obesity for people with schizophrenia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hjorth, P.; Davidsen, A.S.; Killian, R.

    2014-01-01

    OBJECTIVE: Overweight and obesity are generally found among patients with schizophrenia. This may lead to serious implications for health and wellbeing. The aim was to review controlled intervention studies on reducing overweight/obesity and/or reducing physical illness in patients...... reduction and/or reducing physical illness, with standard care for patients with schizophrenia. RESULTS: All 1713 references were evaluated for inclusion in the review. Twenty-three met the inclusion criteria and were categorised into four subgroups according to tested interventions: diet, exercise...... and cognitive behavioural therapy, or mixed combinations of the three. In this review, interventions showed efficacy in reducing weight and improving physical health parameters confirming that physical health improvement was possible in patients with schizophrenia. CONCLUSION: The included studies indicate...

  17. [Event-related potentials P₃₀₀ with memory function and psychopathology in first-episode paranoid schizophrenia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Wei-bo; Chen, Qiao-zhen; Yin, Hou-min; Zheng, Lei-lei; Yu, Shao-hua; Chen, Yi-ping; Li, Hui-chun

    2011-11-01

    To investigate the variability of event-related potentials P(300) and the relationship with memory function/psychopathology in patients with first-episode paranoid schizophrenia. Thirty patients with first-episode paranoid schizophrenia (patient group) and twenty health subjects (control group) were enrolled in the study. The auditory event-related potentials P₃₀₀ at the scalp electrodes Cz, Pz and Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS) were examined in both groups, Positive And Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) was evaluated in patient group. In comparison with control group, patients had longer latency of P₃₀₀ [(390.6 ± 47.6)ms at Cz and (393.3 ± 50.1)ms at Pz] (Pparanoid schizophrenia has memory deficit, which can be evaluated comprehensively by P₃₀₀ and WMS. The longer latency of P₃₀₀ might be associated with the increased severity of first-episode paranoid schizophrenia.

  18. The Associations between Visual Attention and Facial Expression Identification in Patients with Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, I-Mei; Fan, Sheng-Yu; Huang, Tiao-Lai; Wu, Wan-Ting; Li, Shi-Ming

    2013-12-01

    Visual search is an important attention process that precedes the information processing. Visual search also mediates the relationship between cognition function (attention) and social cognition (such as facial expression identification). However, the association between visual attention and social cognition in patients with schizophrenia remains unknown. The purposes of this study were to examine the differences in visual search performance and facial expression identification between patients with schizophrenia and normal controls, and to explore the relationship between visual search performance and facial expression identification in patients with schizophrenia. Fourteen patients with schizophrenia (mean age=46.36±6.74) and 15 normal controls (mean age=40.87±9.33) participated this study. The visual search task, including feature search and conjunction search, and Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expression of Emotion were administered. Patients with schizophrenia had worse visual search performance both in feature search and conjunction search than normal controls, as well as had worse facial expression identification, especially in surprised and sadness. In addition, there were negative associations between visual search performance and facial expression identification in patients with schizophrenia, especially in surprised and sadness. However, this phenomenon was not showed in normal controls. Patients with schizophrenia who had visual search deficits had the impairment on facial expression identification. Increasing ability of visual search and facial expression identification may improve their social function and interpersonal relationship.

  19. Approaches to improve adherence to pharmacotherapy in patients with schizophrenia

    OpenAIRE

    Shuler, Kimberly M

    2014-01-01

    Kimberly M Shuler Shuler Counseling and Consulting, Fayetteville, AR, USA Purpose: In patients with schizophrenia, nonadherence to prescribed medications increases the risk of patient relapse and hospitalization, key contributors to the costs associated with treatment. The objectives of this review were to evaluate the impact of nonadherence to pharmacotherapy in patients with schizophrenia as it relates to health care professionals, particularly social workers, and to identify effective tea...

  20. Comprehension of metaphors in patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mossaheb, Nilufar; Aschauer, Harald N; Stoettner, Susanne; Schmoeger, Michaela; Pils, Nicole; Raab, Monika; Willinger, Ulrike

    2014-05-01

    Metaphors, mainly proverbs and idiomatic expressions of ordinary life are commonly used as a model for concretism. Previous studies have shown impaired metaphor comprehension in patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders compared to either psychiatric or non-psychiatric control subject. The aim of this study was to detect possible quantitative differences in figurative processing between patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and healthy controls. In order to analyse possible dissociations of different aspects of figurative speech, a range of metaphor tasks was used to distinguish between recognition of familiar metaphors, paraphrasing the meaning of the latter and generating novel metaphors: we used a standard proverb test for conventional metaphors consisting of a multiple-choice and a paraphrasing task, and the Metaphoric Triads Test for the assessment of novel metaphors. We included 40 patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and 43 healthy control subjects. Our results showed that patients had impaired figurative speech processing regarding novel and conventional metaphors. Associations with cognitive functions were detected. Performance on the paraphrasing task was associated with the severity of negative symptoms. We conclude that patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders do exhibit impairments in the recognition and paraphrasing of conventional and the generation of novel metaphors and that some cognitive domains as well the extent of negative symptoms might be associated with these deficits. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  1. Circulatory neurosteroid levels in smoking and non-smoking chronic schizophrenia patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iancu, Iulian; Tchernihovsky, Eleonora; Maayan, Rachel; Poreh, Amir; Dannon, Pinhas; Kotler, Moshe; Weizman, Abraham; Strous, Rael D

    2007-07-01

    Schizophrenia patients display an extremely high rate of smoking. Neurosteroids appear to play a possible role in the pathophysiology and management of schizophrenia and have been proposed to be involved in the pathophysiology of nicotine addiction. Although many studies have evaluated blood levels of neurosteroids in schizophrenia patients, only a few studies have taken into consideration the effect of smoking on levels of neurosteroids in the illness. Forty-five DSM-IV-TR chronic schizophrenia patients were sampled for plasma levels of three steroids: cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and dehydroepiandrosterone-sulphate (DHEA-S). Patients were rated with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and provided data on their smoking behavior. The mean level of plasma cortisol in our sample (N=45) was 197.9 nmol/L (S.D.=81.5), and the levels of DHEA and DHEA-S were 23 nmol/L (S.D.=5.5) and 4276.6 nmol/L (S.D.=2665.58), respectively. Despite a trend for lower levels of cortisol, DHEA and DHEA-S among the smokers, only DHEA, but not DHEA-S and cortisol, was significantly lower among the smokers (33% decrease, p=0.012). Smoking predicted the positive and negative scores of the PANSS, whereas cortisol was correlated with the PANSS-negative subscale. Smoking in chronic schizophrenia patients appears to be associated with lower DHEA levels. The role of this decrease in the pathophysiology of nicotine addiction and schizophrenia merits further investigation.

  2. Further insight into self-face recognition in schizophrenia patients: Why ambiguity matters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bortolon, Catherine; Capdevielle, Delphine; Salesse, Robin N; Raffard, Stephane

    2016-03-01

    Although some studies reported specifically self-face processing deficits in patients with schizophrenia disorder (SZ), it remains unclear whether these deficits rather reflect a more global face processing deficit. Contradictory results are probably due to the different methodologies employed and the lack of control of other confounding factors. Moreover, no study has so far evaluated possible daily life self-face recognition difficulties in SZ. Therefore, our primary objective was to investigate self-face recognition in patients suffering from SZ compared to healthy controls (HC) using an "objective measure" (reaction time and accuracy) and a "subjective measure" (self-report of daily self-face recognition difficulties). Twenty-four patients with SZ and 23 HC performed a self-face recognition task and completed a questionnaire evaluating daily difficulties in self-face recognition. Recognition task material consisted in three different faces (the own, a famous and an unknown) being morphed in steps of 20%. Results showed that SZ were overall slower than HC regardless of the face identity, but less accurate only for the faces containing 60%-40% morphing. Moreover, SZ and HC reported a similar amount of daily problems with self/other face recognition. No significant correlations were found between objective and subjective measures (p > 0.05). The small sample size and relatively mild severity of psychopathology does not allow us to generalize our results. These results suggest that: (1) patients with SZ are as capable of recognizing their own face as HC, although they are susceptible to ambiguity; (2) there are far less self recognition deficits in schizophrenia patients than previously postulated. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. Symptom profiles and parental bonding in homicidal versus non-violent male schizophrenia patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Halmai, Tamás; Tényi, Tamás; Gonda, Xénia

    2017-01-30

    To compare the intensity and the profile of psychotic symptoms and the characteristics of parental bonding of male schizophrenia patients with a history of homicide and those without a history of violent behaviour. Clinical question - We hypothesized more intense psychotic symptoms, especially positive symptoms as signs of a more severe psychopathology in the background of homicidal behaviour. We also hypothesized a more negatively perceived pattern (less Care more Overprotection) of parental bonding in the case of homicidal schizophrenia patients than in non-violent patients and non-violent healthy controls. Symptom severity and symptom profiles were assessed with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale in a group of male schizophrenia patients (n=22) with the history of committed or attempted homicide, and another group (n=19) of male schizophrenia patients without a history of violent behaviour. Care- and Overprotection were assessed using the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) in a third group of non-violent healthy controls (n=20), too. Positive, negative and general psychopathology symptoms in the homicidal schizophrenia group were significantly (pOverprotection than violent patients and healthy controls. Homicidal schizophrenia patients showed a pattern similar to the one in the healthy control group. It seems imperative to register intense positive psychotic symptoms as predictive markers for later violent behaviour. In the subgroup of male homicidal schizophrenia patients negatively experienced parental bonding does not appear to be major contributing factor to later homicidal behaviour.

  4. Estimating 10-year cardiovascular disease risk in Asian patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rekhi, Gurpreet; Khyne, Toe Toe; Lee, Jimmy

    This study aims to describe the cardiovascular risk profile of Asian patients with schizophrenia. Data was extracted from the databases of 139 patients with schizophrenia and 206 controls from two previous studies conducted at the Institute for Mental Health (IMH), Singapore. Their medical and smoking histories were obtained, and anthropometric parameters measured. Framingham risk score (FRS) calculator using body mass index was used to compute the 10-year cardiovascular disease risk (FRS BMI ) and the vascular age (VA BMI ) for each participant. Data on fasting lipids were available for 80 patients and all the controls; hence the FRS for lipids (FRS lipids ) and VA (VA lipids ) were also computed. The difference between VA and actual age was computed as VA diff . The 10-year CVD risk and VA diff based on lipids as well as BMI were significantly higher for patients compared to controls (all prisk of CVD in patients with schizophrenia as compared to controls; and conclude that patients with schizophrenia need regular physical health monitoring, especially for cardiovascular risk factors. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. [Microcirculation in patients with paranoid schizophrenia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sakharov, A V; Ozornin, A S; Golygina, S E; Vinogradova, A O; Shvets, M S

    2018-01-01

    To study microcirculation in patients with paranoid schizophrenia by laser Doppler flowmetry. Fifty-three patients at the age from 18 to 38 years with a diagnosis of 'paranoid schizophrenia' (F20.0) were examined in the acute psychotic state and after 3 weeks of therapy. The control group consisted of 20 healthy volunteers. To assess microcirculation, the noninvasive technique of laser Doppler flowmetry using a laser blood flow analyzer was used. Significant changes in the microcirculation persisting even over three weeks of therapy in patients were identified. The total microcirculation index was increased by 1.4 times which indicated the acceleration of blood flow. An increase in the average fluctuations of perfusion by 3.7 times and in the coefficient of variation by 1.9 times, which reflect the excessive strengthening of local mechanisms of regulation of microcirculation, were found. There were an increase in the myogenic tone and neurogenic tone of metarteriole and precapillary sphincters as well as bypass index.

  6. Differences in Clinical Features of Methamphetamine Users with Persistent Psychosis and Patients with Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Liang-Jen; Lin, Shih-Ku; Chen, Yi-Chih; Huang, Ming-Chyi; Chen, Tzu-Ting; Ree, Shao-Chun; Chen, Chih-Ken

    Methamphetamine exerts neurotoxic effects and elicits psychotic symptoms. This study attempted to compare clinical differences between methamphetamine users with persistent psychosis (MAP) and patients with schizophrenia. In addition, we examined the discrimination validity by using symptom clusters to differentiate between MAP and schizophrenia. We enrolled 53 MAP patients and 53 patients with schizophrenia. The psychopathology of participants was assessed using the Chinese version of the Diagnostic Interview for Genetic Studies and the 18-item Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. Logistic regression was used to examine the predicted probability scores of different symptom combinations on discriminating between MAP and schizophrenia. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses and area under the curve (AUC) were further applied to examine the discrimination validity of the predicted probability scores on differentiating between MAP and schizophrenia. We found that MAP and schizophrenia demonstrated similar patterns of delusions. Compared to patients with schizophrenia, MAP experienced significantly higher proportions of visual hallucinations and of somatic or tactile hallucinations. However, MAP exhibited significantly lower severity in conceptual disorganization, mannerism/posturing, blunted affect, emotional withdrawal, and motor retardation compared to patients with schizophrenia. The ROC analysis showed that a predicted probability score combining the aforementioned 7 items of symptoms could significantly differentiate between MAP and schizophrenia (AUC = 0.77). Findings in the current study suggest that nuanced differences might exist in the clinical presentation of secondary psychosis (MAP) and primary psychosis (schizophrenia). Combining the symptoms as a whole may help with differential diagnosis for MAP and schizophrenia. © 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel.

  7. A comparative study of cognitive deficits in patients with delusional disorder and paranoid schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sandeep Grover

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Very few studies have evaluated the neurocognitive functions of patients with persistent delusional disorder. Aim: To study the neurocognitive profile of patients with delusional disorder and compare it with those of patients with paranoid schizophrenia and healthy control subjects. Materials and Methods: Attention concentration, executive functions, memory, and IQ were assessed in 20 patients with delusional disorder and were compared with 20 patients with paranoid schizophrenia and 20 healthy controls. All three groups were matched on age, sex, and level of education. The two patient groups were also matched on duration of illness. Results: In general, patients with delusional disorder performed worst than healthy controls and patients with paranoid schizophrenia performed in between the other two groups. Compared with healthy controls, both patients with delusional disorder and patients with paranoid schizophrenia were significantly impaired on different tests of attention and visual learning and memory. Compared with patients with paranoid schizophrenia, patients with delusional disorder had more impairment different tests of attention, visual learning and memory, verbal working memory, and executive functions. Conclusion: Patients with delusional disorder exhibit cognitive dysfunctions that are very similar to schizophrenia, but are more severe in intensity. The resemblance of cognitive profiles suggests that the two disorders may have similar etiological basis.

  8. Mirror self-face perception in individuals with schizophrenia: Feelings of strangeness associated with one's own image.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bortolon, Catherine; Capdevielle, Delphine; Altman, Rosalie; Macgregor, Alexandra; Attal, Jérôme; Raffard, Stéphane

    2017-07-01

    Self-face recognition is crucial for sense of identity and for maintaining a coherent sense of self. Most of our daily life experiences with the image of our own face happen when we look at ourselves in the mirror. However, to date, mirror self-perception in schizophrenia has received little attention despite evidence that face recognition deficits and self abnormalities have been described in schizophrenia. Thus, this study aims to investigate mirror self-face perception in schizophrenia patients and its correlation with clinical symptoms. Twenty-four schizophrenia patients and twenty-five healthy controls were explicitly requested to describe their image in detail during 2min whilst looking at themselves in a mirror. Then, they were asked to report whether they experienced any self-face recognition difficulties. Results showed that schizophrenia patients reported more feelings of strangeness towards their face compared to healthy controls (U=209.5, p=0.048, r=0.28), but no statistically significant differences were found regarding misidentification (p=0.111) and failures in recognition (p=0.081). Symptoms such as hallucinations, somatic concerns and depression were also associated with self-face perception abnormalities (all p-values>0.05). Feelings of strangeness toward one's own face in schizophrenia might be part of a familiar face perception deficit or a more global self-disturbance, which is characterized by a loss of self-other boundaries and has been associated with abnormal body experiences and first rank symptoms. Regarding this last hypothesis, multisensorial integration might have an impact on the way patients perceive themselves since it has an important role in mirror self-perception. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  9. Facilitating recruitment of patients with schizophrenia to a clinical trial

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Grønbech, Bettina Ellen; Aagaard, Jørgen; Jensen, Svend Eggert

    People with severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia have higher rates of mortality especially due to cardiovascular disease. We have established a clinical trial named “Coronary artery disease and schizophrenia”. However, patients with schizophrenia have cognitive disturbances, which make re...... recruitment of patients challenging. The purpose of this study is to understand which type of recruitment strategy is needed in clinical trials....

  10. INSIGHT AND SELF-STIGMA IN PATIENTS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vidović, Domagoj; Brecić, Petrana; Vilibić, Maja; Jukić, Vlado

    2016-03-01

    Poor insight and high level of self-stigma are often present among patients with schizophrenia and are related to poorer treatment adherence, poorer social function and rehabilitation, aggressive behavior, higher level of depression, social anxiety, lower quality of life and self-esteem. Reports on a relationship between insight and stigma are controversial. We examined the relationship of the level of insight and self-stigma in a sample of 149 patients with schizophrenia. Insight was measured with the Scale to assess Unawareness of Mental Disorder and self-stigma with the Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness. Results showed 88.6% of the patients to have high or moderate insight, with a mean value of 2.73. General insight showed the highest level (2.58) and insight in positive symptoms the lowest level (2.9). The self-stigma score in general was 2.13, with stereotype endorsement being lowest (1.98). According to study results, 77.1% of patients felt minimal or low self-stigma across all subscales, except for stigma resistance subscale. Statistically significant correlation was found between insight and four subscales of self-stigma, while no correlation was found for the stigma resistance subscale only. These results imply the need of individually tailored antistigma and insight promoting programs for patients with schizophrenia.

  11. Validation of the Persian version of the Schizophrenia Cognition Rating Scale (SCoRS) in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mazhari, Shahrzad; Ghafaree-Nejad, Ali R; Soleymani-Zade, Somayeh; Keefe, Richard S E

    2017-06-01

    The Schizophrenia Cognition Rating Scale (SCoRS) is an interview-based assessment of cognition that involves interviews with patients and informants. The SCoRS has shown good reliability, validity, and sensitivity to cognitive impairment in schizophrenia, with the advantage of brief administration and scoring time. The present study aimed to test the concurrent validity of the Persian version of the SCoRS. A group of 35 patients with schizophrenia and a group of 35 healthy controls received the Persian-SCoRS in the first session, and a standardized performance-based cognitive battery, the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS), in the second session.Our results indicated that the Persian version of the SCoRS was sensitive to cognitive impairment in the patients. The Persian SCoRS global rating was significantly associated with the composite score generated from the Persian version of the BACS and predicted functional outcomes as measured by Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) and World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHO QOL). A Persian version of the SCoRS, an interview based measure of cognition that included informants, is related to cognitive performance and global functioning. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  12. Heart rate variability response to mental arithmetic stress in patients with schizophrenia Autonomic response to stress in schizophrenia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Castro, Mariana N.; Vigo, Daniel E.; Weidema, Hylke; Fahrer, Rodolfo D.; Chu, Elvina M.; De Achaval, Delfina; Nogues, Martin; Leiguarda, Ramon C.; Cardinali, Daniel P.; Guinjoan, Salvador N.

    Background: The vulnerability-stress hypothesis is an established model of schizophrenia symptom formation. We sought to characterise the pattern of the cardiac autonomic response to mental arithmetic stress in patients with stable schizophrenia. Methods: We performed heart rate variability (HRV)

  13. Stability of prepulse inhibition and habituation of the startle reflex in schizophrenia: a 6-year follow-up study of initially antipsychotic-naive, first-episode schizophrenia patients

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hammer, Trine Bjørg; Oranje, Bob; Fagerlund, Birgitte

    2011-01-01

    and is regarded as an endophenotype for schizophrenia. However, reports on the stability of PPI over a longer period of time are lacking, both for patients with schizophrenia and for healthy subjects. The current study examined 25 initially drug-naive, first-episode schizophrenia patients and 23 healthy matched...... not change in patients or controls. The present results show that PPI in drug-naive, first-episode schizophrenia patients can improve significantly over time. As PPI increased in patients over the same period that it decreased in controls, it is likely that the increase was caused by disease-related factors......Deficits in information processing appear to be core features in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. Prepulse inhibition (PPI) and habituation of the startle reflex are operational measures of early information processing. Impaired PPI in schizophrenia has been replicated in many studies...

  14. A Population-Based Cohort Study on Peripheral Arterial Disease in Patients with Schizophrenia.

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    Wen-Yu Hsu

    Full Text Available Peripheral arterial disease (PAD is considered the leading cause of atherosclerotic cardiovascular morbidity. Several risk factors of PAD have been observed in patients with schizophrenia. Therefore, we hypothesize that the incidence of PAD is higher in the schizophrenia population than in the general population.The patients in this population-based cohort study were selected from the Taiwanese National Health Insurance Research Database on the basis of the claims data from 2000 to 2011. We compared the incidence of PAD between schizophrenia and nonschizophrenia cohorts. Cox proportional hazard regression models were employed for analyzing the risk of PAD after adjustment for sex, age, and comorbidities.The adjusted hazard ratio (HR for PAD in the schizophrenia cohort was 1.26-fold higher than that in the nonschizophrenia cohort. Furthermore, patients with schizophrenia using atypical antipsychotics exhibited a high adjusted HR for PAD.Compared with the general population, the risk of PAD is higher among patients with schizophrenia. Early diagnosis and intervention can mitigate complications resulting from cardiovascular diseases and lower mortality.

  15. Normal brain activation in schizophrenia patients during associative emotional learning

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Swart, Marte; Liemburg, Edith Jantine; Kortekaas, Rudie; Wiersma, Durk; Bruggeman, Richard; Aleman, Andre

    2013-01-01

    Emotional deficits are among the core features of schizophrenia and both associative emotional learning and the related ability to verbalize emotions can be reduced. We investigated whether schizophrenia patients demonstrated impaired function of limbic and prefrontal areas during associative

  16. Association of IQ Changes and Progressive Brain Changes in Patients With Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kubota, Manabu; van Haren, Neeltje E M; Haijma, Sander V; Schnack, Hugo G; Cahn, Wiepke; Hulshoff Pol, Hilleke E; Kahn, René S

    2015-08-01

    Although schizophrenia is characterized by impairments in intelligence and the loss of brain volume, the relationship between changes in IQ and brain measures is not clear. To investigate the association between IQ and brain measures in patients with schizophrenia across time. Case-control longitudinal study at the Department of Psychiatry at the University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands, comparing patients with schizophrenia and healthy control participants between September 22, 2004, and April 17, 2008. Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain and IQ scores were obtained at baseline and the 3-year follow-up. Participants included 84 patients with schizophrenia (mean illness duration, 4.35 years) and 116 age-matched healthy control participants. Associations between changes in IQ and the total brain, cerebral gray matter, cerebral white matter, lateral ventricular, third ventricles, cortical, and subcortical volumes; cortical thickness; and cortical surface area. Cerebral gray matter volume (P = .006) and cortical volume (P = .03) and thickness (P = .02) decreased more in patients with schizophrenia across time compared with control participants. Patients showed additional loss in cortical volume and thickness of the right supramarginal, posterior superior temporal, left supramarginal, left postcentral, and occipital regions (P values were between IQ increased similarly in patients with schizophrenia and control participants, changes in IQ were negatively correlated with changes in lateral ventricular volume (P = .05) and positively correlated with changes in cortical volume (P = .007) and thickness (P = .004) only in patients with schizophrenia. Positive correlations between changes in IQ and cortical volume and thickness were found globally and in widespread regions across frontal, temporal, and parietal cortices (P values were between <.001 and .03 after clusterwise correction). These findings were independent of symptom

  17. [Emotional valence of words in schizophrenia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jalenques, I; Enjolras, J; Izaute, M

    2013-06-01

    Emotion recognition is a domain in which deficits have been reported in schizophrenia. A number of emotion classification studies have indicated that emotion processing deficits in schizophrenia are more pronounced for negative affects. Given the difficulty of developing material suitable for the study of these emotional deficits, it would be interesting to examine whether patients suffering from schizophrenia are responsive to positively and negatively charged emotion-related words that could be used within the context of remediation strategies. The emotional perception of words was examined in a clinical experiment involving schizophrenia patients. This emotional perception was expressed by the patients in terms of the valence associated with the words. In the present study, we investigated whether schizophrenia patients would assign the same negative and positive valences to words as healthy individuals. Twenty volunteer, clinically stable, outpatients from the Psychiatric Service of the University Hospital of Clermont-Ferrand were recruited. Diagnoses were based on DSM-IV criteria. Global psychiatric symptoms were assessed using the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS). The patients had to evaluate the emotional valence of a set of 300 words on a 5-point scale ranging from "very unpleasant" to "very pleasant". . The collected results were compared with those obtained by Bonin et al. (2003) [13] from 97 University students. Correlational analyses of the two studies revealed that the emotional valences were highly correlated, i.e. the schizophrenia patients estimated very similar emotional valences. More precisely, it was possible to examine three separate sets of 100 words each (positive words, neutral words and negative words). The positive words that were evaluated were the more positive words from the norms collected by Bonin et al. (2003) [13], and the negative words were the more negative examples taken from these norms. The neutral words

  18. Abnormal neural hierarchy in processing of verbal information in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lerner, Yulia; Bleich-Cohen, Maya; Solnik-Knirsh, Shimrit; Yogev-Seligmann, Galit; Eisenstein, Tamir; Madah, Waheed; Shamir, Alon; Hendler, Talma; Kremer, Ilana

    2018-01-01

    Previous research indicates abnormal comprehension of verbal information in patients with schizophrenia. Yet the neural mechanism underlying the breakdown of verbal information processing in schizophrenia is poorly understood. Imaging studies in healthy populations have shown a network of brain areas involved in hierarchical processing of verbal information over time. Here, we identified critical aspects of this hierarchy, examining patients with schizophrenia. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined various levels of information comprehension elicited by naturally presented verbal stimuli; from a set of randomly shuffled words to an intact story. Specifically, patients with first episode schizophrenia ( N  = 15), their non-manifesting siblings ( N  = 14) and healthy controls ( N  = 15) listened to a narrated story and randomly scrambled versions of it. To quantify the degree of dissimilarity between the groups, we adopted an inter-subject correlation (inter-SC) approach, which estimates differences in synchronization of neural responses within and between groups. The temporal topography found in healthy and siblings groups were consistent with our previous findings - high synchronization in responses from early sensory toward high order perceptual and cognitive areas. In patients with schizophrenia, stimuli with short and intermediate temporal scales evoked a typical pattern of reliable responses, whereas story condition (long temporal scale) revealed robust and widespread disruption of the inter-SCs. In addition, the more similar the neural activity of patients with schizophrenia was to the average response in the healthy group, the less severe the positive symptoms of the patients. Our findings suggest that system-level neural indication of abnormal verbal information processing in schizophrenia reflects disease manifestations.

  19. Abnormal neural hierarchy in processing of verbal information in patients with schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yulia Lerner

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Previous research indicates abnormal comprehension of verbal information in patients with schizophrenia. Yet the neural mechanism underlying the breakdown of verbal information processing in schizophrenia is poorly understood. Imaging studies in healthy populations have shown a network of brain areas involved in hierarchical processing of verbal information over time. Here, we identified critical aspects of this hierarchy, examining patients with schizophrenia. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined various levels of information comprehension elicited by naturally presented verbal stimuli; from a set of randomly shuffled words to an intact story. Specifically, patients with first episode schizophrenia (N = 15, their non-manifesting siblings (N = 14 and healthy controls (N = 15 listened to a narrated story and randomly scrambled versions of it. To quantify the degree of dissimilarity between the groups, we adopted an inter-subject correlation (inter-SC approach, which estimates differences in synchronization of neural responses within and between groups. The temporal topography found in healthy and siblings groups were consistent with our previous findings – high synchronization in responses from early sensory toward high order perceptual and cognitive areas. In patients with schizophrenia, stimuli with short and intermediate temporal scales evoked a typical pattern of reliable responses, whereas story condition (long temporal scale revealed robust and widespread disruption of the inter-SCs. In addition, the more similar the neural activity of patients with schizophrenia was to the average response in the healthy group, the less severe the positive symptoms of the patients. Our findings suggest that system-level neural indication of abnormal verbal information processing in schizophrenia reflects disease manifestations.

  20. Object versus spatial visual mental imagery in patients with schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aleman, André; de Haan, Edward H.F.; Kahn, René S.

    2005-01-01

    Objective Recent research has revealed a larger impairment of object perceptual discrimination than of spatial perceptual discrimination in patients with schizophrenia. It has been suggested that mental imagery may share processing systems with perception. We investigated whether patients with schizophrenia would show greater impairment regarding object imagery than spatial imagery. Methods Forty-four patients with schizophrenia and 20 healthy control subjects were tested on a task of object visual mental imagery and on a task of spatial visual mental imagery. Both tasks included a condition in which no imagery was needed for adequate performance, but which was in other respects identical to the imagery condition. This allowed us to adjust for nonspecific differences in individual performance. Results The results revealed a significant difference between patients and controls on the object imagery task (F1,63 = 11.8, p = 0.001) but not on the spatial imagery task (F1,63 = 0.14, p = 0.71). To test for a differential effect, we conducted a 2 (patients v. controls) х 2 (object task v. spatial task) analysis of variance. The interaction term was statistically significant (F1,62 = 5.2, p = 0.026). Conclusions Our findings suggest a differential dysfunction of systems mediating object and spatial visual mental imagery in schizophrenia. PMID:15644999

  1. Behavioral therapy for weight loss in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ganguli, Rohan

    2007-01-01

    Compared with the general population, individuals with schizophrenia demonstrate an increased prevalence of obesity. While most antipsychotics are associated with weight gain, certain second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) appear to be especially problematic. Weight gain and obesity are highly distressing to these patients, can reduce treatment adherence, and may increase the relative risk of serious medical conditions and all-cause premature mortality. The selection of an antipsychotic on the basis of its effectiveness and relative side effect profile is recognized as an important initial consideration in the treatment of schizophrenia. However, less is known regarding the efficacy of dietary, pharmacologic, and behavioral therapy in reducing antipsychotic-related weight gain and obesity. Behavioral therapy, in particular, is understudied, and there are relatively few controlled trials of its effectiveness in reducing SGA-induced weight gain. Although weight loss resulting from behavioral therapy has been observed mostly as a result of effective short-term interventions, controlled behavioral studies do exist to suggest that weight can be controlled long term. In addition, a small pilot study in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder recently demonstrated that behavioral therapy that utilizes stepped interventions, involving body weight self-monitoring, diet, and exercise, can prevent weight gain in patients initiating treatment with SGAs. Additional studies of behavioral therapy for long-term weight control in patients with schizophrenia and other forms of severe mental illness are warranted.

  2. Neurocognitive recovery of patients with paranoid schizophrenia

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    Olena Molchanova

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Background. At present neurocognitive impairment is considered a core feature of schizophrenia. This statement is grounded on cognitive impairment stability, the persistence of cognitive impairment independently of the disease stage and other symptoms of schizophrenia. The relevance of the search for cognitive remediation methods is determined by the influence of cognitive functioning on the functional outcome in patients with schizophrenia. In order to solve this problem, scientists are actively investigating such direction in the treatment of patients with this psychopathology as «neurocognitive therapy» or neurocognitive training. Objective.To evaluate the effectiveness of neurocognitive training in patients with paranoid schizophrenia. Methods and materials. The patients who matched inclusion criteria were assessed on Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS, Personal and Social Performance scale (PSP, neuropsychological tests (Trail Making Test part A and B, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Luria test at the baseline, 1st and 6th month. All patients who were included in the study were randomly assigned into two groups. The intervention group (n=40 underwent a standard supportive treatment and neurocognitive training. The control group (n=31 received supportive medication treatment alone. Results. After 1st month, a statistically significant difference between the intervention and control groups was found both for the overall PANSS score improvement and improvement in several items, which represented the cognitive decline. Total PSP score increased significantly in the intervention group from 41-50 to 51-60 (р=0.0001. In Wisconsin Card Sorting Test the proportion of incorrect answers decreased by 31.4% (р=0.0001, perseverative errors by 20.1% (р=0.042, the number of completed categories increased by 33.5% (р=0.002. Conclusion. The proposed neurocognitive training program showed positive results, which was reflected in a statistically

  3. Remission and recovery in schizophrenia: practitioner and patient perspectives.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davidson, Larry; Schmutte, Timothy; Dinzeo, Thomas; Andres-Hyman, Raquel

    2008-01-01

    Schizophrenia remains a complex, dynamic, multi-dimensional, and poorly understood condition. Although the concept of heterogeneity in outcome has conceptually overturned the post Kraepelinian legacy of progressive deterioration, a number of factors appear to contribute to perpetuating a pessimistic attitude toward outcome within the field. These include the limited access people with schizophrenia have to effective interventions and the phenomenon of the "clinician's illusion," which refers to the tendency of practitioners to assume that patients remain seriously ill when outside of the clinical care settings in which they are typically seen. Longitudinal studies, however, continue to point to a large number of people who experience improvements in their condition over time. Pressure from patients and their families, who experience periods of symptomatic relief and enhanced functioning first-hand, has led to the introduction of such concepts as "remission" and being "in" recovery with schizophrenia, in addition to the conventional notion of recovering "from" schizophrenia. These developments are consistent with recent policy initiatives by the U.S. and other governments around the world and aim to re-orient research and clinical practice from a traditional focus on effecting cure to exploring ways to encourage and assist people with schizophrenia to live meaningful lives in the face of an enduring illness.

  4. Somatic diseases in patients with schizophrenia in general practice: their prevalence and health care.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oud, Marian J T; Meyboom-de Jong, Betty

    2009-05-09

    Schizophrenia patients frequently develop somatic co-morbidity. Core tasks for GPs are the prevention and diagnosis of somatic diseases and the provision of care for patients with chronic diseases. Schizophrenia patients experience difficulties in recognizing and coping with their physical problems; however GPs have neither specific management policies nor guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of somatic co-morbidity in schizophrenia patients. This paper systematically reviews the prevalence and treatment of somatic co-morbidity in schizophrenia patients in general practice. The MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO data-bases and the Cochrane Library were searched and original research articles on somatic diseases of schizophrenia patients and their treatment in the primary care setting were selected. The results of this search show that the incidence of a wide range of diseases, such as diabetes mellitus, the metabolic syndrome, coronary heart diseases, and COPD is significantly higher in schizophrenia patients than in the normal population. The health of schizophrenic patients is less than optimal in several areas, partly due to their inadequate help-seeking behaviour. Current GP management of such patients appears not to take this fact into account. However, when schizophrenic patients seek the GP's help, they value the care provided. Schizophrenia patients are at risk of undetected somatic co-morbidity. They present physical complaints at a late, more serious stage. GPs should take this into account by adopting proactive behaviour. The development of a set of guidelines with a clear description of the GP's responsibilities would facilitate the desired changes in the management of somatic diseases in these patients.

  5. Comparison of Plasma Neurosteroid and Prolactin Levels in Patients with Schizophrenia and Healthy Individuals

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    Forough Riahi

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Background. The present study aimed to compare plasma levels of cortisol, testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA, and prolactin in patients with schizophrenia and healthy individuals. Method. A total of 100 patients with schizophrenia disorder (69 men and 31 women and 190 healthy individuals (94 men and 96 women participated in this cross-sectional study. They were tested for hormone levels and completed demographic questionnaires. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA and one-way analysis of variance. Results. Serum testosterone level was significantly higher in men with schizophrenia than in healthy men. Women with schizophrenia had a significantly higher level of testosterone and lower level of prolactin compared to healthy women. There were no significant differences in hormone levels across various subtypes of schizophrenia. No significant differences also were observed in hormones levels in patients with first-episode schizophrenia disorder compared to those in patients with recurrent episodes. Conclusion. This study indicated that abnormal testosterone and prolactin levels might be associated with pathophysiology of schizophrenia disorder.

  6. Association of gliadin antibodies, HLA alleles, and schizophrenia in Cuban population patients

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    José A. Galván

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: Several lines of evidence have suggested an interesting link between gluten ingestion and schizophrenia. For example, increased levels of gliadin and transglutaminase antibodies have been observed in patients with schizophrenia. Methods: To verify these observations we compared the prevalence of gliadin and transglutaminse antibodies, as well as the presence of the HLA alleles, HLA DQA1*0501-DQB1*02 (DQ2 and HLA-DQA1*0301-DQB1*0302 (DQ8, among patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls. A total of 108 patients with schizophrenia and 60 healthy controls were evaluated. Gliadin antibodies were determined by a visual semiquantitative assay and tissue transglutaminase antibodies were determined both by one-step immunochromatografic assay and ELISA. HLA typing was performed by PCR amplification using sequence-specific primers for each allele. Results: We found a strong association between the presence of gliadin antibodies and schizophrenia (OR 3.488; 95% CI, 1.43-8.44. However, tissue transglutaminase antibodies were not detected in either group neither by immunochromatograpic or ELISA. No significant association was found for the DQ2 or DQ8 heterodimer and the disease, but a significant positive association between schizophrenia and HLA alleles DQA1*0301 and DQB1*02 was present (OR = 2.80; 95% CI, 1.27-6.17, and OR = 2.37, 95% CI, 1.24-4.53, respectively. Conclusions: The present study showed that the presence of gliadin antibodies was not correlated with the presence of HLA DQA1*0301 or DQB1*02 alleles within the group of patients with schizophrenia. Our study replicates the findings that anti-gliadin antibodies are associated with schizophrenia but also suggests that the presence of these antibodies and the HLA alleles DQB1*02 and DQA1*0301 are independently associated with susceptibility to schizophrenia.

  7. Destination memory in schizophrenia: "Did I told Elvis Presley about the thief?"

    Science.gov (United States)

    El Haj, Mohamad; Altman, Rosalie; Bortolon, Catherine; Capdevielle, Delphine; Raffard, Stéphane

    2017-02-01

    Destination memory refers to the ability to remember to whom a piece of information was previously transmitted. Our paper assessed this ability in schizophrenia. Twenty-five patients with schizophrenia and 25 control participants told proverbs (e.g., "send a thief to catch a thief") to pictures of celebrities (e.g., Elvis Presley). Afterward, participants had to indicate to which celebrity they had previously said the proverbs. Participants also completed a binding task in which they were required to associate letters with their corresponding context (i.e., location). Analysis revealed worse destination memory and binding in patients with schizophrenia than in controls. In both populations, destination memory was significantly correlated with performances on the binding task. Our findings suggest difficulty in the ability to attribute information to its appropriate destination in schizophrenia. This difficulty may be related to compromise in binding separate cues together to form a coherent representation of an event in memory. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Grey matter, an endophenotype for schizophrenia? A voxel-based morphometry study in siblings of patients with schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    van der Velde, Jorien; Gromann, Paula M.; Swart, Marte; de Haan, Lieuwe; Wiersma, Durk; Bruggeman, Richard; Krabbendam, Lydia; Aleman, André

    2015-01-01

    Background Grey matter, both volume and concentration, has been proposed as an endophenotype for schizophrenia given a number of reports of grey matter abnormalities in relatives of patients with schizophrenia. However, previous studies on grey matter abnormalities in relatives have produced inconsistent results. The aim of the present study was to examine grey matter differences between controls and siblings of patients with schizophrenia and to examine whether the age, genetic loading or subclinical psychotic symptoms of selected individuals could explain the previously reported inconsistencies. Methods We compared the grey matter volume and grey matter concentration of healthy siblings of patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls matched for age, sex and education using voxel-based morphometry (VBM). Furthermore, we selected subsamples based on age (< 30 yr), genetic loading and subclinical psychotic symptoms to examine whether this would lead to different results. Results We included 89 siblings and 69 controls in our study. The results showed that siblings and controls did not differ significantly on grey matter volume or concentration. Furthermore, specifically selecting participants based on age, genetic loading or subclinical psychotic symptoms did not alter these findings. Limitations The main limitation was that subdividing the sample resulted in smaller samples for the subanalyses. Furthermore, we used MRI data from 2 different scanner sites. Conclusion These results indicate that grey matter measured through VBM might not be a suitable endophenotype for schizophrenia. PMID:25768029

  9. Is dietary pattern of schizophrenia patients different from healthy subjects?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amani Reza

    2007-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background There are limited findings about dietary patterns and food preferences among patients suffering from schizophrenia. The main objective of this study was therefore to compare the nutritional pattern of schizophrenia patients with that of matched healthy subjects. Methods The dietary pattern of 30 hospitalized 16–67 years old schizophrenic patients (11 female was compared with that of 30 healthy age and sex matched individuals as control group. Subjects' anthropometric measurements including weight, height and body mass index (BMI, semi-quantitative food frequency (FFQ, medical and food history questionnaires were also collected and FFQs were then scored using Food Guide Pyramid to obtain the dietary scores. Percent body fat (%BF was measured using bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA method. Results Female patients had more %BF and lower dietary pattern scores than that of their controls (32 ± 3.6 vs 27.7 ± 4.6 percent and 43.2 ± 11.9 vs 54.5 ± 10.7 points; respectively, p Conclusion Schizophrenia patients have poor nutritional patterns. In particular, female patients have more percent body fat and lower dietary pattern scores compared with their healthy controls. All patients used to consume more fats and sweet drinks frequently. The findings of this study suggest that schizophrenia patients need specific medical nutrition therapies through limiting dietary fats and sugars intakes and weight control. Whether obesity is the consequence of disease, dietary preference or medications used remains to be cleared.

  10. Effect of organizational strategy on visual memory in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Myung-Sun; Namgoong, Yoon; Youn, Tak

    2008-08-01

    The aim of the present study was to examine how copy organization mediated immediate recall among patients with schizophrenia using the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test (ROCF). The Boston Qualitative Scoring System (BQSS) was applied for qualitative and quantitative analyses of ROCF performances. Subjects included 20 patients with schizophrenia and 20 age- and gender-matched healthy controls. During the copy condition, the schizophrenia group and the control group differed in fragmentation; during the immediate recall condition, the two groups differed in configural presence and planning; and during the delayed recall condition, they differed in several qualitative measurements, including configural presence, cluster presence/placement, detail presence/placement, fragmentation, planning, and neatness. The two groups also differed in several quantitative measurements, including immediate presence and accuracy, immediate retention, delayed retention, and organization. Although organizational strategies used during the copy condition mediated the difference between the two groups during the immediate recall condition, group also had a significant direct effect on immediate recall. Schizophrenia patients are deficient in visual memory, and a piecemeal approach to the figure and organizational deficit seem to be related to the visual memory deficit. But schizophrenia patients also appeared to have some memory problems, including retention and/or retrieval deficits.

  11. Facial emotion perception in Chinese patients with schizophrenia and non-psychotic first-degree relatives.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Huijie; Chan, Raymond C K; Zhao, Qing; Hong, Xiaohong; Gong, Qi-Yong

    2010-03-17

    Although there is a consensus that patients with schizophrenia have certain deficits in perceiving and expressing facial emotions, previous studies of facial emotion perception in schizophrenia do not present consistent results. The objective of this study was to explore facial emotion perception deficits in Chinese patients with schizophrenia and their non-psychotic first-degree relatives. Sixty-nine patients with schizophrenia, 56 of their first-degree relatives (33 parents and 23 siblings), and 92 healthy controls (67 younger healthy controls matched to the patients and siblings, and 25 older healthy controls matched to the parents) completed a set of facial emotion perception tasks, including facial emotion discrimination, identification, intensity, valence, and corresponding face identification tasks. The results demonstrated that patients with schizophrenia performed significantly worse than their siblings and younger healthy controls in accuracy in a variety of facial emotion perception tasks, whereas the siblings of the patients performed as well as the corresponding younger healthy controls in all of the facial emotion perception tasks. Patients with schizophrenia also showed significantly reduced speed than younger healthy controls, while siblings of patients did not demonstrate significant differences with both patients and younger healthy controls in speed. Meanwhile, we also found that parents of the schizophrenia patients performed significantly worse than the corresponding older healthy controls in accuracy in terms of facial emotion identification, valence, and the composite index of the facial discrimination, identification, intensity and valence tasks. Moreover, no significant differences were found between the parents of patients and older healthy controls in speed after controlling the years of education and IQ. Taken together, the results suggest that facial emotion perception deficits may serve as potential endophenotypes for schizophrenia

  12. Discriminant cognitive factors in responder and non-responder patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stip, E; Lussier, I; Ngan, E; Mendrek, A; Liddle, P

    1999-12-01

    To identify which improvements in cognitive function are associated with symptom resolution in schizophrenic patients treated with atypical antipsychotics. a prospective open trial with atypical neuroleptics (risperidone, clozapine, quetiapine). Inpatient and outpatient units, Institute of Psychiatry. Thirty-nine patients with schizophrenia according to DSM-IV criteria were included. Clinical and cognitive assessment were done at baseline (T0) and again after six months of treatment (T2). Twenty-five patients completed the trial. New-generation antipsychotics during six months. Patients were considered as responders if their PANSS score decreased at least 20% (n = 15) and non-responders if it did not (n = 10). a computerized cognitive assessment comprised tests of short-term-memory (digit span), explicit long-term memory (word pair learning), divided attention, selective attention and verbal fluency (orthographic and semantic). Clinical assessment included PANSS and ESRS. A discriminant function analysis was performed to determine which changes in cognitive performance predicted symptomatic response status. Semantic fluency and orthographic fluency were significant predictors. Together they correctly predicted responder status in 88% of cases. Memory was not a significant predictor of symptomatic response. Verbal fluency discriminated the responder from the non-responder group during a pharmacological treatment.

  13. [Face recognition in patients with schizophrenia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doi, Hirokazu; Shinohara, Kazuyuki

    2012-07-01

    It is well known that patients with schizophrenia show severe deficiencies in social communication skills. These deficiencies are believed to be partly derived from abnormalities in face recognition. However, the exact nature of these abnormalities exhibited by schizophrenic patients with respect to face recognition has yet to be clarified. In the present paper, we review the main findings on face recognition deficiencies in patients with schizophrenia, particularly focusing on abnormalities in the recognition of facial expression and gaze direction, which are the primary sources of information of others' mental states. The existing studies reveal that the abnormal recognition of facial expression and gaze direction in schizophrenic patients is attributable to impairments in both perceptual processing of visual stimuli, and cognitive-emotional responses to social information. Furthermore, schizophrenic patients show malfunctions in distributed neural regions, ranging from the fusiform gyrus recruited in the structural encoding of facial stimuli, to the amygdala which plays a primary role in the detection of the emotional significance of stimuli. These findings were obtained from research in patient groups with heterogeneous characteristics. Because previous studies have indicated that impairments in face recognition in schizophrenic patients might vary according to the types of symptoms, it is of primary importance to compare the nature of face recognition deficiencies and the impairments of underlying neural functions across sub-groups of patients.

  14. Social cognition and prefrontal hemodynamic responses during a working memory task in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pu, Shenghong; Nakagome, Kazuyuki; Yamada, Takeshi; Itakura, Masashi; Yamanashi, Takehiko; Yamada, Sayaka; Masai, Mieko; Miura, Akihiko; Yamauchi, Takahira; Satake, Takahiro; Iwata, Masaaki; Nagata, Izumi; Roberts, David L; Kaneko, Koichi

    2016-03-01

    Social cognition is an important determinant of functional impairment in schizophrenia, but its relationship with the prefrontal functional abnormalities associated with the condition is still unclear. The present study aimed to explore the relationship between social cognition and prefrontal function in patients with schizophrenia using 52-channel near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Twenty-six patients with schizophrenia and 26 age-, gender-, and intelligence quotient-matched healthy controls (HCs) participated in the study. Hemodynamic responses in the prefrontal and superior temporal cortical regions were assessed during a working memory task using NIRS. Social cognition was assessed using the Social Cognition Screening Questionnaire (SCSQ). The observed hemodynamic responses were significantly reduced in the lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), the frontopolar cortex, and temporal regions in subjects with schizophrenia compared to HCs. Additionally, lateral PFC hemodynamic responses assessed during the working memory task demonstrated a strong positive correlation with the SCSQ theory of mind (ToM) subscale score even after controlling for working memory performance. These results suggest that ToM integrity is closely related to lateral PFC functional abnormalities found in patients with schizophrenia. In addition, this study provides evidence to suggest that NIRS could be used to identify biomarkers of social cognition function in subjects with schizophrenia.

  15. Schizophrenia patients demonstrate a dissociation on declarative and non-declarative memory tests.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perry, W; Light, G A; Davis, H; Braff, D L

    2000-12-15

    Declarative memory refers to the recall and recognition of factual information. In contrast, non-declarative memory entails a facilitation of memory based on prior exposure and is typically assessed with priming and perceptual-motor sequencing tasks. In this study, schizophrenia patients were compared to normal comparison subjects on two computerized memory tasks: the Word-stem Priming Test (n=30) and the Pattern Sequence Learning Test (n=20). Word-stem Priming includes recall, recognition (declarative) and priming (non-declarative) components of memory. The schizophrenia patients demonstrated an impaired performance on recall of words with relative improvement during the recognition portion of the test. Furthermore, they performed normally on the priming portion of the test. Thus, on tests of declarative memory, the patients had retrieval deficits with intact performance on the non-declarative memory component. The Pattern Sequence Learning Test utilizes a serial reaction time paradigm to assess non-declarative memory. The schizophrenia patients' serial reaction time was significantly slower than that of comparison subjects. However, the patients' rate of acquisition was not different from the normal comparison group. The data suggest that patients with schizophrenia process more slowly than normal, but have an intact non-declarative memory. The schizophrenia patients' dissociation on declarative vs. non-declarative memory tests is discussed in terms of possible underlying structural impairment.

  16. Caregiver burden among relatives of patients with schizophrenia in Katsina, Nigeria

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    Abdulkareem Jika Yusuf

    2009-06-01

    Full Text Available Objective: Caring for patients’ with schizophrenia leads to an enormous burden on the caregivers. However, the magnitude of this problem remains largely unknown in Sub-Saharan Africa. The objective of this study was to determine the burden of care giving among relatives of patients with schizophrenia. Materials and method: A total of 129 primary care-givers of patients with schizophrenia attending out-patient clinic of Katsina state Psychiatric Hospital were interviewed using a socio-demographic data collection sheet and Zarith Burden Interview (ZBI. Data obtained was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 13. Results: The mean age of the respondents was 45.07±8.91. Majority of the caregivers are females. High level of burden was found in 47.3% of the respondents. The level of burden experienced was significantly associated with place of residence and family size. Conclusion: Schizophrenia is associated with high level of caregiver burden and effort should be made at alleviating this burden for better out come in both the patients and caregivers.

  17. Intellectual factors in false memories of patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Bi; Chen, Chuansheng; Loftus, Elizabeth F; Dong, Qi; Lin, Chongde; Li, Jun

    2018-07-01

    The current study explored the intellectual factors in false memories of 139 patients with schizophrenia, using a recognition task and an IQ test. The full-scale IQ score of the participants ranged from 57 to 144 (M = 100, SD = 14). The full IQ score had a negative correlation with false recognition in patients with schizophrenia, and positive correlations with high-confidence true recognition and discrimination rates. Further analyses with the subtests' scores revealed that false recognition was negatively correlated with scores of performance IQ (and one of its subtests: picture arrangement), whereas true recognition was positively correlated with scores of verbal IQ (and two of its subtests: information and digit span). High-IQ patients had less false recognition (overall or high-confidence false recognition), more high-confidence true recognition, and higher discrimination abilities than those with low IQ. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the cognitive mechanism in false memory of patients with schizophrenia, and are of practical relevance to the evaluation of memory reliability in patients with different intellectual levels. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  18. An association between autumn birth and clozapine treatment in patients with schizophrenia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sørensen, Holger J; Foldager, Leslie; Røge, Rasmus

    2014-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Numerous studies on seasonality of birth and schizophrenia risk have been published but it is uncertain whether, among those with schizophrenia, refractory illness exhibits any predilection for birth month. We hypothesized and examined whether a season of birth effect was present in p...... investigated but might be partially explained by early exposures such as winter flu season and low vitamin D levels.......BACKGROUND: Numerous studies on seasonality of birth and schizophrenia risk have been published but it is uncertain whether, among those with schizophrenia, refractory illness exhibits any predilection for birth month. We hypothesized and examined whether a season of birth effect was present...... in patients with schizophrenia with a history of clozapine treatment. METHOD: Using record linkage with Danish registers, we examined patients with schizophrenia born between 1950 and 1970, and between 1995 and 2009 and Cox regression analysis was used to examine season of birth in relation to history...

  19. Somatic diseases in patients with schizophrenia in general practice: their prevalence and health care

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    Meyboom-de Jong Betty

    2009-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Schizophrenia patients frequently develop somatic co-morbidity. Core tasks for GPs are the prevention and diagnosis of somatic diseases and the provision of care for patients with chronic diseases. Schizophrenia patients experience difficulties in recognizing and coping with their physical problems; however GPs have neither specific management policies nor guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of somatic co-morbidity in schizophrenia patients. This paper systematically reviews the prevalence and treatment of somatic co-morbidity in schizophrenia patients in general practice. Methods The MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO data-bases and the Cochrane Library were searched and original research articles on somatic diseases of schizophrenia patients and their treatment in the primary care setting were selected. Results The results of this search show that the incidence of a wide range of diseases, such as diabetes mellitus, the metabolic syndrome, coronary heart diseases, and COPD is significantly higher in schizophrenia patients than in the normal population. The health of schizophrenic patients is less than optimal in several areas, partly due to their inadequate help-seeking behaviour. Current GP management of such patients appears not to take this fact into account. However, when schizophrenic patients seek the GP's help, they value the care provided. Conclusion Schizophrenia patients are at risk of undetected somatic co-morbidity. They present physical complaints at a late, more serious stage. GPs should take this into account by adopting proactive behaviour. The development of a set of guidelines with a clear description of the GP's responsibilities would facilitate the desired changes in the management of somatic diseases in these patients.

  20. History of religious delusions and psychosocial functioning among Mexican patients with paranoid schizophrenia.

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    Robles-García, Rebeca; López-Luna, Sonia; Páez, Francisco; Escamilla, Raúl; Camarena, Beatriz; Fresán, Ana

    2014-12-01

    The association between global functionality and religiosity among patients from developing and predominantly Catholic countries warrants attention. To compare religiosity and psychosocial functioning in Mexican schizophrenia patients with and without a history of religious delusions, seventy-four patients with paranoid schizophrenia were recruited. Patients with a history of religious delusions had more psychiatric hospitalizations and poorer psychosocial functioning compared with those without a history of religious delusions. No differences emerged between groups in the total scores of religiosity scales. A history of religious delusions rather than religiosity itself may have an influence on psychosocial functioning among Mexican patients with schizophrenia.

  1. Low dietary intake of n-3 fatty acids, niacin, folate, and vitamin C in Korean patients with schizophrenia and the development of dietary guidelines for schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Eun Jin; Lim, So Young; Lee, Hee Jae; Lee, Ju-Yeon; Choi, Seunggi; Kim, Seon-Young; Kim, Jae-Min; Shin, Il-Seon; Yoon, Jin-Sang; Yang, Soo Jin; Kim, Sung-Wan

    2017-09-01

    Inappropriate dietary intake and poor nutritional status are reported to be associated with metabolic syndrome and psychopathology in patients with schizophrenia. We hypothesized that inappropriate dietary habits and insufficient dietary intake of specific nutrients are associated with schizophrenia. To test the hypothesis, we assessed the dietary habits and nutritional intake of patients with schizophrenia and then developed suitable dietary guidelines. In total, 140 subjects (73 controls and 67 patients with schizophrenia from community mental health centers) were included, and dietary intakes were analyzed using a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire. As a result, the proportion of overweight or obese patients was significantly higher in schizophrenia subjects (64.2%) compared with control subjects (39.7%) (P=.004). The male schizophrenia patients had significantly lower dietary intakes of protein, polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), vitamin K, niacin, folate, and vitamin C than the male control subjects. In all multiple logistic regression models, subjects with the "low" dietary intake of protein, n-3 PUFAs, niacin, folate, and vitamin C had a significantly higher odds ratios for schizophrenia compared with those with the "high" dietary intake category of each nutrient. Therefore, maintenance of a healthy body weight and sufficient dietary intake of protein, PUFAs, niacin, folate, and vitamin C are recommended for Korean patients with schizophrenia. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  2. The neural correlates of apathy in schizophrenia: An exploratory investigation.

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    Caravaggio, Fernando; Fervaha, Gagan; Menon, Mahesh; Remington, Gary; Graff-Guerrero, Ariel; Gerretsen, Philip

    2017-10-25

    Motivational deficits represent a core negative symptom in patients with schizophrenia. Previous morphology studies have demonstrated that apathy in patients with schizophrenia is associated with reduced frontal grey matter (GM). We attempted to replicate this previous finding, and explored whether it was distinct from potential associations with a distinct subdomain of negative symptoms, namely Affective Flattening, and GM. Twenty medicated patients with schizophrenia provided structural T1-weighted images acquired on a 3-Tesla MRI scanner and negative symptoms were evaluated using the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was used to explore the correlations between whole-brain GM and i) Apathy, and ii) Affective Flattening, respectively. Apathy scores were negatively correlated with several GM clusters in frontal regions, including the frontal inferior operculum and the left dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Only positive correlations with GM clusters were observed for Affective Flattening, particularly in the inferior temporal lobe. Notably, the regions associated with apathy scores were distinct from those associated with Affective Flattening, and these findings remained after controlling for antipsychotic medication dosage. We replicated previous associations between reduced frontal GM and apathy in patients with schizophrenia. Moreover, we demonstrated that these GM associations are distinct from those with Affective Flattening. The present findings set the stage for future larger-scale studies confirming the structural and neurochemical substrates of apathy in schizophrenia. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. The relationship between obesity and neurocognitive function in Chinese patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guo, Xiaofeng; Zhang, Zhanchou; Wei, Qinling; Lv, Hailong; Wu, Renrong; Zhao, Jingping

    2013-04-09

    Studies have reported that up to 60% of individuals with schizophrenia are overweight or obese. This study explored the relationship between obesity and cognitive performance in Chinese patients with schizophrenia. Outpatients with schizophrenia aged 18-50 years were recruited from 10 study sites across China. Demographic and clinical information was collected. A neuropsychological battery including tests of attention, processing speed, learning/memory, and executive functioning was used to assess cognitive function, and these 4 individual domains were transformed into a neurocognitive composite z score. In addition, height and weight were measured to calculate body mass index (BMI). Patients were categorized into 4 groups (underweight, normal weight, overweight and obese) based on BMI cutoff values for Asian populations recommended by the World Health Organization. A total number of 896 patients were enrolled into the study. Fifty-four percent of participants were overweight or obese. A higher BMI was significantly associated with lower scores on the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R) Visual Reproduction subscale, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) Digit Symbol subscale, and the composite z score (p's ≤ 0.024). Obese patients with schizophrenia had significantly lower scores than normal weight patients on the Trail Making Test B, the WMS-R Visual Reproduction subscale, the WAIS Digit Symbol subscale, and the composite z score (p's ≤ 0.004). Our study suggests that, in addition to its well established risk for various cardiometabolic conditions, obesity is also associated with decreased cognitive function in Chinese patients with schizophrenia. Future studies should explore if weight loss and management can improve cognitive function in obese patients who suffer from schizophrenia.

  4. Coping strategies and self-stigma in patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders

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    Holubova M

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Michaela Holubova,1,2 Jan Prasko,1 Radovan Hruby,3 Klara Latalova,1 Dana Kamaradova,1 Marketa Marackova,1 Milos Slepecky,4 Terezia Gubova2 1Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Palacký University Olomouc, University Hospital Olomouc, Olomouc, Czech Republic; 2Department of Psychiatry, Hospital Liberec, Liberec, Czech Republic; 3Private Psychiatric Practice, Martin, Slovak Republic; 4Department of Psychology Sciences, Faculty of Social Science and Health Care, Constantine the Philosopher University, Nitra, Slovak Republic Background: Maladaptive coping strategies may adversely disturb the overall functioning of people with mental disorders. Also, self-stigma is considered a maladaptive psychosocial phenomenon that can affect many areas of patient life. It has a negative impact on self-image, and may lead to dysphoria, social isolation, reduced adherence, using of negative coping strategies, and lower quality of life. The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between coping strategies and self-stigma among persons with schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders.Subjects and methods: A total of 104 clinically stable outpatients with chronic schizophrenia-spectrum disorders were enrolled in a cross-sectional study. Sociodemographic and clinical data were recorded. Patients were examined by psychiatrists with the Stress Coping Style Questionnaire, the Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness scale, and the Clinical Global Impression scale. Correlation and multiple-regression analyses were performed to discover contributing factors to self-stigma.Results: Positive coping strategies were used by patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders to the same extent as in the healthy population. Negative coping strategies were overused by these patients. There were significant associations between self-stigma, severity of the disorder, and coping strategies in schizophrenia. The ability to use positive coping

  5. Characteristics of patients diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder compared with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pagel, Tobias; Baldessarini, Ross J; Franklin, Jeremy; Baethge, Christopher

    2013-05-01

    Information on basic demographic and clinical characteristics of schizoaffective disorder is sparse and subject to sampling bias and low diagnostic reliability. In the present study we aimed to: (i) estimate the demographic and clinical descriptors in schizoaffective disorder patients and (ii) compare the findings with those with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. To minimize sampling bias and low reliability, we systematically reviewed studies that simultaneously compared schizoaffective, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder patients. We estimated demographic, clinical, and psychometric characteristics based on weighted pooling, and compared disorders by meta-analysis. We also estimated whether schizoaffective disorder is closer to schizophrenia or to bipolar disorder. We identified 50 studies that included 18312 patients. Most characteristics of the 2684 schizoaffective disorder patients fell between those of 4814 diagnosed with bipolar disorder and 10814 with schizophrenia. However, the schizoaffective group had the highest proportion of women (52%), had the youngest age at illness onset (23.3 ± 3.8 years), and had the highest standardized ratings of psychosis and depression. Differences in pooled parameters between schizoaffective versus schizophrenia and versus bipolar disorder subjects were similar. Values for patients with schizoaffective disorders mostly were intermediate between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. However, the majority of studies showed schizoaffective patients to be more like schizophrenia than bipolar disorder patients in seven out of nine demographic and clinical categories as well as in five out of eight psychometric measures. These results remained similar when we restricted the analyses to studies with psychotic bipolar disorder patients only or to studies using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-IIIR and DSM-IV only. The present study provided estimates of important characteristics of schizoaffective

  6. Hemispheric dominance during the mental rotation task in patients with schizophrenia.

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    Chen, Jiu; Yang, Laiqi; Zhao, Jin; Li, Lanlan; Liu, Guangxiong; Ma, Wentao; Zhang, Yan; Wu, Xingqu; Deng, Zihe; Tuo, Ran

    2012-04-01

    Mental rotation is a spatial representation conversion capability using an imagined object and either object or self-rotation. This capability is impaired in schizophrenia. To provide a more detailed assessment of impaired cognitive functioning in schizophrenia by comparing the electrophysiological profiles of patients with schizophrenia and controls while completing a mental rotation task using both normally-oriented images and mirror images. This electroencephalographic study compared error rates, reaction times and the topographic map of event-related potentials in 32 participants with schizophrenia and 29 healthy controls during mental rotation tasks involving both normal images and mirror images. Among controls the mean error rate and the mean reaction time for normal images and mirror images were not significantly different but in the patient group the mean (sd) error rate was higher for mirror images than for normal images (42% [6%] vs. 32% [9%], t=2.64, p=0.031) and the mean reaction time was longer for mirror images than for normal images (587 [11] ms vs. 571 [18] ms, t=2.83, p=0.028). The amplitude of the P500 component at Pz (parietal area), Cz (central area), P3 (left parietal area) and P4 (right parietal area) were significantly lower in the patient group than in the control group for both normal images and mirror images. In both groups the P500 for both the normal and mirror images was significantly higher in the right parietal area (P4) compared with left parietal area (P3). The mental rotation abilities of patients with schizophrenia for both normally-oriented images and mirror images are impaired. Patients with schizophrenia show a diminished left cerebral contribution to the mental rotation task, a more rapid response time, and a differential response to normal images versus mirror images not seen in healthy controls. Specific topographic characteristics of the EEG during mental rotation tasks are potential biomarkers for schizophrenia.

  7. Overconfidence in incorrect perceptual judgments in patients with schizophrenia

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    Steffen Moritz

    2014-12-01

    Discussion: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate overconfidence in errors among individuals with psychosis using a visual perception task. Speaking to the specificity of this abnormality for schizophrenia and its pathogenetic relevance, overconfidence in errors and knowledge corruption were elevated in patients with schizophrenia relative to both control groups and were correlated with paranoia.

  8. Self-harm in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mork, Erlend; Mehlum, Lars; Barrett, Elizabeth A; Agartz, Ingrid; Harkavy-Friedman, Jill M; Lorentzen, Steinar; Melle, Ingrid; Andreassen, Ole A; Walby, Fredrik A

    2012-01-01

    This study describes the prevalence, clinical characteristics, and gender profile of self-harm in a cross-sectional sample of 388 patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. All patients were interviewed and assessed with respect to lifetime self-harm and relevant clinical variables. An overall of 49% of the patients reported self-harm which was associated with female gender, having had a depressive episode, younger age at psychosis onset, alcohol abuse or dependence, current suicidality, awareness of illness, and low adherence to prescribed medication. Higher awareness of having a mental disorder was associated with self-harm in men only, while emotional dysregulation was associated with self-harm in women only. We conclude that while self-harm in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders is highly prevalent in both genders, risk factors in men and women differ in several important ways.

  9. Vitamin D Supplementation in Chronic Schizophrenia Patients Treated with Clozapine: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-controlled Clinical Trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krivoy, Amir; Onn, Roy; Vilner, Yael; Hochman, Eldar; Weizman, Shira; Paz, Amir; Hess, Shmuel; Sagy, Roi; Kimhi-Nesher, Shiri; Kalter, Ehud; Friedman, Tal; Friedman, Zvi; Bormant, Gil; Trommer, Sharon; Valevski, Avi; Weizman, Abraham

    2017-12-01

    While accumulating evidence suggests that vitamin D deficiency may be involved in the risk to develop schizophrenia and its outcome, there are no studies on vitamin D supplementation in this context. We sought to assess the effect of vitamin D supplementation on psychiatric, cognitive and metabolic parameters in chronic clozapine-treated schizophrenia patients. This eight-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, recruited schizophrenia patients who had been maintained on clozapine treatment for at least 18weeks and had low levels of vitamin D (70 (to ascertain the presence of residual symptoms). Patients were randomly allocated to either weekly oral drops of vitamin D (14,000IU) or placebo and subsequently assessed at two-week intervals for psychosis severity, mood, cognition and metabolic profile. Twenty four patients were randomly assigned to vitamin D (aged 39.4±9.6years, 75% males) and the other 23 patients to the placebo arm (aged 42.5±11.2years, 60.9% males). After eight weeks, the vitamin D group exhibited a significant increase in vitamin D levels (31.4 vs -0.4nmol/l, pvitamin D on psychotic, depressive or metabolic parameters. However, in the vitamin D group, there was a trend towards improved cognition (effect size=0.17, significance lost following Bonferroni correction). Vitamin D supplementation was associated with a trend towards improved cognition, but did not affect psychosis, mood or metabolic status. It is possible that the robust decrease in the PANSS scores in both groups may have obscured an effect of vitamin D supplementation. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  10. CANTAB Explicit Memory Is Less Impaired in Addicted Schizophrenia Patients

    Science.gov (United States)

    Potvin, Stephane; Briand, Catherine; Prouteau, Antoinette; Bouchard, Roch-Hugo; Lipp, Olivier; Lalonde, Pierre; Nicole, Luc; Lesage, Alain; Stip, Emmanuel

    2005-01-01

    It has been suggested that in order to sustain the lifestyle of substance abuse, addicted schizophrenia patients would have less negative symptoms, better social skills, and less cognitive impairments. Mounting evidence supports the first two assumptions, but data lack regarding cognition in dual diagnosis schizophrenia. Seventy-six schizophrenia…

  11. Impulsivity, aggression and suicide risk among male schizophrenia patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iancu, Iulian; Bodner, Ehud; Roitman, Suzana; Piccone Sapir, Anna; Poreh, Amir; Kotler, Moshe

    2010-01-01

    Impulsivity has been shown to be a major variable in the etiology of suicide and aggression, but has not been researched as much in the schizophrenic population, which is characterized by serious suicide and aggression risks. 68 male schizophrenia patients responded to a battery of measures including the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), the impulsivity control scale (IS), the Suicide Risk Scale (SRS) and the Overt Aggression Scale. We divided our subjects into those who received scores above and below the median on the IS. The high-impulsivity group had higher present and past rates of suicidal ideation and showed a trend for more lifetime suicidal attempts than the low-impulsivity group. The impulsivity score correlated positively with the SRS score and with some of the scores of the PANSS (the positive symptoms score, the general psychopathology score and the total score). A multiple regression analysis revealed that an older age, higher levels of aggression, high impulsivity and an elevated score on the general psychopathology subscale of the PANSS contributed positively and significantly to the explained variance of the SRS. Our study supports the contention that high impulsivity in schizophrenia patients is significant in the etiology of suicide in schizophrenia. However, the relationship between impulsivity and aggression in schizophrenia patients, and also the amelioration of impulsivity by pharmacological interventions, require further study. Copyright (c) 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel.

  12. Genetic underpinnings of left superior temporal gyrus thickness in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolthusen, Rick P F; Hass, Johanna; Walton, Esther; Turner, Jessica A; Rössner, Veit; Sponheim, Scott R; Ho, Beng-Choon; Holt, Daphne J; Gollub, Randy L; Calhoun, Vince; Ehrlich, Stefan

    2015-08-07

    Schizophrenia is a highly disabling psychiatric disorder with a heterogeneous phenotypic appearance. We aimed to further the understanding of some of the underlying genetics of schizophrenia, using left superior temporal gyrus (STG) grey matter thickness reduction as an endophenoptype in a genome-wide association (GWA) study. Structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and genetic data of the Mind Clinical Imaging Consortium (MCIC) study of schizophrenia were used to analyse the interaction effects between 1,067,955 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and disease status on left STG thickness in 126 healthy controls and 113 patients with schizophrenia. We next used a pathway approach to detect underlying pathophysiological pathways that may be related to schizophrenia. No SNP by diagnosis interaction effect reached genome-wide significance (5 × 10 -8 ) in our GWA study, but 10 SNPs reached P-values less than 10 -6 . The most prominent pathways included those involved in insulin, calcium, PI3K-Akt and MAPK signalling. Our strongest findings in the GWA study and pathway analysis point towards an involvement of glucose metabolism in left STG thickness reduction in patients with schizophrenia only. These results are in line with recently published studies, which showed an increased prevalence of psychosis among patients with metabolic syndrome-related illnesses including diabetes.

  13. Suicide attempt, clinical correlates, and BDNF Val66Met polymorphism in chronic patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xia, Haisen; Zhang, Guangya; Du, Xiangdong; Zhang, Yingyang; Yin, Guangzhong; Dai, Jing; He, Man-Xi; Soares, Jair C; Li, Xiaosi; Zhang, Xiang Yang

    2018-02-01

    Recent evidence suggests the role of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the pathophysiology of suicidal behavior. Because schizophrenia patients usually have high suicide rates and numerous studies have suggested that BDNF may contribute to the psychopathology of schizophrenia, we hypothesized that the functional polymorphism of BDNF (Val66Met) was associated with suicide attempts in patients with schizophrenia in a Chinese Han population. This polymorphism was genotyped in 825 chronic schizophrenia patients with (n = 123) and without (n = 702) suicide attempts and 445 healthy controls without a history of suicide attempts using a case-control design. The schizophrenia symptoms were assessed by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. There were no significant differences in BDNF Val66Met genotype and allele distributions between the patients and healthy controls. However, we found the Val allele (p = .023) and the Val/Val genotypes (p = .058) to be associated with a history of suicide attempts. Moreover, some clinical characteristics, including age and cigarettes smoked each day, interacted with the BDNF gene variant and appeared to play an important role in suicide attempts among schizophrenia patients. The BDNF Val66Met polymorphism itself and its interaction with some clinical variables may influence suicide attempts among schizophrenia patients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

  14. Cardiovascular Pharmacogenomics and Cognitive Function in Patients with Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ward, Kristen M; Kraal, A Zarina; Flowers, Stephanie A; Ellingrod, Vicki L

    2017-09-01

    The authors sought to examine the impact of multiple risk alleles for cognitive dysfunction and cardiovascular disease risk on cognitive function and to determine if these relationships varied by cognitive reserve (CR) or concomitant medication use in patients with schizophrenia. They conducted a cross-sectional study in ambulatory mental health centers. A total of 122 adults with a schizophrenia spectrum diagnosis who were maintained on a stable antipsychotic regimen for at least 6 months before study enrollment were included. Patients were divided into three CR groups based on years of formal education: no high school completion or equivalent (low-education group [18 patients]), completion of high school or equivalent (moderate-education group [36 patients], or any degree of post-high school education (high-education group [68 patients]). The following pharmacogenomic variants were genotyped for each patient: AGT M268T (rs699), ACE insertion/deletion (or ACE I/D, rs1799752), and APOE ε2, ε3, and ε4 (rs429358 and rs7412). Risk allele carrier status (identified per gene as AGT M268 T carriers, ACE D carriers, and APOE ε4 carriers) was not significantly different among CR groups. The Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS) scale was used to assess cognitive function. The mean ± SD patient age was 43.9 ± 11.6 years. Cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension and hyperlipidemia diagnoses, and use of antihypertensive and lipid-lowering agents, did not significantly differ among CR groups. Mixed modeling revealed that risk allele carrier status was significantly associated with lower verbal memory scores for ACE D and APOE ε4 carriers, but AGT T carrier status was significantly associated with higher verbal memory scores (p=0.0188, p=0.0055, and p=0.0058, respectively). These results were only significant in the low-education group. In addition, medication-gene interactions were not significant predictors of BACS scores. ACE D and APOE ε4

  15. Glucoregulation in normal weight schizophrenia patients treated by first generation antipsychotics

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    Marić Nađa

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available Introduction Schizophrenia patients are at greater risk of obesity, diabetes mellitus (DM, lipid abnormalities and cardiovascular disorders. The metabolic complications in patients are associated with several risk factors: family history of DM, lifestyle, smoking, dietary habits, physical inactivity, but also with antipsychotic medication. In literature, most publications have been focused on the effects of the second generation antipsychotics (SGA on glucose metabolism. However, less attention has been paid to abnormality in glucoregulation, patients with schizophrenia treated with the first generation antipsychotics (FGA. Objective The present study evaluated glucose metabolism in normal weight schizophrenia patients treated with FGA. METHOD The cross-sectional study included 18 patients (FGA treated and 20 healthy controls with neither group differences in sex distribution, age, nor in BMI. Inclusion criteria were normal BMI (20-25 kg/m2. The glucose levels, insulin levels and growth hormone levels during oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT were measured. Results Fasting glucose and insulin levels did not differ significantly between groups. Groups differed in OGTT glucose and insulin peak and area under curve (AUC, level of significance p<0.05 (patients vs. controls: glucose peak 8.3±0.4 vs.6.9±0.5 mmol/l, glucose AUC 758±28 vs. 640±36 mU/l/120 min; insulin peak in patients 92.7±15.6 mU/l; insulin AUC 6060±1016 mU/l/120 min, insulin peak in controls 47.9±6.5 mU/l; insulin AUC 2597±256 mU/l/120 min. Conclusion Patients with schizophrenia, although with normal body mass index, are at high risk of abnormal glucose regulation. Not only SGA increase the risk of impaired glucoregulation and metabolic syndrome, but this may also be due to FGA or schizophrenia per se. .

  16. Differentiation of schizophrenia patients from healthy subjects by mismatch negativity and neuropsychological tests.

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    Yi-Ting Lin

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Schizophrenia is a heterogeneous disorder with diverse presentations. The current and the proposed DSM-V diagnostic system remains phenomenologically based, despite the fact that several neurobiological and neuropsychological markers have been identified. A multivariate approach has better diagnostic utility than a single marker method. In this study, the mismatch negativity (MMN deficit of schizophrenia was first replicated in a Han Chinese population, and then the MMN was combined with several neuropsychological measurements to differentiate schizophrenia patients from healthy subjects. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: 120 schizophrenia patients and 76 healthy controls were recruited. Each subject received examinations for duration MMN, Continuous Performance Test, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Third Edition (WAIS-III. The MMN was compared between cases and controls, and important covariates were investigated. Schizophrenia patients had significantly reduced MMN amplitudes, and MMN decreased with increasing age in both patient and control groups. None of the neuropsychological indices correlated with MMN. Predictive multivariate logistic regression models using the MMN and neuropsychological measurements as predictors were developed. Four predictors, including MMN at electrode FCz and three scores from the WAIS-III (Arithmetic, Block Design, and Performance IQ were retained in the final predictive model. The model performed well in differentiating patients from healthy subjects (percentage of concordant pairs: 90.5%. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: MMN deficits were found in Han Chinese schizophrenia patients. The multivariate approach combining biomarkers from different modalities such as electrophysiology and neuropsychology had a better diagnostic utility.

  17. Strategies to improve medication adherence in patients with schizophrenia: the role of support services

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    El-Mallakh P

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Peggy El-Mallakh, Jan FindlayCollege of Nursing, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USAAbstract: The purpose of this review is to describe research over the past 10 years on the role of support services in promoting medication adherence in mental health consumers diagnosed with schizophrenia. A literature search was conducted using the terms “medication adherence,” “schizophrenia,” and “support services,” using Medline, PubMed, and CINAHL. Reference lists from published studies were also reviewed to identify additional research studies. Twenty-two articles focused on support-service intervention studies, and these were selected for review. Available support-service interventions include adherence therapy, electronic reminders via text messages and telephones, cognitive–behavioral and motivational strategies, and financial incentives. Support-service intervention strategies need to be tailored to the specific needs of mental health consumers with schizophrenia. More research is needed to investigate effective support services to enhance long-term adherence and adherence to medications for medical illnesses in this population.Keywords: schizophrenia, medication adherence, support services, therapy, interventions

  18. Approach and withdrawal motivation in schizophrenia: an examination of frontal brain asymmetric activity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Horan, William P; Wynn, Jonathan K; Mathis, Ian; Miller, Gregory A; Green, Michael F

    2014-01-01

    Although motivational disturbances are common in schizophrenia, their neurophysiological and psychological basis is poorly understood. This electroencephalography (EEG) study examined the well-established motivational direction model of asymmetric frontal brain activity in schizophrenia. According to this model, relative left frontal activity in the resting EEG reflects enhanced approach motivation tendencies, whereas relative right frontal activity reflects enhanced withdrawal motivation tendencies. Twenty-five schizophrenia outpatients and 25 healthy controls completed resting EEG assessments of frontal asymmetry in the alpha frequency band (8-12 Hz), as well as a self-report measure of behavioral activation and inhibition system (BIS/BAS) sensitivity. Patients showed an atypical pattern of differences from controls. On the EEG measure patients failed to show the left lateralized activity that was present in controls, suggesting diminished approach motivation. On the self-report measure, patients reported higher BIS sensitivity than controls, which is typically interpreted as heightened withdrawal motivation. EEG asymmetry scores did not significantly correlate with BIS/BAS scores or with clinical symptom ratings among patients. The overall pattern suggests a motivational disturbance in schizophrenia characterized by elements of both diminished approach and elevated withdrawal tendencies.

  19. Decreased resting-state interhemispheric functional connectivity in unaffected siblings of schizophrenia patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guo, Wenbin; Jiang, Jiajing; Xiao, Changqing; Zhang, Zhikun; Zhang, Jian; Yu, Liuyu; Liu, Jianrong; Liu, Guiying

    2014-01-01

    Neuroimaging studies in unaffected siblings of schizophrenia patients can provide clues to the pathophysiology for the development of schizophrenia. However, little is known about the alterations of the interhemispheric resting-state functional connectivity (FC) in siblings, although the dysconnectivity hypothesis is prevailing in schizophrenia for years. In the present study, we used a newly validated voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) method to identify whether aberrant interhemispheric FC was present in unaffected siblings at increased risk of developing schizophrenia at rest. Forty-six unaffected siblings of schizophrenia patients and 50 age-, sex-, and education-matched healthy controls underwent a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Automated VMHC was used to analyze the data. The sibling group had lower VMHC than the control group in the angular gyrus (AG) and the lingual gyrus/cerebellum lobule VI. No region exhibited higher VMHC in the sibling group than in the control group. There was no significant sex difference of the VMHC values between male siblings and female siblings or between male controls and female controls, although evidence has been accumulated that size and shape of the corpus callosum, and functional homotopy differ between men and women. Our results first suggest that interhemispheric resting-state FC of VMHC is disrupted in unaffected siblings of schizophrenia patients, and add a new clue of abnormal interhemispheric resting-state FC to the pathophysiology for the development of schizophrenia. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  20. Theory of Mind differences in older patients with early-onset and late-onset paranoid schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smeets-Janssen, M M J; Meesters, P D; Comijs, H C; Eikelenboom, P; Smit, J H; de Haan, L; Beekman, A T F; Stek, M L

    2013-11-01

    Theory of Mind (ToM) is considered an essential element of social cognition. In younger schizophrenia patients, ToM impairments have extensively been demonstrated. It is not clear whether similar impairments can be found in older schizophrenia patients and if these impairments differ between older patients with early-onset and late-onset schizophrenia. Theory of Mind abilities were assessed using the Hinting Task in 15 older patients (age 60 years and older) with early-onset paranoid schizophrenia, 15 older patients with late-onset paranoid schizophrenia and 30 healthy controls. ANCOVA was performed to test differences between groups. Analyses were adjusted for level of education. Effect sizes, partial eta squared (ε(2) ), were computed as an indication of the clinical relevance of the findings. Patients with early-onset schizophrenia scored significantly lower on the Hinting Task (mean 16.1; SD 4.3) compared with patients with late-onset schizophrenia (mean 18.6; SD 1.5) and with healthy controls (mean 19.0; SD 1.4). The effect size of this difference was large (ε(2)  = 0.2). These results suggest that ToM functioning may be a protective factor modulating the age at onset of psychosis. Further studies into the relationship between social cognition and onset age of psychosis are warranted. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  1. Change in Prolactin Levels in Pediatric Patients Given Antipsychotics for Schizophrenia and Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: A Network Meta-Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chakrapani Balijepalli

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Background. Treatment of schizophrenia with first- and second-generation antipsychotics has been associated with elevated prolactin levels, which may increase the risk for prolactin-related adverse events. Methods. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs included in a recent systematic review were considered for this analysis. A Bayesian network meta-analysis was used to compare changes in prolactin levels in pediatric patients diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizophrenia spectrum disorders treated with second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs. Results. Five RCTs, including 989 patients combined, have evaluated the changes in prolactin for pediatric patients after 6 weeks of treatment with risperidone, quetiapine, aripiprazole, olanzapine, and paliperidone. In the overall study population, treatment with risperidone was associated with the highest increase in mean prolactin levels compared to other SGAs. Patients treated with risperidone 4–6 mg/day were found to experience the greatest increases (55.06 ng/ml [95% CrI: 40.53–69.58] in prolactin levels, followed by risperidone 1–3 mg/day, paliperidone 3–6 mg/day, and paliperidone 6–12 mg/day. Conclusions. This study shows that there are differences in SGAs ability to cause hyperprolactinemia. Further, there is clear evidence of safety concerns with risperidone and paliperidone treatment in adolescent schizophrenia patients. Registration. PROSPERO CRD42014009506.

  2. Intrinsic motivation and metacognition as predictors of learning potential in patients with remitted schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tas, Cumhur; Brown, Elliot C; Esen-Danaci, Aysen; Lysaker, Paul H; Brüne, Martin

    2012-08-01

    Previous research has suggested that neurocognitive functioning predicts best the potential of patients with schizophrenia to acquire newly learned material, which, in turn may impact patients' social functioning. Recent studies have also shown that intrinsic motivation and metacognitive abilities play a decisive role in social functioning in schizophrenia. Accordingly, the present study sought to examine the relationship between intelligence, motivation, metacognition, and learning during a cognitive remediation experimental training. We hypothesized that metacognition and intrinsic motivation would have a strong relationship and independently predict learning potential. Thirty-two patients with schizophrenia who fulfilled the criteria of functional remission were recruited. In a pre-training-post experimental design, patients' learning potential was assessed using previously defined cognitive remediation training for WCST. Intrinsic motivation was examined using Intrinsic Motivation Inventory for schizophrenia; mastery, a domain of metacognition, was measured using the Metacognitive Assessment Scale. Metacognition significantly correlated with subdomains of intrinsic motivation. Patients with higher intrinsic motivation and preserved metacognition improved more in the learning paradigm compared to poorly motivated patients and patients with reduced metacognitive abilities. In particular, "mastery" was determined as an independent predictor of learning potential. Motivation and metacognition are important predictors of learning in schizophrenia. Psychological interventions in schizophrenia may therefore consider incorporating techniques to stimulate metacognitive and motivational abilities as well as developing individualized training programs. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  3. The impact of insight on social functioning in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Erol, Almila; Delibas, Hakan; Bora, Ozlem; Mete, Levent

    2015-06-01

    It is still unclear whether insight has a direct association with social functioning in schizophrenia, independent of its association with symptoms. This study aimed to investigate the relationship of insight and its dimensions with social functioning in schizophrenia. A total of 170 outpatients with schizophrenia were included in this study. All patients were evaluated with the Scale to Assess Unawareness of Mental Disorder (SUMD), Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and Personal and Social Performance Scale (PSP). Patients with impaired insight and patients with unimpaired insight were compared for PSP score through independent samples t test. Pearson's correlation analysis was used to determine the correlations between study variables. Multiple stepwise linear regression analysis was used in order to determine the variables that predict social performance. The PSP score of patients with impaired insight was significantly lower than that of patients with unimpaired insight. There were significant correlations between insight dimensions and PSP score. PANSS negative scale score, awareness of achieved effects of medication and awareness of anhedonia/asociality were significant predictors of social performance. Insight has a significant impact on social functioning in schizophrenia, and some, but not all, insight dimensions have direct impact on social performance, independent of their association with symptoms. © The Author(s) 2014.

  4. Alterations in theory of mind in patients with schizophrenia and non-psychotic relatives.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Janssen, I; Krabbendam, L; Jolles, J; van Os, Jim

    2003-08-01

    It has been proposed that alterations in theory of mind underlie specific symptoms of psychosis. The present study examined whether alterations in theory of mind reflect a trait that can be detected in non-psychotic relatives of patients with schizophrenia. Participants were 43 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, 41 first-degree non-psychotic relatives and 43 controls from the general population. Theory of mind was assessed using a hinting task and a false-belief task. There was a significant association between schizophrenia risk and failure on the hinting task (OR linear trend = 2.01, 95% CI: 1.22-3.31), with relatives having intermediate values between patients and controls. Adjustment for IQ and neuropsychological factors reduced the association by small amounts. The association between schizophrenia risk and failure on the false-belief tasks was not significant. Changes in theory of mind are associated with schizophrenia liability. General cognitive ability and neuropsychological measures seem to mediate only part of this association.

  5. Cognitive deficit in patients with paranoid schizophrenia: Its clinical and laboratory correlates.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dorofeikova, Mariia; Neznanov, Nikolay; Petrova, Nataliia

    2018-04-01

    The aim of this study was to search for correlates of cognitive impairment in patients with paranoid schizophrenia among clinical, demographic, anamnestic and biochemical markers (NSE, S100B protein, BDNF, hs-CRP). Patients with paranoid schizophrenia (n=125) were examined using the Brief Assessment of Cognitive Function in Schizophrenia, the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure task, and a number of clinical scales including the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. The majority of patients demonstrated cognitive impairment. The type of impairment was highly heterogeneous and individual. Relationships were found between the degree of executive functioning and family history of mental illness; working memory and age of onset of schizophrenia; and visual memory and psychopathological symptomatology. Negative and affective symptoms were not significantly associated with cognitive functioning. Treatment with first generation antipsychotics was associated with a more frequent impairment of motor skills, and concomitant anticholinergic drugs, with reduced accuracy. Use of second-generation antipsychotics only was associated with better accuracy, working memory and speech fluency. Among the patients, 21.4% had signs of a systemic inflammatory response, indicating a possible role of inflammatory response in the development of schizophrenia. CRP, S100B and NSE levels reflected features of the course of illness and therapeutic response. Patients with lower concentrations of BDNF were characterized by lower processing speeds. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  6. Emotion regulation strategies in Patients with schizophrenia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van der Meer, Lisette; van't Wout, Mascha; Aleman, Andre

    2009-01-01

    Schizophrenia patients might experience difficulties in applying two widely used emotion regulation strategies, reappraisal and suppression. We investigated the relationships among emotion regulation strategies, alexithymia (i.e. inability to identify and verbalize feelings) and the role of

  7. Reasons for Schizophrenia Patients Remaining out of Treatment: Results from a Prospective Study in a Rural South Indian Community.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kumar, Channaveerachari Naveen; Thirthalli, Jagadisha; Suresha, Kudumallige Krishnappa; Venkatesh, Basappa K; Kishorekumar, Kengeri V; Arunachala, Udupi; Gangadhar, Bangalore N

    2016-01-01

    A few studies have examined the factors associated with schizophrenia patients remaining untreated in India. We identified 184 schizophrenia patients in a rural community, offered the treatment with antipsychotics and followed them up in their Primary Health Centers for 1-year. Twenty-nine (15.8%) patients remained untreated at both the baseline and 1-year follow-up despite our best attempts to keep them under the treatment umbrella. They were interviewed in detail regarding the reasons for remaining untreated. This group was compared with another group of patients (n = 69) who had stopped the treatment at baseline but were successfully brought under the treatment umbrella throughout the 1-year follow-up period. The reasons for remaining untreated were (n; %): (a) Unsatisfactory improvement with previous treatment attempts (19; 65.5%), (b) poor bond between the patients and the families (6; 20.7%), (c) active symptoms not allowing any treatment efforts from the family members (6; 20.7%), (d) magico-religious beliefs about the illness and its treatment (4; 13.8%), (e) poor social support (3; 10.3%), (f) adverse effects of the medications (2; 6.9%), and (g) perception of recovery and cure (1; 3.4%). For many patients, a constellation of these reasons was responsible for them remaining untreated. In contrast, the common reasons for those who restarted medications to have stopped the treatment at some time were the lack of awareness, the need to continue medications (47; 68.1%), and the financial constraints (28; 40.6%). The predominant reason for schizophrenia patients not remaining on the treatment in this rural community was the families' lack of faith in antipsychotic treatment. Provision of comprehensive treatment package including medical, psychosocial and rehabilitative services, and sensitizing the community about benefits of the treatment may help in ensuring that all patients with psychosis receive the best care.

  8. Occipital Lobe Gray Matter Volume in Male Patients with Chronic Schizophrenia: A Quantitative MRI Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Onitsuka, Toshiaki; McCarley, Robert W.; Kuroki, Noriomi; Dickey, Chandlee C.; Kubicki, Marek; Demeo, Susan S.; Frumin, Melissa; Kikinis, Ron; Jolesz, Ferenc A.; Shenton, Martha E.

    2008-01-01

    Schizophrenia is characterized by deficits in cognition as well as visual perception. There have, however, been few magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies of the occipital lobe as an anatomically defined region of interest in schizophrenia. To examine whether or not patients with chronic schizophrenia show occipital lobe volume abnormalities, we measured gray matter volumes for both the primary visual area (PVA) and the visual association areas (VAA) using MRI based neuroanatomical landmarks and three-dimensional information. PVA and VAA gray matter volumes were measured using high-spatial resolution MRI in 25 male patients diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia and in 28 male normal controls. Chronic schizophrenia patients showed reduced bilateral VAA gray matter volume (11%), compared with normal controls, whereas patients showed no group difference in PVA gray matter volume. These results suggest that reduced bilateral VAA may be a neurobiological substrate of some of the deficits observed in early visual processing in schizophrenia. PMID:17350226

  9. Sensory and cross-network contributions to response inhibition in patients with schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Matthew J. Hoptman

    Full Text Available Patients with schizophrenia show response inhibition deficits equal to or greater than those seen in impulse-control disorders, and these deficits contribute to poor outcome. However, little is known about the circuit abnormalities underlying this impairment. To address this, we examined stop signal task performance in 21 patients with schizophrenia and 21 healthy controls using event related potential (ERP and resting state functional connectivity. Patients showed prolonged stop signal reaction time (SSRT and reduced N1, N2, and P3 amplitudes compared to controls. Across groups, P3 amplitudes were maximal after SSRT (i.e., after the time associated with the decision to stop occurred, suggesting that this component indexed response monitoring. Multiple regression analyses showed that longer SSRTs were independently related to 1 patient status, 2 reduced N1 amplitude on successful stop trials and 3 reduced anticorrelated resting state functional connectivity between visual and frontoparietal cortical networks. This study used a combined multimodal imaging approach to better understand the network abnormalities that underlie response inhibition in schizophrenia. It is the first of its kind to specifically assess the brain's resting state functional architecture in combination with behavioral and ERP methods to investigate response inhibition in schizophrenia. Keywords: EEG, Stop signal task, Impulsivity, Schizophrenia, Resting state functional connectivity

  10. Omega-3 fatty acids related to cognitive impairment in patients with schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kazumi Satogami

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Cognitive impairment is strongly associated with functional outcome in patients with schizophrenia but its pathophysiology remains largely unclear. Involvement of omega-3 fatty acids in the cognitive function of healthy individuals and patients with neuropsychiatric disease has received increasing attention. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between omega-3 fatty acids with cognitive function, social function, and psychiatric symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. The subjects included 30 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Psychiatric symptoms, cognitive function, and social function were assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS, and the Social Functioning Scale (SFS, respectively. Blood serum omega-3 fatty acids were assessed using gas chromatography. The BACS composite score was significantly correlated with blood eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA levels. In addition, a daily dose of antipsychotic medication was negatively and significantly correlated with the blood DHA level and with the BACS composite score. Step-wise multiple regression analyses demonstrated that the SFS score was significantly associated with the BACS composite score. Our results indicate that reduced blood omega-3 fatty acids are associated with cognitive impairment, which then impacts social functioning outcomes in schizophrenia.

  11. [Augmented antipsychotic therapy with pantogam active in patients with schizophrenia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Medvedev, V E; Frolova, V I; Gushanskaya, E V; Ter-Israelyan, A U

    2015-01-01

    to study the efficacy of the GABA-ergic drug pantogam active (D-, L-gopantenic acid) in patients with schizophrenia treated with typical neuroleptics and to assess the rate of treatment response and tolerability of the drug. A sample consisted of 70 patients with schizophrenia stratified into main (n=35) and control (n=35) groups. All patients received one of typical antipsychotics (haloperidol, zuclopenthixol, promazine or perphenazine). Patients of the main group received in addition pantogam active in dose of 1200-1800 mg daily. The maximum allowed dose of 1800 mg daily was used in 62.9% of the patients. The long-term combined therapy with the addition of D-, L-gopantenic acid (pantogam activ) allowed to achieve clinical improvement earlier (on 8th week in the main group versus 16th week in the control group). The frequency and severity of secondary negative symptoms associated with antipsychotic therapy were decreased as well. The high efficacy and tolerability of the combined therapy allow to improve quality of life in patients with schizophrenia and their compliance to treatment as well as to reduce costs of medical care.

  12. Dietary patterns are associated with obesity in Japanese patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sugawara, Norio; Yasui-Furukori, Norio; Sato, Yasushi; Saito, Manabu; Furukori, Hanako; Nakagami, Taku; Ishioka, Masamichi; Kaneko, Sunao

    2014-06-20

    Obesity among patients with schizophrenia is a growing concern because being overweight is widely regarded as a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and premature death. Dietary patterns have been suggested as one modifiable factor that may play a role in development of obesity. The objective of this study was to examine the association between dietary patterns and obesity among patients with schizophrenia in Japan. We recruited patients (n = 338) aged 44.0 ± 13.2 (mean ± SD) years with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia who were admitted to four psychiatric hospitals using a cross-sectional design. Diet was assessed with a validated brief-type self-administered diet history questionnaire (BDHQ). Dietary patterns from 52 predefined food groups were extracted by principal component analysis. A total of 61 subjects (18.0%) were classified as obese. Three dietary patterns were identified: the healthy dietary pattern, the processed food dietary pattern, and the alcohol and accompanying dietary patterns. After adjusting for age and gender, patients within the high tertile of each healthy dietary pattern (OR = 0.29, 95% CI = 0.13 to 0.62) and processed food dietary pattern (OR = 0.44, 95% CI = 0.22 to 0.89) had a significantly lower risk for obesity compared with low tertile of dietary pattern. Our findings suggest that dietary patterns, including higher intake of protein, fat, n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, and vitamins, may be related to a decreased prevalence of obesity within patients with schizophrenia. Future longitudinal research exploring dietary patterns and obesity among patients with schizophrenia is warranted.

  13. Semantic Memory Organization in Japanese Patients With Schizophrenia Examined With Category Fluency

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chika Sumiyoshi

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available BackgroundDisorganization of semantic memory in patients with schizophrenia has been studied by referring to their category fluency performance. Recently, data-mining techniques such as singular value decomposition (SVD analysis have been reported to be effective in elucidating the latent semantic memory structure in patients with schizophrenia. The aim of this study is to investigate semantic memory organization in patients with schizophrenia using a novel method based on data-mining approach.MethodCategory fluency data were collected from 181 patients with schizophrenia and 335 healthy controls at the Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University. The 20 most frequently reported animals were chosen for SVD analysis. In the two-dimensional (2D solution, item vectors (i.e., animal names were plotted in the 2D space of each group. In the six-dimensional (6D solution, inter-item similarities (i.e., cosines were calculated among items. Cosine charts were also created for the six most frequent items to show the similarities to other animal items.ResultsIn the 2D spatial representation, the six most frequent items were grouped in the same clusters (i.e., dog, cat as pet cluster, lion, tiger as wild/carnivorous cluster, and elephant, giraffe as wild/herbivorous cluster for patients and healthy adults. As for 6D spatial cosines, the correlations (Pearson’s r between 17 items commonly generated in the two groups were moderately high. However, cosine charts created for the three pairs from the six most frequent animals (dog–cat, lion–tiger, elephant–giraffe showed that pair-wise similarities between other animals were less salient in patients with schizophrenia.DiscussionSemantic memory organization in patients with schizophrenia, revealed by SVD analysis, did not appear to be seriously impaired in the 2D space representation, maintaining a clustering structure similar to that in healthy controls for common animals. However, the coherence of those

  14. Neurocognitive functioning in parents of schizophrenia patients: Attentional and executive performance vary with genetic loading.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schulze-Rauschenbach, Svenja; Lennertz, Leonhard; Ruhrmann, Stephan; Petrovsky, Nadine; Ettinger, Ulrich; Pukrop, Ralf; Dreher, Jan; Klosterkötter, Joachim; Maier, Wolfgang; Wagner, Michael

    2015-12-30

    Neuropsychological deficits are candidate endophenotypes of schizophrenia which can assist to explain the neurocognitive impact of genetic risk variants. The identification of endophenotypes is often based on the familiality of these phenotypes. Several studies demonstrate neuropsychological deficits in unaffected biological relatives of schizophrenia patients without differentiating between genetic and non-genetic factors underlying these deficits. We assessed N=129 unaffected biological parents of schizophrenia patients, N=28 schizophrenia patients (paranoid subtype), and N=143 controls without a family history of schizophrenia with an extensive neuropsychological test battery. Direct comparison of N=22 parents with an ancestral history of schizophrenia (more likely carriers, MLC) and N=17 of their spouses without such a history (less likely carriers, LLC) allowed the separation of genetic and non-genetic aspects in cognition. Overall, parents showed significant deficits in neuropsychological tasks from all cognitive domains with medium effect sizes. Direct comparisons of MLC- and LLC-parents showed that attentional and executive tasks were most strongly affected by genetic loading. To conclude, unaffected parents of schizophrenia patients showed modest yet significant impairments in attention, memory, and executive functioning. In particular, attentional and executive impairments varied most strongly with genetic loading for schizophrenia, prioritising these dysfunctions for genotype-endophenotype analyses. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. The prevalence, risk factors and clinical correlates of obesity in Chinese patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Qiongzhen; Du, Xiangdong; Zhang, Yingyang; Yin, Guangzhong; Zhang, Guangya; Walss-Bass, Consuelo; Quevedo, João; Soares, Jair C; Xia, Haishen; Li, Xiaosi; Zheng, Yingjun; Ning, Yuping; Zhang, Xiang Yang

    2017-05-01

    Obesity is a common comorbidity in schizophrenia. Few studies have addressed obesity in Chinese schizophrenia patients. The aims of this current study were to evaluate the prevalence, risk factors and clinical correlates of obesity in Chinese patients with schizophrenia. A total of 206 patients were recruited from a hospital in Beijing. Their clinical and anthropometric data together with plasma glucose and lipid parameters were collected. Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) was rated for all patients. Overall, 43 (20.9%) patients were obese and 67 (32.5%) were overweight. The obese patients had significantly higher glucose levels, triglyceride levels than non-obese patients. Females and patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus had increased risk for obesity. Correlation analysis showed that BMI was associated with sex, education levels, negative symptoms, total PANSS score, triglyceride levels and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Further stepwise regression analysis showed that sex, type 2 diabetes, education level, triglyceride and amount of smoking/day were significant predictors for obesity. Our study showed that the prevalence of obesity in Chinese patients with schizophrenia is higher than that in the general population. Some demographic and clinical variables are risk factors for obesity in schizophrenia. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Toxoplasma Infection in Schizophrenia Patients: A Comparative Study with Control Group

    OpenAIRE

    Alipour, A; Shojaee, S; Mohebali, M; Tehranidoost, M; Abdi Masoleh, F; Keshavarz, H

    2011-01-01

    Background: Schizophrenia is a serious, chronic, and often debilitating neuropsychiatric disor­der. Its causes are still poorly understood. Besides genetic and non-genetic (environmental) fac­tors are thought to be important as the cause of the structural and functional deficits that character­ize schizophrenia. This study aimed to compare Toxoplasma gondii infection between schizo­phrenia patients and non-schizophrenia individuals as control group.Methods: A case-control study was designed i...

  17. The mere exposure effect in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marie, A; Gabrieli, J D; Vaidya, C; Brown, B; Pratto, F; Zajonc, R B; Shaw, R J

    2001-01-01

    The mere exposure effect refers to the development of an emotional preference for previously unfamiliar material because of frequent exposure to that material. This study compared schizophrenia subjects (n = 20) to normal controls (n = 21) to determine whether implicit memory, as demonstrated by the mere exposure effect, was intact. Patients with schizophrenia demonstrated a normal preference for both verbal and visual materials seen earlier relative to novel materials, despite impaired performance on a recognition task for explicit memory using similar materials. Previous studies of schizophrenia subjects have shown a dissociation between implicit and explicit memory on verbal tasks. We found a similar dissociation demonstrated by normal functioning on an implicit memory task and impaired functioning on an explicit memory task. Potential implications of these findings are discussed with regard to treatment and rehabilitation.

  18. Characteristics of motivation and their impacts on the functional outcomes in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tobe, Miki; Nemoto, Takahiro; Tsujino, Naohisa; Yamaguchi, Taiju; Katagiri, Naoyuki; Fujii, Chiyo; Mizuno, Masafumi

    2016-02-01

    Deficits of motivation have been considered to be a core feature of schizophrenia, and recent studies have begun to reveal the biological and psychological characteristics and mechanisms underlying the deficits in motivation in schizophrenia patients. The aims of the present study were to investigate the characteristics of motivation in schizophrenia patients using the General Causality Orientations Scale (GCOS), and the impacts of motivational orientations on the functional outcomes in schizophrenia patients. A total of 53 outpatients with schizophrenia and 38 healthy controls were recruited for this study. The GCOS was used to assess individual tendencies in respect of three different motivational orientations: the autonomy, controlled, and impersonal orientations, corresponding to intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and amotivation, respectively. The cognitive functioning, psychiatric symptoms, social functioning, and quality of life of the subjects were also assessed. The score for autonomy orientation was significantly lower in the patient group than that in the control group, while no significant differences were found between the two groups in respect of the scores for the other two orientations. The autonomy orientation was associated with various clinical variables, and regression analysis identified as one of the variables with the highest predictive accuracy for social functioning. Intrinsic motivation measured by the GCOS in schizophrenia patients was significantly lower than that in healthy controls. The deficits of intrinsic motivation were broadly associated with the clinical features and were a determinant of social functioning. Development of treatments for enhancing intrinsic motivation would be essential for functional recovery in schizophrenia patients. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. Preliminary Effectiveness and Sustainability of Group Aerobic Exercise Program in Patients with Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yoon, Sol; Ryu, Je-Kwang; Kim, Chan-Hyung; Chang, Jhin-Goo; Lee, Hwa-Bock; Kim, Do-Hoon; Roh, Daeyoung

    2016-09-01

    The objective of this study was to examine the feasibility and sustained effect of a group aerobic exercise program in patients with schizophrenia. Twenty-four schizophrenic patients participated in a group-based individually tailored 90-minute outdoor cycling session per week for 3 months with intervention to enhance motivation. Physical health was evaluated by anthropometric measures, cardiorespiratory (CR) fitness, and blood tests. Mental health was assessed on self-esteem, interpersonal relationship, quality of life, and global function. Attrition rate for the exercise program was 8.3%. Exercise program significantly increased participant's self-esteem, positive relationship, global function, and quality of life. CR fitness significantly improved after 3 months. At the 9-month follow-up, 6 months after program completion, only in interpersonal relationship change the improved effects were maintained. These findings support the feasibility of group aerobic exercise program with high level of adherence and its long-term benefits in positive relationship change.

  20. Self-ordered pointing and visual conditional associative learning tasks in drug-free schizophrenia spectrum disorder patients

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Galluzzo Alessandro

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background There is evidence of a link between schizophrenia and a deficit of working memory, but this has been derived from tasks not specifically developed to probe working memory per se. Our aim was to investigate whether working memory deficits may be detected across different paradigms using the self-ordered pointing task (SOPT and the visual conditional associative learning task (VCALT in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders and healthy controls. The current literature suggests deficits in schizophrenia spectrum disorder patients versus healthy controls but these studies frequently involved small samples, broad diagnostic criteria, inclusion of patients on antipsychotic medications, and were not controlled for symptom domains, severity of the disorder, etc. To overcome some of these limitations, we investigated the self-monitoring and conditional associative learning abilities of a numerically representative sample of healthy controls and a group of non-deteriorated, drug-free patients hospitalized for a schizophrenia spectrum disorder with florid, mainly positive psychotic symptoms. Methods Eighty-five patients with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (DSM-IV-TR diagnosis of schizophrenia (n = 71 or schizophreniform disorder (n = 14 and 80 healthy controls entered the study. The clinical picture was dominated by positive symptoms. The healthy control group had a negative personal and family history of schizophrenia or mood disorder and satisfied all the inclusion and exclusion criteria other than variables related to schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Results Compared to controls, patients had worse performances on SOPT, VCALT and higher SOPT/VCALT ratios, not affected by demographic or clinical variables. ROC curves showed that SOPT, VCALT, and SOPT/VCALT ratio had good accuracy in discriminating patients from controls. The SOPT and VCALT scores were inter-correlated in controls but not in patients. Conclusion The

  1. Risk for cancer in a cohort of patients hospitalized for schizophrenia in Denmark, 1969-1993

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dalton, Susanne Oksbjerg; Mellemkjær, Lene; Thomassen, L.

    2005-01-01

    with national incidence rates, adjusted for sex, age and calendar time. The risk for cancer was increased for both men and women during the first year of follow-up. When the first year of follow-up was excluded, the risk for all tobacco-associated cancers and for prostate and rectal cancers was reduced for male...... patients with schizophrenia. The standardized incidence ratio (SIR) of lung cancer was marginally reduced (SIR, 0.86; 95% CI: 0.65, 1.02) for male patients with schizophrenia; this was due, however, to a reduction in risk for older patients. An increased risk for breast cancer found for female patients...... with schizophrenia (SIR, 1.20; 95% CI: 1.05, 1.38) should be interpreted with caution, given the high proportion of nulliparous women with schizophrenia in Denmark. The data might support reduced risks for prostate and rectal cancer among male patients with schizophrenia, whereas a changing smoking pattern might...

  2. [Metabolic Control, Evaluation and Follow-up Interventions in Patients With Schizophrenia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oviedo, Gabriel Fernando; Gómez Restrepo, Carlos; Bohórquez Peñaranda, Adriana; García Valencia, Jenny; Jaramillo, Luis Eduardo; Tamayo, Nathalie; Arenas, María Luisa; Vélez Fernández, Carolina

    2015-01-01

    To determine the laboratory tests, related to metabolic risk that should be practiced to adult patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. To assist the clinician decision-making process about complementary diagnostic evaluation strategies in adult diagnosed with schizophrenia. A clinical practice guideline was elaborated under the parameters of the Methodological Guide of the Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social to identify, synthesize and evaluate the evidence and make recommendations about the treatment and follow-up of adult patients with schizophrenia. The evidence of NICE guide 82 was adopted and updated. The evidence was presented to the Guideline Developing Group and recommendations, employing the GRADE system, were produced. The risk of overall mortality in schizophrenia is higher than in the general population excluding suicide. Results related with mortality associated to antipsychotics showed contradictory results. Metabolic outcomes showed a higher incidence and association with schizophrenia and treatment with antipsychotics (AP). The diagnosis of dyslipidemia in men with schizophrenia appears to be lower in comparison with the general population. However, changes in weight, blood sugar levels, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides are influenced by the use of antipsychotics in general there is a higher risk of developing diabetes mellitus in adults with schizophrenia. Based on the evidence found a plan was formulated for the evaluation of physiological and paraclinical variables during and before the management with AP in adult diagnosed with schizophrenia. The overall quality of evidence is low considering that most of the reports come from observational studies that have risk of bias and some designs have methodological limitations. Copyright © 2014 Asociación Colombiana de Psiquiatría. Publicado por Elsevier España. All rights reserved.

  3. Subjective quality of life and suicidal behavior among Taiwanese schizophrenia patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kao, Yu-Chen; Liu, Yia-Ping; Cheng, Tsung-Hsing; Chou, Ming-Kuen

    2012-04-01

    Research of suicidal behavior in individuals with schizophrenia has often suggested that clinical characteristics and symptoms likely influence a patient's suicidal risk. However, there is a lack of research describing the link between patients' subjective quality of life (SQOL) and suicidal behavior in non-Western countries. Therefore, the current study attempts to explore how schizophrenia patients' SQOL and their suicidal behavior are related in a Taiwanese sample. In this study, 102 schizophrenia outpatients were investigated using the Taiwanese World Health Organization Quality of Life Schedule-Brief Version (WHO-QOL-BREF-TW), several Beck-Related symptom rating scales, and the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) for psychopathology. These patients were also evaluated for suicidal risk using the critical items of the Scale for Suicide Ideation (SSI) and lifetime suicide attempts. Statistical analyses, including independent sample t tests, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and logistic stepwise regression models were completed. Compared with the non-suicidal group, suicidal patients had significantly lower scores in SQOL domains. The differences in social domain remained significant after adjusting for depressive symptoms. In multiple logistic regression analyses, level of depressive and psychotic symptoms increased and poor social and psychological SQOL were significant contributors to suicidal behavior. Having removed depressive symptoms from the model, only dissatisfaction with social SQOL was associated with heightened suicidal risk. Schizophrenia is associated with a high suicidal risk, of which depressive and psychotic symptoms are the major correlates. Again, the present study confirms and extends previous research showing that dissatisfied SQOL, particularly dissatisfaction with social relationships, should be considered in the assessment of suicidal risk in outpatients with schizophrenia, even when accounting other possible confounding factor

  4. Me, myself and I: temporal dysfunctions during self-evaluation in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pauly, Katharina D; Kircher, Tilo T J; Schneider, Frank; Habel, Ute

    2014-11-01

    Self-concept is deeply affected in schizophrenia. Positive symptoms in particular are related to disturbed self/other distinctions. The neural networks underlying self-evaluation in schizophrenia have barely been investigated. The study reported here involved 13 patients with schizophrenia and 13 matched controls. During functional MRI, participants decided in three conditions whether the presented positive and negative personality traits characterized themselves, an intimate person, or included a certain letter. Based on the responses, each experimental condition was designed using a flexible factorial model. Controls and patients showed a similar behavioral pattern during self-evaluation, with group comparison revealing decreased activation in patients in the left inferior temporal gyrus and both temporal poles during self-ascription of traits, and in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex during evaluation of an intimate person. In patients, positive symptoms correlated positively with brain activation in the left parahippocampus during trait self-ascription. Hence, while evaluating themselves, schizophrenia patients revealed decreased activation in areas related to self-awareness overlapping with networks involved in theory of mind, empathy and social knowledge. Moreover, patients' brain activation during self-reflection was affected by the current positive symptomatology. The close interaction between self and other highlights the clinical and social relevance of self-processing deficits in schizophrenia. © The Author (2013). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  5. Performance on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III in Japanese patients with schizophrenia.

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    Fujino, Haruo; Sumiyoshi, Chika; Sumiyoshi, Tomiki; Yasuda, Yuka; Yamamori, Hidenaga; Ohi, Kazutaka; Fujimoto, Michiko; Umeda-Yano, Satomi; Higuchi, Arisa; Hibi, Yumiko; Matsuura, Yukako; Hashimoto, Ryota; Takeda, Masatoshi; Imura, Osamu

    2014-07-01

    Patients with schizophrenia have been reported to perform worse than non-schizophrenic populations on neuropsychological tests, which may be affected by cultural factors. The aim of this study was to examine the performance of a sizable number of patients with schizophrenia on the Japanese version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (WAIS-III) compared with healthy controls. Performance on the WAIS-III was evaluated in 157 Japanese patients with schizophrenia and in 264 healthy control subjects. All IQ scores and four indices from the WAIS-III were impaired for patients with schizophrenia compared with healthy controls. Processing Speed was markedly disturbed, approximately 2 SD below that of the healthy control group. Among the 13 subtests, Comprehension (z = -1.70, d = 1.55), Digit Symbol Coding (z = -1.84, d = 1.88), and Symbol Search (z = -1.85, d = 1.77) were profoundly impaired relative to the healthy controls. These results indicate that the pattern and degree of impairment, as evaluated by the WAIS-III, in Japanese patients are similar to those previously reported in English-speaking patients and that the deficits of some neuropsychological domains relevant to functional outcomes are universally characteristic of schizophrenia. © 2014 The Authors. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences © 2014 Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology.

  6. Detection of subclinical atherosclerosis and diastolic dysfunction in patients with schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ünsal C

    2013-10-01

    Full Text Available Cüneyt Ünsal,1 Mustafa Oran,2 Hande Oktay Tureli,3 Seref Alpsoy,4 Sema Yesilyurt,5 Mehtap Arslan,6 Birol Topcu,7 Osman Karakaya,8 Erhan Kurt6 1Department of Psychiatry, Namik Kemal University, School of Medicine, Tekirdag, Turkey; 2Department of Internal Medicine, Namik Kemal University, School of Medicine, Tekirdag, Turkey; 3Department of Cardiology, Bakirkoy Dr Sadi Konuk Education and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey; 4Department of Cardiology, Namik Kemal University, School of Medicine, Tekirdag, Turkey; 5Department of Psychiatry, Bağcilar Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey; 6Department of Psychiatry, Bakirkoy Training and Research Hospital for Psychiatry Neurology and Neurosurgery, Istanbul, Turkey; 7Department of Biostatistics, Namik Kemal University, School of Medicine, Tekirdag, Turkey; 8Department of Social Service, Yalova University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Yalova, Turkey Background: Patients with schizophrenia have a higher risk for cardiovascular diseases, which is associated with early mortality compared with the nonschizophrenic population. Early diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases in asymptomatic periods in patients with schizophrenia would enhance their quality of life and reduce mortality. Echocardiography, carotid ultrasonography, and ankle brachial index (ABI measurement are known to be beneficial methods of detecting subclinical cardiovascular diseases and of risk stratification. The present study investigated carotid intima media thickness (CIMT and ABI and echocardiographic parameters measured via conventional and tissue Doppler echocardiography in patients with schizophrenia in comparison with a control group. Methods: The present case-control study included 116 patients with schizophrenia and 88 healthy patients. Participants with any current comorbid psychiatric disorder, current or lifetime neurological and medical problems, current coronary artery disease, diabetes

  7. Oxytocin administration selectively improves olfactory detection thresholds for lyral in patients with schizophrenia.

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    Woolley, J D; Lam, O; Chuang, B; Ford, J M; Mathalon, D H; Vinogradov, S

    2015-03-01

    Olfaction plays an important role in mammalian social behavior. Olfactory deficits are common in schizophrenia and correlate with negative symptoms and low social drive. Despite their prominence and possible clinical relevance, little is understood about the pathological mechanisms underlying olfactory deficits in schizophrenia and there are currently no effective treatments for these deficits. The prosocial neuropeptide oxytocin may affect the olfactory system when administered intranasally to humans and there is growing interest in its therapeutic potential in schizophrenia. To examine this model, we administered 40IU of oxytocin and placebo intranasally to 31 patients with a schizophrenia spectrum illness and 34 age-matched healthy control participants in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over study. On each test day, participants completed an olfactory detection threshold test for two different odors: (1) lyral, a synthetic fragrance compound for which patients with schizophrenia have specific olfactory detection threshold deficits, possibly related to decreased cyclic adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate (cAMP) signaling; and (2) anise, a compound for which olfactory detection thresholds change with menstrual cycle phase in women. On the placebo test day, patients with schizophrenia did not significantly differ from healthy controls in detection of either odor. We found that oxytocin administration significantly and selectively improved olfactory detection thresholds for lyral but not for anise in patients with schizophrenia. In contrast, oxytocin had no effect on detection of either odor in healthy controls. Our data indicate that oxytocin administration may ameliorate olfactory deficits in schizophrenia and suggest the effects of intranasal oxytocin may extend to influencing the olfactory system. Given that oxytocin has been found to increase cAMP signaling in vitro a possible mechanism for these effects is discussed. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  8. Are patients with schizophrenia rational maximizers? Evidence from an ultimatum game study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Csukly, Gábor; Polgár, Patrícia; Tombor, László; Réthelyi, János; Kéri, Szabolcs

    2011-05-15

    Schizophrenia is associated with impaired social cognition and community functioning. Social decision-making strategies of healthy controls and patients with schizophrenia were compared by using the ultimatum game (UG). In this game two players have to split a sum of money. The proposer offers a portion to the responder, who decides to either accept or reject the offer. Rejection results in no income to either of the parties. Unfair proposals are frequently rejected by nonclinical individuals, a phenomenon described as altruistic punishment. Patients and controls participated in a series of UG interactions as responders in a computerized test setting. We also tested the effect of the proposer's facial expression on decision-making. Our results indicate that patients with schizophrenia accepted unfair offers at a significantly higher rate than did healthy controls. In contrast, at fair proposals, the acceptance rate was lower in patients compared with controls. At higher offers, the proposer's facial expression (positive/negative) significantly influenced the acceptance rate (positive facial expression increased the likelihood of acceptance) in the control group. This effect was not observed in the patient group. These results suggest that schizophrenia patients are impaired in socioeconomic interactions requiring emotion recognition and decision-making, which may result in unstable behavioral strategies. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Evidence of some strategic preservation of episodic learning in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thuaire, Flavien; Izaute, Marie; Bacon, Elisabeth

    2012-01-30

    The aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of schizophrenia patients' strategic use of learning time allocation during encoding, and determine whether they are able to use their monitoring and previous performances to adapt their learning behavior efficiently. Schizophrenia is considered to be a pathology of consciousness as well as being associated with impaired awareness of cognitive processes. In this study, after a learning session, individuals may express a Judgment of Learning (JOL), which reflects their sense of being able to retrieve the information later and which forms the basis for their decision whether or not to carry on learning. The introspective abilities of schizophrenia patients and subsequent strategic control of study time during the encoding of easy or difficult word pairs were investigated in 23 patients and 23 healthy comparison subjects. In spite of their memory impairment, patients were able to judge the difficulty of the word pairs with accuracy and adapt their learning time accordingly. Schizophrenia patients are sensitive to difficulty when rating JOLs and afterwards controlling study time. Monitoring their knowledge at the start helped patients to adapt their learning efficiently. These findings may be of value for cognitive remediation. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. Medications Used for Cognitive Enhancement in Patients With Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, Alzheimer's Disease, and Parkinson's Disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hsu, Wen-Yu; Lane, Hsien-Yuan; Lin, Chieh-Hsin

    2018-01-01

    Cognitive impairment, which frequently occurs in patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease, has a significant impact on the daily lives of both patients and their family. Furthermore, since the medications used for cognitive enhancement have limited efficacy, the issue of cognitive enhancement still remains a clinically unsolved challenge. We reviewed the clinical studies (published between 2007 and 2017) that focused on the efficacy of medications used for enhancing cognition in patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and memantine are the standard treatments for Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Some studies have reported selective cognitive improvement in patients with schizophrenia following galantamine treatment. Newer antipsychotics, including paliperidone, lurasidone, aripiprazole, ziprasidone, and BL-1020, have also been reported to exert cognitive benefits in patients with schizophrenia. Dopaminergic medications were found to improve language function in patients with Parkinson's disease. However, no beneficial effects on cognitive function were observed with dopamine agonists in patients with schizophrenia. The efficacies of nicotine and its receptor modulators in cognitive improvement remain controversial, with the majority of studies showing that varenicline significantly improved the cognitive function in schizophrenic patients. Several studies have reported that N -methyl-d-aspartate glutamate receptor (NMDAR) enhancers improved the cognitive function in patients with chronic schizophrenia. NMDAR enhancers might also have cognitive benefits in patients with Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease. Raloxifene, a selective estrogen receptor modulator, has also been demonstrated to have beneficial effects on attention, processing speed, and memory in female patients with schizophrenia. Clinical trials with

  11. Asymmetric dimethylarginine in somatically healthy schizophrenia patients treated with atypical antipsychotics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jørgensen, Anders; Knorr, Ulla Benedichte Søsted; Soendergaard, Mia Greisen

    2015-01-01

    ratio are positively correlated to measures of oxidative stress. METHODS: We included 40 schizophrenia patients treated with AAP, but without somatic disease or drug abuse, and 40 healthy controls. Plasma concentrations of ADMA and L-arginine were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography...... in a range of cardiovascular disorders. Increased ADMA levels may also lead to increased oxidative stress. We hypothesized that ADMA and the L-arginine:ADMA ratio are increased in somatically healthy schizophrenia patients treated with atypical antipsychotics (AAP), and that the ADMA and the L-arginine: ADMA....... Data were related to markers of systemic oxidative stress on DNA, RNA and lipids, as well as measures of medication load, duration of disease and current symptomatology. RESULTS: Plasma ADMA and the L-arginine:ADMA ratio did not differ between schizophrenia patients and controls. Furthermore, ADMA...

  12. Selective, sustained, and shift in attention in patients with diagnoses of schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hagh-Shenas, H; Toobai, S; Makaremi, A

    2002-12-01

    Attentional deficits are a prominent aspect of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia. The present study was designed to investigate attention deficit in a group of patients with diagnosis of schizophrenia. According to the segmental set theory suggested by Hogarty and Flesher, three aspects of attention problems, selective, sustained, and shift in attention, were studied. The 30 patients hospitalized on three psychiatric wards at Shiraz and Isfahan and 30 normal healthy subjects matched for age, sex, and years of education were administered a computerized Continuous Performance Test, Stroop Color-word Test, and Wisconsin Card Sorting test. Analysis showed patients performed more poorly than control subjects on measured aspects of attention. The acute/chronic classification did not predict differences in attention scores between subtypes of schizophrenia, while the positive/negative classification did. Paranoid, undifferentiated, and residual groups by subtypes of schizophrenia showed similar performance on the Continuous Performance Test, but were significantly different on errors on the Wisconsin Card Sorting test and on reaction time to Stroop stimuli in the incongruent color-word condition. Patients with paranoid diagnosis performed better than other subtypes on these tasks. Present results suggest that the Continuous Performance Test is valuable for differentiating of schizophrenia spectrum disorder, while scores on Stroop and Wisconsin card sorting may have better diagnostic value for differentiating subtypes of the disorder.

  13. Validation of the Persian version of the brief assessment of cognition in schizophrenia in patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mazhari, Shahrzad; Parvaresh, Nooshin; Eslami Shahrbabaki, Mahin; Sadeghi, Mohammad M; Nakhaee, Nouzar; Keefe, Richard S E

    2014-02-01

    The Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS) is designed for assessment of cognitive function in patients with schizophrenia. Versions of the BACS in English and other languages have been shown to be as sensitive to cognitive dysfunction as a standard test battery, with the advantage of brief administration and scoring time. The present study aimed to test the concurrent validity of the Persian version of the BACS (Persian-BACS). A group of 50 patients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and a group of 50 healthy controls received the Persian-BACS in a first session, and in a second session a standard neurocognitive battery. Cronbach's alpha for the Persian-BACS was 0.74. All the Persian-BACS subscales were significantly correlated with the corresponding standard neurocognitive subscales and the Pearson correlation of the composite scores from the two instruments was 0.71. Moreover, a one-factor solution was found that accounted for 67.9% of the variance. Finally, the Persian-BACS demonstrated high ability to discriminate patients with schizophrenia from healthy controls. Good psychometric properties of the Persian-BACS suggest that it is a useful tool for assessing cognition in schizophrenic patients with Persian as their primary language. © 2013 The Authors. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences © 2013 Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology.

  14. Serum cytokine contents in schizophrenia patient with metabolic syndrome and their correlation with nerve electrophysiology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Li-Yong Chen

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Objective: To analyze serum cytokine contents in schizophrenia patient with metabolic syndrome (MS and their correlation with nerve electrophysiology. Methods: A total of 90 chizophrenia patient with MS, including 41 cases with simple schizophrenia and 39 cases with simple metabolic syndrome were included for study. The values of nerve electrophysiology indexes and serum illness-related indexes were compared among included patients, and the correlation between the two was further analyzed. Results: Compared with simple schizophrenia group and simple MS group, P300 latency of schizophrenia with MS group was longer, and the amplitude was shorter; N2-P3 latency and amplitude were shorter (P<0.05; serum SOD, S100b, BDNF, ABAb, PAI-1, 毩-HBDH, AST, cystatin c, TG, FBG and 2hPG values of schizophrenia with MS group were higher, IGF1, HMW-APN and HDL-C levels were lower, and compared with simple schizophrenia group and simple MS group, differences were significant (P<0.05; P300 latency, P300 amplitude, N2-P3 latency and N2- P3 amplitude of schizophrenia with MS group were directly correlated with serum cytokine contents (P<0.05. Conclusions: There are significantly abnormal serum cytokines and nerve electrophysiology indexes in schizophrenia patient with MS, and nerve electrophysiology detection can be used as the means to judge disease and guide treatment.

  15. At issue: siblings of patients with schizophrenia: sibling bond, coping patterns, and fear of possible schizophrenia heredity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stålberg, Gabriella; Ekerwald, Hedvig; Hultman, Christina M

    2004-01-01

    Siblings of schizophrenia patients are from the patient's perspective important support providers, but most studies on family burden have focused on the parental role. This study aims to develop a detailed analysis of the psychological aspects of having a sibling with schizophrenia. We did a qualitative study with audiotaped semistructured interviews of 16 siblings. The reliability of the inductive categorization of data was high. A unifying theme appeared to be an emotional sibling bond characterized by feelings of love, sorrow, anger, envy, guilt, and shame. The major categories linked to coping with the situation were avoidance, isolation, normalization, caregiving, and grieving. A third major theme consisted of a fear of possible schizophrenia heredity. The siblings described concerns about the impact of a family history of psychiatric illness, a fear of becoming mentally ill, and reflections about "bad genes." Our findings support earlier findings of coping patterns but complement them by providing a model that includes awareness of genetic vulnerability as an important part of siblings' subjective burden.

  16. Associations between perceived neighbourhood environmental attributes and self-reported sitting time in patients with schizophrenia: a pilot study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vancampfort, Davy; De Hert, Marc; De Herdt, Amber; Soundy, Andrew; Stubbs, Brendon; Bernard, Paquito; Probst, Michel

    2014-01-30

    Sitting behaviours may, independent of physical activity behaviours, be a distinct risk factor for multiple adverse health outcomes in patients with schizophrenia. In order to combat sitting behaviours health care providers and policy makers require further understanding of its determinants in this population group. The aim of the present study was to investigate the variance in sitting time explained by a wide range of community design and recreational environmental variables, above and beyond the variance accounted for by demographic variables. One hundred and twenty-three patients (42♀) with schizophrenia (mean age=41.5 ± 12.6 years) were included in the final analysis. The built environment was rated using the Instruments for Assessing Levels of Physical Activity and Fitness environmental questionnaire and sitting time was assessed using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire-short (IPAQ) version. Regression analysis showed that environmental variables were related to sitting time. The body mass index (BMI) and disease stage explained 8.4% of the variance in sitting, while environmental correlates explained an additional 16.8%. Clinical practice guidelines should incorporate strategies targeting changes in sitting behaviours, from encouraging environmental changes to the availability of exercise equipment. © 2013 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

  17. Effort-Based Reinforcement Processing and Functional Connectivity Underlying Amotivation in Medicated Patients with Depression and Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Il Ho; Lee, Boung Chul; Kim, Jae-Jin; Kim, Joong Il; Koo, Min-Seung

    2017-04-19

    Amotivation is a common phenotype of major depressive disorder and schizophrenia, which are clinically distinct disorders. Effective treatment targets and strategies can be discovered by examining the dopaminergic reward network function underlying amotivation between these disorders. We conducted an fMRI study in healthy human participants and medicated patients with depression and schizophrenia using an effort-based reinforcement task. We examined regional activations related to reward type (positive and negative reinforcement), effort level, and their composite value, as well as resting-state functional connectivities within the meso-striatal-prefrontal pathway. We found that integrated reward and effort values of low effort-positive reinforcement and high effort-negative reinforcement were behaviorally anticipated and represented in the putamen and medial orbitofrontal cortex activities. Patients with schizophrenia and depression did not show anticipation-related and work-related reaction time reductions, respectively. Greater amotivation severity correlated with smaller work-related putamen activity changes according to reward type in schizophrenia and effort level in depression. Patients with schizophrenia showed feedback-related putamen hyperactivity of low effort compared with healthy controls and depressed patients. The strength of medial orbitofrontal-striatal functional connectivity predicted work-related reaction time reduction of high effort negative reinforcement in healthy controls and amotivation severity in both patients with schizophrenia and those with depression. Patients with depression showed deficient medial orbitofrontal-striatal functional connectivity compared with healthy controls and patients with schizophrenia. These results indicate that amotivation in depression and schizophrenia involves different pathophysiology in the prefrontal-striatal circuitry. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Amotivation is present in both depression and schizophrenia

  18. Aberrant interference of auditory negative words on attention in patients with schizophrenia.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Norichika Iwashiro

    Full Text Available Previous research suggests that deficits in attention-emotion interaction are implicated in schizophrenia symptoms. Although disruption in auditory processing is crucial in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, deficits in interaction between emotional processing of auditorily presented language stimuli and auditory attention have not yet been clarified. To address this issue, the current study used a dichotic listening task to examine 22 patients with schizophrenia and 24 age-, sex-, parental socioeconomic background-, handedness-, dexterous ear-, and intelligence quotient-matched healthy controls. The participants completed a word recognition task on the attended side in which a word with emotionally valenced content (negative/positive/neutral was presented to one ear and a different neutral word was presented to the other ear. Participants selectively attended to either ear. In the control subjects, presentation of negative but not positive word stimuli provoked a significantly prolonged reaction time compared with presentation of neutral word stimuli. This interference effect for negative words existed whether or not subjects directed attention to the negative words. This interference effect was significantly smaller in the patients with schizophrenia than in the healthy controls. Furthermore, the smaller interference effect was significantly correlated with severe positive symptoms and delusional behavior in the patients with schizophrenia. The present findings suggest that aberrant interaction between semantic processing of negative emotional content and auditory attention plays a role in production of positive symptoms in schizophrenia. (224 words.

  19. Enhanced temporal variability of amygdala-frontal functional connectivity in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yue, Jing-Li; Li, Peng; Shi, Le; Lin, Xiao; Sun, Hong-Qiang; Lu, Lin

    2018-01-01

    The "dysconnectivity hypothesis" was proposed 20 years ago. It characterized schizophrenia as a disorder with dysfunctional connectivity across a large range of distributed brain areas. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) data have supported this theory. Previous studies revealed that the amygdala might be responsible for the emotion regulation-related symptoms of schizophrenia. However, conventional methods oversimplified brain activities by assuming that it remained static throughout the entire scan duration, which may explain why inconsistent results have been reported for the same brain region. An emerging technique is sliding time window analysis, which is used to describe functional connectivity based on the temporal variability of regions of interest (e.g., amygdala) in patients with schizophrenia. Conventional analysis of the static functional connectivity between the amygdala and whole brain was also conducted. Static functional connectivity between the amygdala and orbitofrontal region was impaired in patients with schizophrenia. The variability of connectivity between the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex was enhanced (i.e., greater dynamics) in patients with schizophrenia. A negative relationship was found between the variability of connectivity and information processing efficiency. A positive correlation was found between the variability of connectivity and symptom severity. The findings suggest that schizophrenia was related to abnormal patterns of fluctuating communication among brain areas that are involved in emotion regulations. Unveiling the temporal properties of functional connectivity could disentangle the inconsistent results of previous functional connectivity studies.

  20. Residual Negative Symptoms Differentiate Cognitive Performance in Clinically Stable Patients with Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rajeev Krishnadas

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Cognitive deficits in various domains have been shown in patients with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. The purpose of the present study was to examine if residual psychopathology explained the difference in cognitive function between clinically stable patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. We compared the performance on tests of attention, visual and verbal memory, and executive function of 25 patients with schizophrenia in remission and 25 euthymic bipolar disorder patients with that of 25 healthy controls. Mediation analysis was used to see if residual psychopathology could explain the difference in cognitive function between the patient groups. Both patient groups performed significantly worse than healthy controls on most cognitive tests. Patients with bipolar disorder displayed cognitive deficits that were milder but qualitatively similar to those of patients with schizophrenia. Residual negative symptoms mediated the difference in performance on cognitive tests between the two groups. Neither residual general psychotic symptoms nor greater antipsychotic doses explained this relationship. The shared variance explained by the residual negative and cognitive deficits that the difference between patient groups may be explained by greater frontal cortical neurophysiological deficits in patients with schizophrenia, compared to bipolar disorder. Further longitudinal work may provide insight into pathophysiological mechanisms that underlie these deficits.

  1. Attitudes toward metabolic adverse events among patients with schizophrenia in Japan.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sugawara, Norio; Yasui-Furukori, Norio; Yamazaki, Manabu; Shimoda, Kazutaka; Mori, Takao; Sugai, Takuro; Matsuda, Hiroshi; Suzuki, Yutaro; Minami, Yoshitake; Ozeki, Yuji; Okamoto, Kurefu; Sagae, Toyoaki; Someya, Toshiyuki

    2016-01-01

    Metabolic syndrome is a growing concern among patients with schizophrenia because metabolic abnormalities are widely regarded as a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and premature death. The current study assessed attitudes toward metabolic adverse events among patients with schizophrenia. A brief questionnaire was constructed to investigate patient recognition of the following broad areas: dietary habits, lifestyle, self-monitoring, knowledge, and medical practice. Between January 2012 and June 2013, questionnaires were sent to patients associated with 520 outpatient facilities and 247 inpatient facilities belonging to the Japan Psychiatric Hospital Association. All of the participants (n=22,072; inpatients =15,170, outpatients =6,902) were diagnosed with schizophrenia based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, or the International Classification of Diseases, tenth revision. Approximately 55.0% (8,069/14,669) of inpatients and 44.8% of outpatients (2,978/6,649) reported that they did not exercise at all. Although 60.9% (4,116/6,760) of outpatients reported that they felt obese, only 35.6% (5,261/14,794) of inpatients felt obese. More than half of the inpatients (51.2%; 7,514/14,690) and outpatients (60.8%; 4,086/6,721) hoped to receive regular blood tests to prevent weight gain and diseases such as diabetes. Although more than half of patients hoped to prevent weight gain and diabetes, only a minority of patients were mindful of eating balanced meals and having physical exercise. Educational efforts and the promotion of the best pharmacotherapy and monitoring practices are needed for patients with schizophrenia.

  2. Inhibition of return is not impaired but masked by increased facilitation in schizophrenia patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kalogeropoulou, Fenia; Woodruff, Peter W R; Vivas, Ana B

    2015-01-01

    When attention is attracted to an irrelevant location, performance on a subsequent target is hindered at that location in relation to novel, not previously attended, locations. This phenomenon is known as inhibition of return (IOR). Previous research has shown that IOR is not observed, or its onset is delayed, in schizophrenia patients. In the present study, the authors tested the hypothesis that IOR may be intact but masked by increased facilitation in schizophrenia patients. To test this hypothesis, they used a procedure that usually reduces or eliminates the early facilitation. In the first experiment, the authors used the typical single-cue IOR task in the group of healthy adults (N = 28) and in a group of schizophrenia patients (N = 32). In the second experiment, they manipulated cue-target discriminability by presenting spatially overlapping cues and targets where the cues were more intense than the targets. In Experiment 1, they did not find significant IOR effects in the group of schizophrenia patients, even with cue-target intervals as long as 3,200 ms. However, in Experiment 2, IOR effects were significant at the 350- and 450-ms cue-target intervals for healthy and patients, respectively. This is the first study that shows that schizophrenia patients can actually show inhibitory effects very similar to healthy controls, even when no help is provided to shift their attention away from the irrelevant location. The authors suggest that inhibition is intact in schizophrenia patients, but it is usually masked by increased facilitation. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved.

  3. Exploring rationality in schizophrenia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Revsbech, Rasmus; Mortensen, Erik Lykke; Owen, Gareth

    2015-01-01

    Background Empirical studies of rationality (syllogisms) in patients with schizophrenia have obtained different results. One study found that patients reason more logically if the syllogism is presented through an unusual content. Aims To explore syllogism-based rationality in schizophrenia. Meth...... differences became non-significant. Conclusions When taking intelligence and neuropsychological performance into account, patients with schizophrenia and controls perform similarly on syllogism tests of rationality.......Background Empirical studies of rationality (syllogisms) in patients with schizophrenia have obtained different results. One study found that patients reason more logically if the syllogism is presented through an unusual content. Aims To explore syllogism-based rationality in schizophrenia. Method...... Thirty-eight first-admitted patients with schizophrenia and 38 healthy controls solved 29 syllogisms that varied in presentation content (ordinary v. unusual) and validity (valid v. invalid). Statistical tests were made of unadjusted and adjusted group differences in models adjusting for intelligence...

  4. Mismatch negativity in chronic schizophrenia and first-episode schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Salisbury, Dean F; Shenton, Martha E; Griggs, Carlye B; Bonner-Jackson, Aaron; McCarley, Robert W

    2002-08-01

    Mismatch negativity (MMN) is an event-related brain potential that is sensitive to stimulus deviation from a repetitive pattern. The MMN is thought primarily to reflect the activity of sensory memory, with, at most, moderate influences of higher-level cognitive processes, such as attention. The MMN is reported to be reduced in patients with chronic schizophrenia. However, it is unknown whether MMN is reduced in patients with first-episode schizophrenia (at first hospitalization). Subject groups comprised patients with chronic schizophrenia (n = 16) and older control subjects (n = 13), and patients with first-episode schizophrenia (n = 21) and younger control subjects (n = 27). The MMN was visualized by subtracting the averaged event-related brain potential to standard tones (1 kHz [95% of all tones]) from the event-related brain potential to pitch-deviant tones (1.2 kHz [5% of all tones]). The MMN voltage was the mean voltage from 100 to 200 milliseconds. Pitch-deviant MMN was reduced by approximately 47% in patients with chronic illness along the sagittal midline relative to controls. The MMN was not reduced in patients with first-episode schizophrenia. All 4 groups showed approximately 64% larger MMN to pitch-deviant tones over the right hemisphere compared with the left hemisphere. The pitch-deviant MMN reductions present in patients with chronic schizophrenia are not present at first hospitalization. The sensory, echoic memory functions indexed by MMN seem unaffected early in the schizophrenia disease process. Reductions in MMN amplitude may develop over time and index the progression of the disorder, although that can only be definitively determined by longitudinal assessments.

  5. Lack of cardinal symptoms of meningitis in a hospitalized patient with chronic schizophrenia: lessons to be learned.

    Science.gov (United States)

    So, Ryuhei; Hirota, Tomoya; Yamamoto, Yuki; Hishimoto, Akitoyo; Correll, Christoph U

    2015-01-01

    There are prior reports describing a diagnostic delay in medical emergencies in patients with schizophrenia. To our knowledge, this is the first case report demonstrating the risk of diagnostic delay of acute meningitis due to reduced pain perception as well as other factors related to schizophrenia and its treatment. We report a case of meningitis in a patient suffering from chronic schizophrenia and poor treatment response despite high doses of antipsychotics. Potential difficulties and pitfalls when suspecting or diagnosing meningitis as a physical comorbidity in patients with schizophrenia are discussed. A 33-year-old man with chronic and treatment-resistant schizophrenia developed acute meningitis. The definite diagnosis was delayed because the cardinal symptoms other than fever were not clearly elicited by physical examination. The characteristic symptoms of meningitis were concealed by reduced pain perception, rigidity due to the administration of antipsychotics, disorganized thinking and potentially diminished communication with health care professionals as commonly seen in patients with schizophrenia. Meningitis should not be dismissed as a possibility in patients with fever of unknown origin just because a patient with schizophrenia does not present with cardinal features of meningitis other than fever. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  6. Quality of life in patients with schizophrenia in five European countries: the EPSILON study

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gaite, L.; Vázquez-Barquero, J. L.; Borra, C.; Ballesteros, J.; Schene, A.; Welcher, B.; Thornicroft, G.; Becker, T.; Ruggeri, M.; Herrán, A.

    2002-01-01

    Objective: To compare subjective quality of life (QOL) and objective, QOL indicators in patients with schizophrenia from five European sites: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, London, Santander and Verona. Method: A representative sample of 404 patients with schizophrenia, in contact with mental health

  7. Can exercise increase fitness and reduce weight in patients with schizophrenia and depression?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Krogh, Jesper; Speyer, Helene; Nørgaard, Hans Christian Brix

    2014-01-01

    in this patient group and low levels of physical activity is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and all-cause mortality. This study aimed to review trials allocating patients with either schizophrenia or depression to exercise interventions for effect on cardiovascular fitness......, strength, and weight. METHODS: We searched PubMed, Embase, and PsycINFO including randomized clinical trial allocating patients with either schizophrenia or depression to isolated exercise interventions. RESULTS: We identified five trials including patients with schizophrenia (n = 94) and found little...... evidence that exercise could increase cardiovascular fitness or decrease weight. Nine exercise trials for patients with depression (n = 892) were identified increasing cardiovascular fitness by 11-30% and strength by 33-37%. No evidence in favor of exercise for weight reduction was found. CONCLUSION: Based...

  8. Association between neurological soft signs, temperament and character in patients with schizophrenia and non-psychotic relatives

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Liliana Galindo

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available The heritability of schizophrenia and most personality traits has been well established, but the role of personality in susceptibility to schizophrenia remains uncertain. The aim of this study was to test for an association between personality traits and Neurological Soft Signs (NSS, a well-known biological marker of schizophrenia, in non-psychotic relatives of patients with schizophrenia. For this purpose, we evaluated the NSS scale and personality measured by the Temperament and Character inventory (TCI-R in three groups of subjects: 29 patients with schizophrenia, 24 unaffected relatives and 37 controls. The results showed that patients with schizophrenia were more asocial (higher harm avoidance and lower reward dependence, more perseverative (higher persistence, and more schizotypal (lower self-directedness and cooperativeness, higher self-transcendence. The unaffected relatives showed higher harm avoidance, lower self-directedness and cooperativeness than the healthy controls. Higher NSS scores and sub-scores were found in patients and non-psychotic relatives compared with the controls. Among all the patients, total NSS scores were positively correlated with harm avoidance but negatively correlated with novelty seeking and persistence. Total NSS were also correlated with low scores on self-directedness and cooperativeness, which are indicators of personality disorder. Our results show that susceptibility to NSS and to schizophrenia are both related to individual differences in the temperament and character features in non-psychotic relatives of patients with schizophrenia. High harm avoidance, low persistence, low self-directedness and low cooperativeness contribute to both the risk of NSS and schizophrenia. These findings highlight the value of using both assessments to study high risk populations.

  9. Illness Perceptions in Patients of Schizophrenia: A Preliminary Investigation from Lahore, Pakistan.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hussain, Sadia; Imran, Nazish; Hotiana, Usman Amin; Mazhar, Nauman; Asif, Aftab

    2017-01-01

    Patient's perception of their illness influences their healthcare decisions. The objectives of this study were to explore patient's own beliefs about their illness (Schizophrenia) and perceived social support, and its impact on their attitudes toward pharmacological treatment in Lahore, Pakistan. This study was conducted at Mayo Hospital Lahore from March to September 2016. Hundred individuals suffering from Schizophrenia completed four questionnaires; a socio-demographic questionnaire, the Illness Perception Questionnaire for Schizophrenia(IPQ-S), Drug attitude Inventory-10 (DAI) and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (PSS). Stress, family problems, lack of friends & financial worries were endorsed strongly by patients as cause of their mental illness. Ambiguity regarding their mental illness duration and personal control was observed. Patients' perceived significant negative consequences, negative emotional response, as well as had poor understanding of their mental illness and treatment effectiveness. Statistically significant gender differences in treatment control and illness coherence subscales of IPQS were observed. Drug attitude inventory was positively correlated with Treatment control subscale (p Illness coherence subscale of IPQS (p consequences subscale and perceived social support was negatively correlated (p illness is predictor of their drug taking attitude and perceived social support. Study results should help to develop new interventions to correct inaccurate beliefs in patients with schizophrenia to improve illness outcome.

  10. Quality of life in Chinese patients with schizophrenia treated in primary care.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Yan; Hou, Cai-Lan; Ma, Xin-Rong; Zhong, Bao-Liang; Zang, Yu; Jia, Fu-Jun; Lin, Yong-Qiang; Lai, Kelly Y C; Chiu, Helen F K; Ungvari, Gabor S; Hall, Brian J; Cai, Mei-Ying; Ng, Chee H; Xiang, Yu-Tao

    2017-08-01

    In China, maintenance treatment for clinically stable patients with schizophrenia is usually provided by primary care physicians. This study examined the quality of life (QOL) in patients with schizophrenia treated in primary care and explored the demographic and clinical characteristics associated with QOL. Altogether, 612 patients with schizophrenia treated in 22 randomly selected primary care services in China formed the study sample. QOL, psychotic and depressive symptoms, extra-pyramidal symptoms and insight were assessed using standardized instruments. Data analyses were conducted with the one sample t-test and multiple linear regression analyses. Compared with the normative data for the Chinese general population, significantly lower scores in physical and mental QOL domains were found in the patient group. Older age, being unemployed, major medical conditions, no smoking, more severe depressive and negative symptoms, more frequent insomnia, and suicidality were independently associated with poor physical QOL. Male gender, more severe depressive and anxiety symptoms, more frequent insomnia, and suicidality were independently associated with poor mental QOL. Patients with schizophrenia treated in primary care had lower level of QOL in comparison with general population. Effective measures need to be implemented to improve their QOL. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. Irony and proverb comprehension in schizophrenia: do female patients "dislike" ironic remarks?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rapp, Alexander M; Langohr, Karin; Mutschler, Dorothee E; Wild, Barbara

    2014-01-01

    Difficulties in understanding irony and sarcasm are part of the social cognition deficits in patients with schizophrenia. A number of studies have reported higher error rates during comprehension in patients with schizophrenia. However, the relationships of these impairments to schizotypal personality traits and other language deficits, such as the comprehension of proverbs, are unclear. We investigated irony and proverb comprehension in an all-female sample of 20 schizophrenia patients and 27 matched controls. Subjects indicated if a statement was intended to be ironic, literal, or meaningless and furthermore rated the meanness and funniness of the stimuli and certainty of their decision. Patients made significantly more errors than controls did. Globally, there were no overall differences in the ratings. However, patients rated the subgroup of stimuli with answers given incorrectly as having significantly less meanness and in case of an error indicated a significantly higher certainty than controls. Across all of the study participants, performances in irony (r = -0.51) and proverb (r = 0.56) comprehension were significantly correlated with schizotypal personality traits, suggesting a continuum of nonliteral language understanding. Because irony is so frequent in everyday conversations, this makes irony an especially promising candidate for social cognition training in schizophrenia.

  12. Psychopathological and demographic characteristics of hallucinating patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder: an analysis based on AMDP data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baethge, Christopher; Jänner, Michaela; Gaebel, Wolfgang; Malevani, Jaroslav

    2017-06-01

    Hallucinations are at the core of the diagnosis of schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders, and many neuroscience studies focus on hallucinations. However, there is a lack of data on prevalence, subtyping, and clinical correlates of hallucinations as well as on the comparison of hallucinating schizophrenia versus hallucinating schizoaffective patients. Analysis of all psychopathology evaluations is based on the AMDP scale in a German psychiatric university hospital between 2007 and 2013 regarding patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (diagnosed according to ICD-10). Hallucinating versus non-hallucinating patients and age- and gender-matched hallucinating schizophrenic versus schizoaffective patients were compared with regard to key psychopathological and demographic characteristics. Relative to patients with schizoaffective disorder, patients with schizophrenia more often hallucinated at admission (36.6 vs. 16.2 %, RR: 2.3, p  other auditory > visual > somatic/tactile > olfactory/gustatory. Hallucinating patients of either disorder were more often affected with respect to delusions (83 vs. 62 % and 81 vs. 48 % among patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, respectively [both p schizoaffective disorder did not differ from hallucinating patients with schizophrenia. This is one of the few studies providing data on hallucinations in a routine clinical care setting. Hallucinations are a sign and likely a cause of greater illness severity. Patients with schizoaffective disorder less often experience hallucinations than patients with schizophrenia, but if they do, they seem to resemble patients with schizophrenia with regard to illness severity.

  13. An fMRI study of facial emotion processing in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gur, Raquel E; McGrath, Claire; Chan, Robin M; Schroeder, Lee; Turner, Travis; Turetsky, Bruce I; Kohler, Christian; Alsop, David; Maldjian, Joseph; Ragland, J Daniel; Gur, Ruben C

    2002-12-01

    Emotion processing deficits are notable in schizophrenia. The authors evaluated cerebral blood flow response in schizophrenia patients during facial emotion processing to test the hypothesis of diminished limbic activation related to emotional relevance of facial stimuli. Fourteen patients with schizophrenia and 14 matched comparison subjects viewed facial displays of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust as well as neutral faces. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal changes as the subjects alternated between tasks of discriminating emotional valence (positive versus negative) and age (over 30 versus under 30) of the faces with an interleaved crosshair reference condition. The groups did not differ in performance on either task. For both tasks, healthy participants showed activation in the fusiform gyrus, occipital lobe, and inferior frontal cortex relative to the resting baseline condition. The increase was greater in the amygdala and hippocampus during the emotional valence discrimination task than during the age discrimination task. In the patients with schizophrenia, minimal focal response was observed for all tasks relative to the resting baseline condition. Contrasting patients and comparison subjects on the emotional valence discrimination task revealed voxels in the left amygdala and bilateral hippocampus in which the comparison subjects had significantly greater activation. Failure to activate limbic regions during emotional valence discrimination may explain emotion processing deficits in patients with schizophrenia. While the lack of limbic recruitment did not significantly impair simple valence discrimination performance in this clinically stable group, it may impact performance of more demanding tasks.

  14. Prevalence of 22q11.2 deletions in 311 Dutch patients with schizophrenia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hoogendoorn, Mechteld L C; Vorstman, Jacob A S; Jalali, Gholam R; Selten, Jean-Paul; Sinke, Richard J; Emanuel, Beverly S; Kahn, René S

    UNLABELLED: The objectives of this study were 1) to examine whether the prevalence of 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS) in schizophrenia patients with the Deficit syndrome is higher than the reported approximately 2% for the population of schizophrenia patients as a whole, and 2) to estimate the

  15. Structural magnetic resonance imaging in patients with first-episode schizophrenia, psychotic and severe non-psychotic depression and healthy controls. Results of the schizophrenia and affective psychoses (SAP) project.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Salokangas, R K R; Cannon, T; Van Erp, T; Ilonen, T; Taiminen, T; Karlsson, H; Lauerma, H; Leinonen, K M; Wallenius, E; Kaljonen, A; Syvälahti, E; Vilkman, H; Alanen, A; Hietala, J

    2002-09-01

    Structural brain abnormalities are prevalent in patients with schizophrenia and affective disorders. To study how regional brain volumes and their ratios differ between patients with schizophrenia, psychotic depression, severe non-psychotic depression and healthy controls. Magnetic resonance imaging scans of the brain on first-episode patients and on healthy controls. Patients with schizophrenia had a smaller left frontal grey matter volume than the other three groups. Patients with psychotic depression had larger ventricular and posterior sulcal cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) volumes than controls. Patients with depression had larger white matter volumes than the other patients. Left frontal lobe, especially its grey matter volume, seems to be specifically reduced in first-episode schizophrenia. Enlarged cerebral ventricles and sulcal CSF volumes are prevalent in psychotic depression. Preserved or expanded white matter is typical of non-psychotic depression.

  16. Determinants of patient-rated and clinician-rated illness severity in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fervaha, Gagan; Takeuchi, Hiroyoshi; Agid, Ofer; Lee, Jimmy; Foussias, George; Remington, Gary

    2015-07-01

    The contribution of specific symptoms on ratings of global illness severity in patients with schizophrenia is not well understood. The present study examined the clinical determinants of clinician and patient ratings of overall illness severity. This study included 1,010 patients with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia who participated in the baseline visit of the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) study conducted between January 2001 and December 2004 and who had available symptom severity, side effect burden, cognition, and community functioning data. Both clinicians and patients completed the 7-point Clinical Global Impressions-Severity of Illness scale (CGI-S), the primary measure of interest in the present study. Symptoms were rated using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale and the Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia, and functional status with the Quality of Life Scale. Neurocognition, insight, and medication-related side effects were also evaluated. Clinicians rated illness severity significantly higher than patients (P negative, disorganized, and depressive symptoms, as well as functional outcome (all P values enhance patient engagement in care and improve outcomes. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00014001. © Copyright 2014 Physicians Postgraduate Press, Inc.

  17. Structural hippocampal anomalies in a schizophrenia population correlate with navigation performance on a wayfinding task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ledoux, Andrée-Anne; Boyer, Patrice; Phillips, Jennifer L; Labelle, Alain; Smith, Andra; Bohbot, Véronique D

    2014-01-01

    Episodic memory, related to the hippocampus, has been found to be impaired in schizophrenia. Further, hippocampal anomalies have also been observed in schizophrenia. This study investigated whether average hippocampal gray matter (GM) would differentiate performance on a hippocampus-dependent memory task in patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls. Twenty-one patients with schizophrenia and 22 control participants were scanned with an MRI while being tested on a wayfinding task in a virtual town (e.g., find the grocery store from the school). Regressions were performed for both groups individually and together using GM and performance on the wayfinding task. Results indicate that controls successfully completed the task more often than patients, took less time, and made fewer errors. Additionally, controls had significantly more hippocampal GM than patients. Poor performance was associated with a GM decrease in the right hippocampus for both groups. Within group regressions found an association between right hippocampi GM and performance in controls and an association between the left hippocampi GM and performance in patients. A second analysis revealed that different anatomical GM regions, known to be associated with the hippocampus, such as the parahippocampal cortex, amygdala, medial, and orbital prefrontal cortices, covaried with the hippocampus in the control group. Interestingly, the cuneus and cingulate gyrus also covaried with the hippocampus in the patient group but the orbital frontal cortex did not, supporting the hypothesis of impaired connectivity between the hippocampus and the frontal cortex in schizophrenia. These results present important implications for creating intervention programs aimed at measuring functional and structural changes in the hippocampus in schizophrenia.

  18. Maintenance Electroconvulsive Therapy in a Patient with Treatment-Resistant Paranoid Schizophrenia and Comorbid Epilepsy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Beppe Micallef-Trigona

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available The treatment of choice for acute schizophrenia is antipsychotic drug treatment and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT and should only be considered as an option for treatment-resistant schizophrenia, where treatment with clozapine has already proven ineffective or intolerable. The use of ECT as a maintenance treatment for patients with schizophrenia and comorbid epilepsy is uncommon as scant evidence exists to support this. We describe a patient with a serious case of paranoid schizophrenia and comorbid epilepsy who had not responded to typical and atypical antipsychotic medication, but responded remarkably to acute ECT and required maintenance ECT to sustain a positive therapeutic response.

  19. Long-term efficacy and tolerability of quetiapine in patients with schizophrenia who switched from other antipsychotics because of inadequate therapeutic response-a prospective open-label study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hashimoto, Naoki; Toyomaki, Atsuhito; Honda, Minoru; Miyano, Satoru; Nitta, Nobuyuki; Sawayama, Hiroyuki; Sugawara, Yasufumi; Uemura, Keiichi; Tsukamoto, Noriko; Koyama, Tsukasa; Kusumi, Ichiro

    2015-01-01

    While the frequency and importance of antipsychotic switching in patients with schizophrenia, there is insufficient evidence with regard to switching strategy. Quetiapine is one of the drugs of choice for switch because of its unique receptor profile. However, there were no data on the long-term clinical and neurocognitive effect of quetiapine in patients who had responded inadequately to prior antipsychotics. The purpose of this study is to examine the long-term efficacy and tolerability of quetiapine in patients with schizophrenia who switched from other antipsychotics because of inadequate therapeutic response. We hypothesized that quetiapine would show long-term effectiveness in broad symptom dimensions including negative and neurocognitive symptoms while having good tolerability. Twenty-nine subjects with schizophrenia who did not respond to their current monotherapy of antipsychotic or who could not tolerate the treatment were switched to quetiapine and assessed at baseline and at 3, 6, and 12 months. The outcome measures included the brief assessment of cognition in schizophrenia (BACS), the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), the Clinical Global Impressions Scale (CGI), the Schizophrenia Quality of Life Scale Japanese version (JSQLS), the Athens Insomnia Scale (AIS), and the Drug Attitude Inventory with 30 items (DAI-30). The Drug-Induced Extrapyramidal Symptoms Scale (DIEPSS), HbA1c, prolactin (PRL), and body weight were also evaluated. Statistically significant improvements were observed in all subscores of the PANSS, the GAF, and the symptoms and side effects subscale of the JSQLS, the DIEPSS, the AIS, and the PRL level, and nearly significant improvements were observed in the DAI-30. Quetiapine monotherapy was associated with significant improvement in the verbal memory test, even after controlling for the practice effect. Although quetiapine was well tolerated, three subjects dropped out because of the worsening of the psychotic symptoms and

  20. Female schizophrenia patients and risk of breast cancer: A population-based cohort study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu Chou, Ana Isabel; Wang, Yu-Chiao; Lin, Cheng-Li; Kao, Chia-Hung

    2017-10-01

    Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in women. This population-based cohort study aimed to examine the association between breast cancer in female schizophrenia patients and its association with the use of antipsychotics drugs. All study subjects were selected from the Taiwan Insurance Claims Data (1998-2008). We compared the risk for breast cancer between female schizophrenia patients receiving antipsychotics (n=29,641) with female patients without any serious mental illnesses nor receiving antipsychotic drugs (n=59,282). We also compared between patients on 1) first-generation antipsychotics (FGAs) alone; 2) combination of first and second generation antipsychotics (SGAs); and 3) SGAs alone. We then stratified those on SGAs into two subgroups according to their prolactin-elevating properties: risperidone (RIS), paliperidone (PAL) or amisulpride (AMI) and all other SGAs. After adjusting for confounding factors, the risk of breast cancer in female schizophrenia patients was 1.94 higher than the non-schizophrenia cohort (aHR: 1.94, 95% CI: 1.43-2.63). Schizophrenia patients receiving a combination of FGAs and SGAs had a slightly higher risk of breast cancer than non-schizophrenic patients (aHR: 2.17, 95% CI: 1.56-3.01). Patients on RIS, PAL, and AMI had a 1.96-fold risk of breast cancer compared to the non-schizophrenic cohort (95% CI: 1.36-2.82). This study raises awareness among both clinicians and patients about the importance of breast cancer screening and the promotion of healthy lifestyle choices. Due to the nature of our database, confounding factors - such as parity, obesity, hormone therapy, and smoking - could not be controlled for. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  1. Smaller than expected cognitive deficits in schizophrenia patients from the population-representative ABC catchment cohort.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lennertz, Leonhard; An der Heiden, Wolfram; Kronacher, Regina; Schulze-Rauschenbach, Svenja; Maier, Wolfgang; Häfner, Heinz; Wagner, Michael

    2016-08-01

    Most neuropsychological studies on schizophrenia suffer from sample selection bias, with male and chronic patients being overrepresented. This probably leads to an overestimation of cognitive impairments. The present study aimed to provide a less biased estimate of cognitive functions in schizophrenia using a population-representative catchment area sample. Schizophrenia patients (N = 89) from the prospective Mannheim ABC cohort were assessed 14 years after disease onset and first diagnosis, using a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery. A healthy control group (N = 90) was carefully matched according to age, gender, and geographic region (city, rural surrounds). The present sample was representative for the initial ABC cohort. In the comprehensive neuropsychological assessment, the schizophrenia patients were only moderately impaired as compared to the healthy control group (d = 0.56 for a general cognitive index, d = 0.42 for verbal memory, d = 0.61 for executive functions, d = 0.69 for attention). Only 33 % of the schizophrenia patients scored one standard deviation unit below the healthy control group in the general cognitive index. Neuropsychological performance did not correlate with measures of the clinical course including age at onset, number of hospital admissions, and time in paid work. Thus, in this population-representative sample of schizophrenia patients, neuropsychological deficits were less pronounced than expected from meta-analyses. In agreement with other epidemiological studies, this suggests a less devastating picture of cognition in schizophrenia.

  2. Occipital bending in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maller, Jerome J; Anderson, Rodney J; Thomson, Richard H; Daskalakis, Zafiris J; Rosenfeld, Jeffrey V; Fitzgerald, Paul B

    2017-01-01

    To investigate the prevalence of occipital bending (an occipital lobe crossing or twisting across the midline) in subjects with schizophrenia and matched healthy controls. Occipital bending prevalence was investigated in 37 patients with schizophrenia and 44 healthy controls. Ratings showed that prevalence was nearly three times higher among schizophrenia patients (13/37 [35.1%]) than in control subjects (6/44 [13.6%]). Furthermore, those with schizophrenia had greater normalized gray matter volume but less white matter volume and had larger brain-to-cranial ratio. The results suggest that occipital bending is more prevalent among schizophrenia patients than healthy subjects and that schizophrenia patients have different gray matter-white matter proportions. Although the cause and clinical ramifications of occipital bending are unclear, the results infer that occipital bending may be a marker of psychiatric illness.

  3. Schizophrenia and Suicide

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ozlem Cetin

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available Suicide is one of the major causes of premature death among patients with schizophrenia. Follow-up studies have estimated that 4-5% of these patients die by suicide. Reducing the high rates of suicide in schizophrenia is possible with understanding of predictive risk factors. Various studies have identified risk factors for suicide in schizophrenia patients. Clinical risk factors include previous suicide attempts, comorbid depression, feelings of hopelessness, concept of insight and substance abuse. Biopsychosocial factors, such as a high intelligence quotient and high level of premorbid functioning, have also been associated with an increased risk of suicide in patients with schizophrenia. The risk of suicide is considered to be highest in the early course of illness. Antipsychotic drugs, in particular clozapine and antidepressants may be helpful in reducing the risk of suicide in schizophrenia.

  4. Inflammation in Patients with Schizophrenia: the Therapeutic Benefits of Risperidone Plus Add-On Dextromethorphan

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Shiou-Lan; Lee, Sheng-Yu; Chang, Yun-Hsuan; Chen, Shih-Heng; Chu, Chun-Hsieh; Tzeng, Nian-Sheng; Lee, I-Hui; Chen, Po-See; Yeh, Tzung Lieh; Huang, San-Yuan; Yang, Yen-Kuang; Lu, Ru-Band; Hong, Jau-Shyong

    2013-01-01

    Objectives Increasing evidence suggests that inflammation contributes to the etiology and progression of schizophrenia. Molecules that initiate inflammation, such as virus- and toxin-induced cytokines, are implicated in neuronal degeneration and schizophrenia-like behavior. Using therapeutic agents with anti-inflammatory or neurotrophic effects may be beneficial for treating schizophrenia. Methods One hundred healthy controls and 95 Han Chinese patients with schizophrenia were tested in this double-blind study. Their PANSS scores, plasma interleukin (IL)-1β, TNF-α and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels were measured before and after pharmacological treatment. Results Pretreatment, plasma levels of IL-1β and TNF-α were significantly higher in patients with schizophrenia than in controls, but plasma BDNF levels were significantly lower. Patients were treated with the atypical antipsychotic risperidone (Risp) only or with Risp+add-on dextromethorphan (DM). PANSS scores and plasma IL-1β levels significantly decreased, but plasma TNF-α and BDNF levels significantly increased after 11 weeks of Risp treatment. Patients in the Risp+DM group showed a greater and earlier reduction of symptoms than did those in the Risp-only group. Moreover, Risp+DM treatment attenuated Risp-induced plasma increases in TNF-α. Conclusion Patients with schizophrenia had a high level of peripheral inflammation and a low level of peripheral BDNF. Long-term Risp treatment attenuated inflammation and potentiated the neurotrophic function but also produced a certain degree of toxicity. Risp+DM was more beneficial and less toxic than Risp-only treatment. PMID:22730040

  5. GABA concentration in schizophrenia patients and the effects of antipsychotic medication: a proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tayoshi, Shin'Ya; Nakataki, Masahito; Sumitani, Satsuki; Taniguchi, Kyoko; Shibuya-Tayoshi, Sumiko; Numata, Shusuke; Iga, Jun-ichi; Ueno, Shu-ichi; Harada, Masafumi; Ohmori, Tetsuro

    2010-03-01

    Gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA) is thought to play a role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. High magnetic field proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy ((1)H-MRS) provides a reliable measurement of GABA in specific regions of the brain. This study measured GABA concentration in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and in the left basal ganglia (ltBG) in 38 patients with chronic schizophrenia and 29 healthy control subjects. There was no significant difference in GABA concentration between the schizophrenia patients and the healthy controls in either the ACC (1.36+/-0.45 mmol/l in schizophrenia patients and 1.52+/-0.54 mmol/l in control subjects) or the ltBG (1.13+/-0.26 mmol/l in schizophrenia patients and 1.18+/-0.20 mmol/l in control subjects). Among the right handed schizophrenia patients, the GABA concentration in the ltBG was significantly higher in patients taking typical antipsychotics (1.25+/-0.24 mmol/l) than in those taking atypical antipsychotics (1.03+/-0.24 mmol/l, p=0.026). In the ACC, the GABA concentration was negatively correlated with the dose of the antipsychotics (rs=-0.347, p=0.035). In the ltBG, the GABA concentration was positively correlated with the dose of the anticholinergics (rs=0.403, p=0.015). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to have directly measured GABA concentrations in schizophrenia patients using (1)H-MRS. Our results suggest that there are no differences in GABA concentrations in the ACC or the ltBG of schizophrenia patients compared to healthy controls. Antipsychotic medication may cause changes in GABA concentration, and atypical and typical antipsychotics may have differing effects. It is possible that medication effects conceal inherent differences in GABA concentrations between schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. (c) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  6. Association of IQ Changes and Progressive Brain Changes in Patients With Schizophrenia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kubota, Manabu; van Haren, Neeltje E. M.; Haijma, Sander V.; Schnack, Hugo G.; Cahn, Wiepke; Pol, Hilleke E. Hulshoff; Kahn, Rene S.

    IMPORTANCE Although schizophrenia is characterized by impairments in intelligence and the loss of brain volume, the relationship between changes in IQ and brain measures is not clear. OBJECTIVE To investigate the association between IQ and brain measures in patients with schizophrenia across time.

  7. Plasma levels of mature brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) in treatment-resistant schizophrenia treated with clozapine.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yamamori, Hidenaga; Hashimoto, Ryota; Ishima, Tamaki; Kishi, Fukuko; Yasuda, Yuka; Ohi, Kazutaka; Fujimoto, Michiko; Umeda-Yano, Satomi; Ito, Akira; Hashimoto, Kenji; Takeda, Masatoshi

    2013-11-27

    Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) regulates the survival and growth of neurons, and influences synaptic efficiency and plasticity. Peripheral BDNF levels in patients with schizophrenia have been widely reported in the literature. However, it is still controversial whether peripheral levels of BDNF are altered in patients with schizophrenia. The peripheral BDNF levels previously reported in patients with schizophrenia were total BDNF (proBDNF and mature BDNF) as it was unable to specifically measure mature BDNF due to limited BDNF antibody specificity. In this study, we examined whether peripheral levels of mature BDNF were altered in patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia. Matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) levels were also measured, as MMP-9 plays a role in the conversion of proBDNF to mature BDNF. Twenty-two patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia treated with clozapine and 22 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were enrolled. The plasma levels of mature BDNF and MMP-9 were measured using ELISA kits. No significant difference was observed for mature BDNF however, MMP-9 was significantly increased in patients with schizophrenia. The significant correlation was observed between mature BDNF and MMP-9 plasma levels. Neither mature BDNF nor MMP-9 plasma levels were associated clinical variables. Our results do not support the view that peripheral BDNF levels are associated with schizophrenia. MMP-9 may play a role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and serve as a biomarker for schizophrenia. Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  8. Frontal D2/3 Receptor Availability in Schizophrenia Patients Before and After Their First Antipsychotic Treatment: Relation to Cognitive Functions and Psychopathology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nørbak-Emig, Henrik; Ebdrup, Bjørn H; Fagerlund, Birgitte; Svarer, Claus; Rasmussen, Hans; Friberg, Lars; Allerup, Peter N; Rostrup, Egill; Pinborg, Lars H; Glenthøj, Birte Y

    2016-05-01

    We have previously reported associations between frontal D2/3 receptor binding potential positive symptoms and cognitive deficits in antipsychotic-naïve schizophrenia patients. Here, we examined the effect of dopamine D2/3 receptor blockade on cognition. Additionally, we explored the relation between frontal D2/3 receptor availability and treatment effect on positive symptoms. Twenty-five antipsychotic-naïve first-episode schizophrenia patients were examined with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, tested with the cognitive test battery Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery, scanned with single-photon emission computerized tomography using the dopamine D2/3 receptor ligand [(123)I]epidepride, and scanned with MRI. After 3 months of treatment with either risperidone (n=13) or zuclopenthixol (n=9), 22 patients were reexamined. Blockade of extrastriatal dopamine D2/3 receptors was correlated with decreased attentional focus (r = -0.615, P=.003) and planning time (r = -0.436, P=.048). Moreover, baseline frontal dopamine D2/3 binding potential and positive symptom reduction correlated positively (D2/3 receptor binding potential left frontal cortex rho = 0.56, P=.003; D2/3 receptor binding potential right frontal cortex rho = 0.48, P=.016). Our data support the hypothesis of a negative influence of D2/3 receptor blockade on specific cognitive functions in schizophrenia. This is highly clinically relevant given the well-established association between severity of cognitive disturbances and a poor functional outcome in schizophrenia. Additionally, the findings support associations between frontal D2/3 receptor binding potential at baseline and the effect of antipsychotic treatment on positive symptoms. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of CINP.

  9. Quantitative analyses of schizophrenia-associated metabolites in serum: serum D-lactate levels are negatively correlated with gamma-glutamylcysteine in medicated schizophrenia patients.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Takeshi Fukushima

    Full Text Available The serum levels of several metabolites are significantly altered in schizophrenia patients. In this study, we performed a targeted analysis of 34 candidate metabolites in schizophrenia patients (n = 25 and compared them with those in age- and gender-matched healthy subjects (n = 27. Orthogonal partial least square-discriminant analysis revealed that complete separation between controls and patients was achieved based on these metabolites. We found that the levels of γ-glutamylcysteine (γ-GluCys, linoleic acid, arachidonic acid, D-serine, 3-hydroxybutyrate, glutathione (GSH, 5-hydroxytryptamine, threonine, and tyrosine were significantly lower, while D-lactate, tryptophan, kynurenine, and glutamate levels were significantly higher in schizophrenia patients compared to controls. Using receiver operating characteristics (ROC curve analysis, the sensitivity, specificity, and the area under curve of γ-GluCys, a precursor of GSH, and D-lactate, a terminal metabolite of methylglyoxal, were 88.00%, 81.48%, and 0.8874, and 88.00%, 77.78%, and 0.8415, respectively. In addition, serum levels of D-lactate were negatively correlated with γ-GluCys levels in patients, but not in controls. The present results suggest that oxidative stress-induced damage may be involved in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia.

  10. Electroconvulsive therapy for treating schizophrenia: a chart review of patients from two catchment areas

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kristensen, Diana; Bauer, Jeanett; Pedersen, Ida Hageman

    2011-01-01

    To examine disease and treatment characteristics of patients with schizophrenia treated with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). We examined charts from 79 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia (n = 55), persistent delusional disorders (n = 7), and schizoaffective disorders (n = 17) between 2003...

  11. [The structure of aggression of the patients with paranoid schizophrenia and compensatory behavioral trends].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reverchuk, I V; Khudyakova, Yu Yu

    To study the structure of aggression of the patients with paranoid schizophrenia depending on sex and illness duration. 102 patients with paranoid schizophrenia and 101 healthy people, aged from 18 to 64 years, were examined. Quantitative indicators of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components of aggression were measured using the Buss-Perry questionnaire. The projective Hand-test was administered to assess aggressive behavioral tendencies and inclinations to aggressive behavior. The authors identified the dissociated structure of aggressiveness in patients with paranoid schizophrenia that manifested with dissociated cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components. The specifics of the structure of aggression and compensatory behavioral trends are described.

  12. Vitamin D receptor variants in 192 patients with schizophrenia and other psychiatric diseases.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yan, Jin; Feng, Jinong; Craddock, Nick; Jones, Ian R; Cook, Edwin H; Goldman, David; Heston, Leonard L; Chen, Jiesheng; Burkhart, Patricia; Li, Wenyan; Shibayama, Akane; Sommer, Steve S

    Intriguing parallels have been noted previously between the biology of Vitamin D and the epidemiology of schizophrenia. We have scanned the Vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene by DOVAM-S (Detection of Virtually All Mutations-SSCP), a robotically enhanced multiplexed scanning method. In total, 100 patients with schizophrenia (86 Caucasians and 14 African-Americans) were scanned. In addition, pilot experiments were performed in patients with bipolar disorder (BPD) (24), autism (24), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (24), and alcoholism (20). A total of 762 kb of the VDR genomic sequence was scanned. R208N and V339I were each found in one African-American patient, while absent in 35 African-American controls without schizophrenia (2/14 versus 0/35, P=0.08). Within the power of the study (> or =1.6-fold relative risk), the common M1T variant is not associated with schizophrenia. In the 92 scanned patients with other psychiatric diseases, R173S was found in a single patient with bipolar disorder. In conclusion, we describe three novel structural variants of the Vitamin D receptor. Further study is required to clarify their role, if any, in psychiatric disease.

  13. Memory deficit in patients with schizophrenia and posttraumatic stress disorder: relational vs item-specific memory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jung W

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Wookyoung Jung,1 Seung-Hwan Lee1,2 1Clinical Emotions and Cognition Research Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, Inje University, Ilsan-Paik Hospital, 2Department of Psychiatry, Inje University, Ilsan-Paik Hospital, Goyang, Korea Abstract: It has been well established that patients with schizophrenia have impairments in cognitive functioning and also that patients who experienced traumatic events suffer from cognitive deficits. Of the cognitive deficits revealed in schizophrenia or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD patients, the current article provides a brief review of deficit in episodic memory, which is highly predictive of patients’ quality of life and global functioning. In particular, we have focused on studies that compared relational and item-specific memory performance in schizophrenia and PTSD, because measures of relational and item-specific memory are considered the most promising constructs for immediate tangible development of clinical trial paradigm. The behavioral findings of schizophrenia are based on the tasks developed by the Cognitive Neuroscience Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (CNTRICS initiative and the Cognitive Neuroscience Test Reliability and Clinical Applications for Schizophrenia (CNTRACS Consortium. The findings we reviewed consistently showed that schizophrenia and PTSD are closely associated with more severe impairments in relational memory compared to item-specific memory. Candidate brain regions involved in relational memory impairment in schizophrenia and PTSD are also discussed. Keywords: schizophrenia, posttraumatic stress disorder, episodic memory deficit, relational memory, item-specific memory, prefrontal cortex, hippocampus

  14. Psychosocial Factors Contributing to Suicidal Ideation in Hospitalized Schizophrenia Patients in Korea

    OpenAIRE

    Kim, Sung-Wan; Kim, Su-Jung; Mun, Ji-Woong; Bae, Kyung-Yeol; Kim, Jae-Min; Kim, Seon-Young; Yang, Su-Jin; Shin, Il-Seon; Yoon, Jin-Sang

    2010-01-01

    Objective This study aimed to comprehensively evaluate psychosocial risk factors associated with suicidality in patients with schizophrenia in Korea. Methods The study sample consisted of 84 hospitalized patients with schizophrenia. Suicidal thoughts and a clear desire to be dead within 2 weeks were defined as a current suicidal ideation. Socio-demographic and clinical variables, including family history of completed suicides and psychiatric illnesses, were collected, and the Positive and Neg...

  15. An Integrated Care Initiative to Improve Patient Outcome in Schizophrenia

    OpenAIRE

    Mayer-Amberg, Norbert; Woltmann, Rainer; Walther, Stefanie

    2016-01-01

    The optimal treatment of schizophrenia patients requires integration of medical and psychosocial inputs. In Germany, various healthcare service providers and institutions are involved in the treatment process. Early and continuous treatment is important but often not possible because of the fragmented medical care system in Germany. The current work is a quality monitoring report of a novel care setting, called Integrated Care Initiative Schizophrenia. It has implemented a networked care con...

  16. [Spontaneous speech prosody and discourse analysis in schizophrenia and Fronto Temporal Dementia (FTD) patients].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martínez, Angela; Felizzola Donado, Carlos Alberto; Matallana Eslava, Diana Lucía

    2015-01-01

    Patients with schizophrenia and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) in their linguistic variants share some language characteristics such as the lexical access difficulties, disordered speech with disruptions, many pauses, interruptions and reformulations. For the schizophrenia patients it reflects a difficulty of affect expression, while for the FTD patients it reflects a linguistic issue. This study, through an analysis of a series of cases assessed Clinic both in memory and on the Mental Health Unit of HUSI-PUJ (Hospital Universitario San Ignacio), with additional language assessment (analysis speech and acoustic analysis), present distinctive features of the DFT in its linguistic variants and schizophrenia that will guide the specialist in finding early markers of a differential diagnosis. In patients with FTD language variants, in 100% of cases there is a difficulty understanding linguistic structure of complex type; and important speech fluency problems. In patients with schizophrenia, there are significant alterations in the expression of the suprasegmental elements of speech, as well as disruptions in discourse. We present how depth language assessment allows to reassess some of the rules for the speech and prosody analysis of patients with dementia and schizophrenia; we suggest how elements of speech are useful in guiding the diagnosis and correlate functional compromise in everyday psychiatrist's practice. Copyright © 2014 Asociación Colombiana de Psiquiatría. Publicado por Elsevier España. All rights reserved.

  17. Longitudinal volume changes of the pituitary gland in patients with schizotypal disorder and first-episode schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Takahashi, Tsutomu; Zhou, Shi-Yu; Nakamura, Kazue; Tanino, Ryoichiro; Furuichi, Atsushi; Kido, Mikio; Kawasaki, Yasuhiro; Noguchi, Kyo; Seto, Hikaru; Kurachi, Masayoshi; Suzuki, Michio

    2011-01-15

    An enlarged volume of the pituitary gland has been reported in the schizophrenia spectrum, possibly reflecting the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) hyperactivity. However, it remains largely unknown whether the pituitary size longitudinally changes in the course of the spectrum disorders. In the present study, longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data were obtained from 18 patients with first-episode schizophrenia, 13 patients with schizotypal disorder, and 20 healthy controls. The pituitary volume was measured at baseline and follow-up (mean, 2.7 years) scans and was compared across groups. The pituitary volume was larger in the schizophrenia patients than controls at baseline, and both patient groups had significantly larger pituitary volume than controls at follow-up. In a longitudinal comparison, both schizophrenia (3.6%/year) and schizotypal (2.7%/year) patients showed significant pituitary enlargement compared with controls (-1.8%/year). In the schizophrenia patients, greater pituitary enlargement over time was associated with less improvement of delusions and higher scores for thought disorders at the follow-up. These findings suggest that the pituitary gland exhibits ongoing volume changes during the early course of the schizophrenia spectrum as a possible marker of state-related impairments. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  18. Decreased DNA Methylation in the Shati/Nat8l Promoter in Both Patients with Schizophrenia and a Methamphetamine-Induced Murine Model of Schizophrenia-Like Phenotype.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kyosuke Uno

    Full Text Available The number of patients with schizophrenia has increased over the past decade. Previously, many studies have been performed to establish its diagnostic criteria, prophylactic methods, and effective therapies. In this study, we analyzed whether the ratios of DNA methylation in CpG islands of the Shati/Nat8l is decreased in model mice of schizophrenia-like phenotype using genomic DNA collected from brain regions and peripheral blood, since the mouse model of schizophrenia-like phenotype, mice treated repeatedly with methamphetamine showed increase of Shati/Nat8l mRNA expression in our previous experiment. The ratios of Shati/Nat8l CpG island methylation were significantly decreased in both the nucleus accumbens and the peripheral blood of model mice compared with those of control mice. We also investigated Shati/Nat8l methylation in the blood of patients with schizophrenia. We found that Shati/Nat8l CpG island methylation ratios were lower in the patients with schizophrenia than in the healthy controls, which is consistent with our findings in the mice model. To our knowledge, this is the first study to show similar alterations in methylation status of a particular genomic DNA site in both the brain and peripheral blood of mice. Furthermore, the same phenomenon was observed in corresponding human genomic sequences of the DNA extracted from the peripheral blood of patients with schizophrenia. Based on our findings, DNA methylation profiles of the CpG island of Shati/Nat8l might be a diagnostic biomarker of schizophrenia.

  19. The effects of antipsychotic drugs on depression level in patients with schizophrenia: clozapine vs. other atypical antipsychotics

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    Hülya Ertekin

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: Depressive symptoms may occur in all stages of schizophrenia disorder. Clozapine is the only antipsychotic that has been demonstrated superior efficacy in schizophrenia and suicidal ideation. The aim of this study is to evaluate depressive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia treated with clozapine and to compare with treated with other atypical antipsychotics.Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out on patients with schizophrenia according to DSM-IV-TR between December 2012 and May 2013. All participants were evaluated for demographic characteristics and points of Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, Positive, Negative Syndrome Scale, and Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia.Results: A total 23.6% (n = 13 patients treated with clozapine, while 76.4% (n = 42 patients were treated with other antipsychotic drugs. 23.1% (n = 3 of patients taking clozapine were women, 76.9% (n = 10 were male. The mean age of patients treated with clozapine was 43.0 ± 11.2. The level of depression of patients treated with clozapine was 15.4% (n = 2. No statistically significant difference was found between patients between treated with clozapine and other antipsychotics regarding age, sex, marital status, education years, work history, age at onset of disease, depression and history of suicide attemptConclusion: As a result of this study it is found that clozapine did not effect on the level of depression in patients with schizophrenia, and depression level of patients with schizophrenia treated with clozapine had no difference from  patients treated  with other antipsychotics.

  20. Association of Toxoplasma gondii infection with schizophrenia and its relationship with suicide attempts in these patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ansari-Lari, Maryam; Farashbandi, Hassan; Mohammadi, Fahimeh

    2017-10-01

    To investigate the association between schizophrenia and Toxoplasma gondii, and to assess the association of infection with suicide attempts and age of onset of schizophrenia in these patients. Case-control study Fars Province, southern Iran. Cases were individuals with psychiatric diagnosis of schizophrenia as per Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) criteria. Controls were healthy blood donors, frequency-matched with patients according to age and sex. For the detection of IgG antibodies, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used. Data about demographic information in all subjects and duration of illness and history of suicide attempts in patients with schizophrenia were collected using a brief questionnaire and hospital records. Chi-square test and multivariable logistic regression were used for statistical analyses. Among 99 cases, 42 individuals (42%) were positive for T. gondii antibody, vs. 41 (27%) among 152 controls (OR = 2, 95% CI: 1.2-3.4, P = 0.012). We compared the suicide attempts in patients with schizophrenia based on their T. gondii serologic status. There was a lower rate of suicide attempts in seropositive male patients than seronegative ones (OR = 0.3, 95% CI: 0.1-0.97, P = 0.04). Age of onset of schizophrenia did not differ between T. gondii-infected and non-infected patients. These findings may have implications for schizophrenia and suicide prevention programmes. However, clearly further studies are required to confirm them. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  1. The Relationship between Symptom Severity and Low Vitamin D Levels in Patients with Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doğan Bulut, Süheyla; Bulut, Serdar; Görkem Atalan, Dicle; Berkol, Tonguç; Gürçay, Eda; Türker, Türker; Aydemir, Çiğdem

    2016-01-01

    In recent years, the relationship between schizophrenia and environmental factors has come into prominence. This study investigated the relationship between vitamin D levels and the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia by comparing vitamin D levels between patients with schizophrenia and a healthy control group. The study included 80 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and 74 age- and sex-matched controls. The Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) and the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) were used to evaluate symptom severity. The 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) levels of all subjects both patients and healthy controls were analyzed in relation to measurements of symptom severity. There were no significant differences between the groups in terms of age, sex, or physical activity. Their mean 25OHD levels were also similar (23.46±13.98ng/mL for the patient group and 23.69±9.61ng/mL for the control group). But when patients with schizophrenia were grouped based on their vitamin D levels, the results indicated a statistically significant differences between their vitamin D levels and their total SANS, affective flattening, and total SAPS, bizarre behavior and positive formal thought disorder scores (p = 0.019, p = 0.004, p = 0.015, p = 0.009 and p = 0.019, respectively). There is a negative correlation between 25OHD levels and SANS total points (r = -0.232, p = 0.038); a negative correlation for attention points (r = -0.227, p = 0.044) and negative correlation with positive formal thoughts (r = -0.257, p = 0.021). The results of this study show a relationship between lower levels of vitamin D and the occurrence of positive and negative symptoms, along with increased severity of symptoms at lower levels of vitamin D, suggesting that treatment for schizophrenia should include assessment of patients' vitamin D levels. We recommend that patients with schizophrenia should be assessed with regard to their vitamin D levels.

  2. The Relationship between Symptom Severity and Low Vitamin D Levels in Patients with Schizophrenia.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Süheyla Doğan Bulut

    Full Text Available In recent years, the relationship between schizophrenia and environmental factors has come into prominence. This study investigated the relationship between vitamin D levels and the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia by comparing vitamin D levels between patients with schizophrenia and a healthy control group.The study included 80 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and 74 age- and sex-matched controls. The Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS and the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS were used to evaluate symptom severity. The 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD levels of all subjects both patients and healthy controls were analyzed in relation to measurements of symptom severity.There were no significant differences between the groups in terms of age, sex, or physical activity. Their mean 25OHD levels were also similar (23.46±13.98ng/mL for the patient group and 23.69±9.61ng/mL for the control group. But when patients with schizophrenia were grouped based on their vitamin D levels, the results indicated a statistically significant differences between their vitamin D levels and their total SANS, affective flattening, and total SAPS, bizarre behavior and positive formal thought disorder scores (p = 0.019, p = 0.004, p = 0.015, p = 0.009 and p = 0.019, respectively. There is a negative correlation between 25OHD levels and SANS total points (r = -0.232, p = 0.038; a negative correlation for attention points (r = -0.227, p = 0.044 and negative correlation with positive formal thoughts (r = -0.257, p = 0.021.The results of this study show a relationship between lower levels of vitamin D and the occurrence of positive and negative symptoms, along with increased severity of symptoms at lower levels of vitamin D, suggesting that treatment for schizophrenia should include assessment of patients' vitamin D levels. We recommend that patients with schizophrenia should be assessed with regard to their vitamin D

  3. Disturbed prepulse inhibition in patients with schizophrenia is consequential to dysfunction of selective attention.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scholes, Kirsty E; Martin-Iverson, Mathew T

    2010-03-01

    Controversy exists as to the cause of disturbed prepulse inhibition (PPI) in patients with schizophrenia. This study aimed to clarify the nature of PPI in schizophrenia using improved methodology. Startle and PPI were measured in 44 patients with schizophrenia and 32 controls across a range of startling stimulus intensities under two conditions, one while participants were attending to the auditory stimuli (ATTEND condition) and one while participants completed a visual task in order to ensure they were ignoring the auditory stimuli (IGNORE condition). Patients showed reduced PPI of R(MAX) (reflex capacity) and increased PPI of Hillslope (reflex efficacy) only under the INGORE condition, and failed to show the same pattern of attentional modulation of the reflex parameters as controls. In conclusion, disturbed PPI in schizophrenia appears to result from deficits in selective attention, rather than from preattentive dysfunction.

  4. Assessment of white matter abnormalities in paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar mania patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cui, Liqian; Chen, Zhuangfei; Deng, Wei; Huang, Xiaoqi; Li, Mingli; Ma, Xiaohong; Huang, Chaohua; Jiang, Lijun; Wang, Yingcheng; Wang, Qiang; Collier, David A; Gong, Qiyong; Li, Tao

    2011-12-30

    White matter abnormalities have been repeatedly reported in both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (BD) in diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies, but the empirical evidence about the diagnostic specificity of white matter abnormalities in these disorders is still limited. This study sought to investigate the alterations in fractional anisotropy (FA) in white matter throughout the entire brain of patients from Chengdu, China with paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar mania. For this purpose, DTI was used to assess white matter integrity in patients with paranoid schizophrenia (n=25) and psychotic bipolar mania (n=18) who had been treated with standard pharmacotherapy for fewer than 5 days at the time of study, as well as in normal controls (n=30). The differences in FA were measured by use of voxel-based analysis. The results show that reduced FA was found in the left posterior corona radiata (PCR) in patients with psychotic bipolar mania and paranoid schizophrenia compared to the controls. Patients with psychotic bipolar mania also showed a significant reduction in FA in right posterior corona radiata and in right anterior thalamic radiation (ATR). A direct comparison between the two patient groups found no significant differences in any regions, and none of the findings were associated with illness duration. Correlation analysis indicated that FA values showed a significant negative correlation with positive symptom scores on the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale in the left frontal-parietal lobe in the paranoid schizophrenia. It was concluded that common abnormalities in the left PCR might imply an overlap in white matter pathology in the two disorders and might be related to shared risk factors for the two disorders. 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Elevated brain lactate in schizophrenia: a 7 T magnetic resonance spectroscopy study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rowland, L M; Pradhan, S; Korenic, S; Wijtenburg, S A; Hong, L E; Edden, R A; Barker, P B

    2016-11-29

    Various lines of evidence suggest that brain bioenergetics and mitochondrial function may be altered in schizophrenia. On the basis of prior phosphorus-31 ( 31 P)-magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), post-mortem and preclinical studies, this study was designed to test the hypothesis that abnormal glycolysis leads to elevated lactate concentrations in subjects with schizophrenia. The high sensitivity of 7 Tesla proton ( 1 H)-MRS was used to measure brain lactate levels in vivo. Twenty-nine controls and 27 participants with schizophrenia completed the study. MRS scanning was conducted on a Philips 'Achieva' 7T scanner, and spectra were acquired from a voxel in the anterior cingulate cortex. Patients were assessed for psychiatric symptom severity, and all participants completed the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) and University of California, San Diego Performance-Based Skills Assessment (UPSA). The relationship between lactate, psychiatric symptom severity, MCCB and UPSA was examined. Lactate was significantly higher in patients compared with controls (P=0.013). Higher lactate was associated with lower MCCB (r=-0.36, P=0.01) and UPSA total scores (r=-0.43, P=0.001). We believe this is the first study to report elevated in vivo cerebral lactate levels in schizophrenia. Elevated lactate levels in schizophrenia may reflect increased anaerobic glycolysis possibly because of mitochondrial dysfunction. This study also suggests that altered cerebral bioenergetics contribute to cognitive and functional impairments in schizophrenia.

  6. The prevalence and risk factors of stroke in patients with chronic schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Liang Y

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Ying Liang,1 Jian Huang,1 Jingbin Tian,2 Yuanyuan Cao,2 Guoling Zhang,2 Chungang Wang,2 Ying Cao,2 Jianrong Li2 1National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, Peking University Sixth Hospital, Institute of Mental Health, Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Ministry of Health, Peking University, 2Changping Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, Beijing, People’s Republic of China Objective: To investigate the stroke risk and risk factors in patients with chronic schizophrenia.Patients and methods: This study was a large-sample, cross-sectional survey. A total of 363 patients with chronic schizophrenia were selected from the Changping Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, Beijing, in August 2014. The patients were divided into either stroke group or control group based on the presence of stroke. Clinical evaluation included positive and negative syndrome scale assessment and a detailed questionnaire to collect the general information and disease-related conditions.Results: The prevalence of stroke was 16.5% (60 cases. Stroke and control groups showed a significant difference in age, sex, smoking, combined medication, doses, negative factor score in positive and negative syndrome scale, body mass index, waist circumference, and systolic blood pressure. Multivariate analysis showed that a number of factors are significantly related to stroke, including age, sex, smoking, combined medication, doses, body mass index, and systolic blood pressure.Conclusion: The prevalence of stroke is relatively higher in Chinese patients with chronic schizophrenia. Chronic schizophrenia patients are more likely to suffer from stroke; meanwhile, a number of risk factors were identified, including old age, female sex, smoking history, combined medication with a variety of drugs, high doses, obesity, and high blood pressure. Keywords: schizophrenia, stroke, risk, risk factors

  7. [Integrated management of patients with schizophrenia: beyond psychotropic drugs].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taborda Zapata, Eliana; Montoya Gonzalez, Laura Elisa; Gómez Sierra, Natalia María; Arteaga Morales, Laura María; Correa Rico, Oscar Andrés

    2016-01-01

    Schizophrenia is a complex disease with severe functional repercussions; therefore it merits treatment which goes beyond drugs. It requires an approach that considers a diathesis-stress process that includes rehabilitation, psychotherapeutic strategies for persistent cognitive, negative and psychotic symptoms, psychoeducation of patient and communities, community adaptation strategies, such as the introduction to the work force, and the community model, such as a change in the asylum paradigm. It is necessary to establish private and public initiatives for the integrated care of schizophrenia in the country, advocating the well-being of those with the disease. The integrated management of schizophrenic patients requires a global view of the patient and his/her disease, and its development is essential. Copyright © 2015 Asociación Colombiana de Psiquiatría. Publicado por Elsevier España. All rights reserved.

  8. Facial emotion perception impairments in schizophrenia patients with comorbid antisocial personality disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tang, Dorothy Y Y; Liu, Amy C Y; Lui, Simon S Y; Lam, Bess Y H; Siu, Bonnie W M; Lee, Tatia M C; Cheung, Eric F C

    2016-02-28

    Impairment in facial emotion perception is believed to be associated with aggression. Schizophrenia patients with antisocial features are more impaired in facial emotion perception than their counterparts without these features. However, previous studies did not define the comorbidity of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) using stringent criteria. We recruited 30 participants with dual diagnoses of ASPD and schizophrenia, 30 participants with schizophrenia and 30 controls. We employed the Facial Emotional Recognition paradigm to measure facial emotion perception, and administered a battery of neurocognitive tests. The Life History of Aggression scale was used. ANOVAs and ANCOVAs were conducted to examine group differences in facial emotion perception, and control for the effect of other neurocognitive dysfunctions on facial emotion perception. Correlational analyses were conducted to examine the association between facial emotion perception and aggression. Patients with dual diagnoses performed worst in facial emotion perception among the three groups. The group differences in facial emotion perception remained significant, even after other neurocognitive impairments were controlled for. Severity of aggression was correlated with impairment in perceiving negative-valenced facial emotions in patients with dual diagnoses. Our findings support the presence of facial emotion perception impairment and its association with aggression in schizophrenia patients with comorbid ASPD. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Improving quality of life and physical health in patients with schizophrenia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hjorth, Peter; Medici, Clara Reece; Juel, Anette

    2017-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Patients with schizophrenia experience low quality of life (QoL) and poor physical health, which is explained, in part, by unhealthy lifestyle, tobacco smoking, poor diet and sedentary behavior. AIM: To measure QoL and physical health in patients with schizophrenia and to quantify...... associations between QoL and physical health. METHODS: This was a naturalistic longitudinal 30-month follow-up study including individual guidance, group sessions and treatment as usual. RESULTS: We included 190 patients. QoL was low among newly diagnosed patients. Higher body mass index was significantly...... associated with lower QoL. Newly diagnosed male patients showed lower QoL compared with females. Newly diagnosed patients experienced worsened health during the study period. In contrast, long-term schizophrenic patients started with worse physical health but improved with regard to weight, waist...

  10. Spatial behavior reflects the mental disorder in OCD patients with and without comorbid schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gershoni, Anat; Hermesh, Haggai; Fineberg, Naomi A; Eilam, David

    2014-02-01

    Resolving the entangled nosological dilemma of whether obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) with and without schizophrenia (schizo-OCD and OCD, respectively) are two independent entities or whether schizo-OCD is a combined product of its parent disorders. Studying motor activity in OCD and in schizo-OCD patients. Performance of the patients was compared with the performance of the same motor task by a matching control individual. Behavior in both schizo-OCD and OCD patients differed from controls in the excessive repetition and addition of acts, thus validating an identical OC facet. However, there was a significant difference in spatial behavior. Schizo-OCD patients traveled over a greater area with less focused activity as typical to schizophrenia patients and in contrast to OCD patients, who were more focused and traveled less in a confined area. While schizo-OCD and OCD patients share most of the OC ritualistic attributes, they differ in the greater spread of activity in schizo-OCD, which is related to schizophrenia disorder. It is suggested that the finding on difference in spatial behavior is a reflection of the mental differences between OCD and schizophrenia. In other words, this could be an overt and observable manifestation of the mental state, and therefore may facilitate the nosology of OC spectrum disorders and OCD. It seems as if both the OCD patients' focus on specific thoughts, and the contrasting wandering thoughts of schizophrenia patients, are reflected in the focused activity of the former and wandering from one place to the next of the latter.

  11. Diagnostic agreement of schizophrenia spectrum disorders among chronic patients with functional psychoses

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jakobsen, K D; Frederiksen, J N; Parnas, J

    2006-01-01

    of 100 individuals (35 women and 65 men) were randomly sampled and assessed using the Operational Criteria Checklist for Psychotic Illness and Affective Illness (OPCRIT). Based on the OPCRIT diagnoses the subjects suffering from schizophrenia and schizophrenia spectrum disorders according to seven...... function previous to the onset of illness. Similarly high pairwise CR were observed for schizophrenia spectrum disorders across all diagnostic systems. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that diagnostic agreement is higher among chronic patients than that observed in subjects with a recent onset...... serious epistemological consequences, thus underlining the conventional nature of the present schizophrenia diagnoses and the need for biologically founded diagnostic criteria....

  12. Stable cognitive deficits in schizophrenia patients with comorbid obsessive-compulsive symptoms: a 12-month longitudinal study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schirmbeck, Frederike; Rausch, Franziska; Englisch, Susanne; Eifler, Sarah; Esslinger, Christine; Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas; Zink, Mathias

    2013-11-01

    Amongst schizophrenia patients, a large subgroup of up to 25% also suffers from comorbid obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCSs). The association between comorbid OCSs in these patients and neuropsychological impairment remains unclear and somewhat contradictory. Longitudinal approaches investigating the stability of OCS-associated cognitive deficits are missing. Thirty-seven patients with schizophrenia and comorbid OCSs and 43 schizophrenia patients without OCS were assessed with a comprehensive cognitive test battery and compared at baseline and, again, 12 months later. Schizophrenia patients with comorbid OCSs showed significant pronounced deficits, with increasing effect sizes over the 12-month assessment period in specific cognitive areas such as visuospatial perception and visual memory (WAIS-R block design, Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test), executive functioning (perseveration in the Wisconsin Card Sorting test), and cognitive flexibility (Trail Making test B). These cognitive domains are correlated with OCS severity and are known to be candidate cognitive domains in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). OCSs in schizophrenia is associated with specific and longitudinally stable cognitive deficits, strongly arguing for at least partially overlapping neurobiological mechanisms with OCD. Prospective studies involving patients with at-risk mental states for psychosis are necessary to decipher the interaction of cognitive impairment and the clinical manifestations of schizophrenia and OCSs. This might facilitate the definition of patients at high risk for OCSs, an early detection of subclinical levels, therapeutic interventions, and clinical monitoring.

  13. Do patients with paranoid and disorganized schizophrenia respond differently to antipsychotic drugs?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Corves, C; Engel, R R; Davis, J; Leucht, S

    2014-07-01

    The aim of this study was to compare the differential response to amisulpride in patients with paranoid versus disorganized schizophrenia. We reanalyzed the original data from five different randomized drug trials comparing Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) scores in a database containing 427 paranoid and 296 disorganized patients with schizophrenia. Both the disorganized and the paranoid group showed a substantial improvement of the BPRS total score within the first 4 weeks. In the paranoid group, mean (±SD) BPRS reduction was 16.9 (±14.6) (t = 24.06, df = 426, P Paranoid patients improved by 4.8 BPRS points more than disorganized patients (adjusted means 18.90 (CI = 17.33-20.37) for the paranoid and 14.1 (CI = 12.04 - 16.11) for the disorganized group. We conclude that amisulpride is effective in disorganized as well as in paranoid schizophrenia, but that symptom reduction in the disorganized subtype is less pronounced. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  14. Exploration of somatosensory P50 gating in schizophrenia spectrum patients

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Arnfred, Sidse M; Chen, Andrew C N

    2004-01-01

    , male, schizophrenia spectrum patients (seven schizophrenic and five schizotypal personality disorder patients) and 14 age-matched healthy men participated in recordings of pair-wise presented auditory and median nerve stimuli. The patients had smaller amplitudes of the SEP P50 at the first stimulus...

  15. [Inbreeding, endogamy and exogamy among relatives of schizophrenia patients].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abaskuliev, A A; Skoblo, G V

    1975-01-01

    An increased frequency of consanguineous marriages among the parents of schizophrenic patients in comparison with the control group of exogenous-somatic patients (infections, trauma) was found. Endogamy among the parents of schizophrenic patients and the control group was practically the same. The data obtained indicate a certain, but not the leading, role of inbreeding in the etiology of schizophrenia.

  16. Nonverbal Synchrony in Social Interactions of Patients with Schizophrenia Indicates Socio-Communicative Deficits.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zeno Kupper

    Full Text Available Disordered interpersonal communication can be a serious problem in schizophrenia. Recent advances in computer-based measures allow reliable and objective quantification of nonverbal behavior. Research using these novel measures has shown that objective amounts of body and head movement in patients with schizophrenia during social interactions are closely related to the symptom profiles of these patients. In addition to and above mere amounts of movement, the degree of synchrony, or imitation, between patients and normal interactants may be indicative of core deficits underlying various problems in domains related to interpersonal communication, such as symptoms, social competence, and social functioning.Nonverbal synchrony was assessed objectively using Motion Energy Analysis (MEA in 378 brief, videotaped role-play scenes involving 27 stabilized outpatients diagnosed with paranoid-type schizophrenia.Low nonverbal synchrony was indicative of symptoms, low social competence, impaired social functioning, and low self-evaluation of competence. These relationships remained largely significant when correcting for the amounts of patients' movement. When patients showed reduced imitation of their interactants' movements, negative symptoms were likely to be prominent. Conversely, positive symptoms were more prominent in patients when their interaction partners' imitation of their movements was reduced.Nonverbal synchrony can be an objective and sensitive indicator of the severity of patients' problems. Furthermore, quantitative analysis of nonverbal synchrony may provide novel insights into specific relationships between symptoms, cognition, and core communicative problems in schizophrenia.

  17. Prevalence and correlates of depressive symptoms in a catchment-area based cohort of older community-living schizophrenia patients

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Meesters, P.D.; Comijs, H.C.; Sonnenberg, C.M.; Hoogendoorn, A.W.; de Haan, L.; Eikelenboom, P.; Beekman, A.T.F.; Stek, M.L.

    2014-01-01

    Background: Depressive symptoms frequently accompany schizophrenia. Older patients constitute the fastest growing segment of the schizophrenia population. With regard to the risk factors associated with depression, it is uncertain to which extent older schizophrenia patients differ from their age

  18. Mindfulness, Quality of Life, and Severity of Depressive Symptoms Among Patients With Schizophrenia and Patients With Major Depressive Disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rayan, Ahmad Hussien Rateb

    2017-05-01

    The current study used a descriptive correlational design to examine the relationship between mindfulness and quality of life (QOL) among patients with schizophrenia (n = 160) and patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) (n = 161), controlling for demographic and clinical variables. Participants completed self-reported questionnaires regarding demographic variables, severity of depression, QOL, and mindfulness. Patients diagnosed with MDD had higher mindfulness scores than patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Mindfulness scores were significantly associated with the severity of depression among participants. After controlling for the demographic variables and severity of depressive symptoms, mindfulness had a unique variance in QOL among patients with schizophrenia, but not among patients with MDD. The current study provides preliminary evidence regarding the role of mindfulness in improving depressive symptoms and the overall QOL among patients diagnosed with mental illness. [Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services, 55(5), 40-50.]. Copyright 2017, SLACK Incorporated.

  19. [Development and Effects of a Cognitive-behavioral Therapy Based Program in Reducing Internalized Stigma in Patients with Schizophrenia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Mi Young; Jun, Seong Sook

    2016-06-01

    This study was done to develop a internalized stigma reducing program based on cognitive-behavioral therapy and appropriate for patients with schizophrenia and to evaluate its effectiveness. The study design was a mixed method research. Qualitative study, 13 patients with schizophrenia who had experience in overcoming stigma were purposively chosen for interviews and data were analyzed using Giorgi method. Quantitative study, 64 patients with schizophrenia (experimental group=32, control group=32) were recruited. The cognitive-behavioral therapy-based program for reducing internalized stigma in patients with schizophrenia was provided for 8 weeks (12 sessions). Data were collected from June. 20, 2013 to Feb. 14, 2014. Quantitative data were analyzed using χ²-test, t-test, repeated measures ANOVA with the SPSS program. Qualitative results, from the experience of coping with stigma in patients with schizophrenia seventeen themes and five themes-clusters were drawn up. Quantitative results showed that internalized stigma, self-esteem, mental health recovery and quality of life were significantly better in the experimental group compared to the control group. Study findings indicate that this program for reducing internalized stigma in patients with schizophrenia is effective and can be recommended as a rehabilitation program intervention to help patients with schizophrenia to cope with internalized stigma.

  20. Detection of visual events along the apparent motion trace in patients with paranoid schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sanders, Lia Lira Olivier; Muckli, Lars; de Millas, Walter; Lautenschlager, Marion; Heinz, Andreas; Kathmann, Norbert; Sterzer, Philipp

    2012-07-30

    Dysfunctional prediction in sensory processing has been suggested as a possible causal mechanism in the development of delusions in patients with schizophrenia. Previous studies in healthy subjects have shown that while the perception of apparent motion can mask visual events along the illusory motion trace, such motion masking is reduced when events are spatio-temporally compatible with the illusion, and, therefore, predictable. Here we tested the hypothesis that this specific detection advantage for predictable target stimuli on the apparent motion trace is reduced in patients with paranoid schizophrenia. Our data show that, although target detection along the illusory motion trace is generally impaired, both patients and healthy control participants detect predictable targets more often than unpredictable targets. Patients had a stronger motion masking effect when compared to controls. However, patients showed the same advantage in the detection of predictable targets as healthy control subjects. Our findings reveal stronger motion masking but intact prediction of visual events along the apparent motion trace in patients with paranoid schizophrenia and suggest that the sensory prediction mechanism underlying apparent motion is not impaired in paranoid schizophrenia. Copyright © 2012. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

  1. Prevalence and correlates of depressive symptoms in a catchment-area based cohort of older community-living schizophrenia patients

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Meesters, Paul D.; Comijs, Hannie C.; Sonnenberg, Caroline M.; Hoogendoorn, Adriaan W.; de Haan, Lieuwe; Eikelenboom, Piet; Beekman, Aartjan T. F.; Stek, Max L.

    2014-01-01

    Depressive symptoms frequently accompany schizophrenia. Older patients constitute the fastest growing segment of the schizophrenia population. With regard to the risk factors associated with depression, it is uncertain to which extent older schizophrenia patients differ from their age peers in the

  2. One patient with Sjogren’s syndrome presenting schizophrenia-like symptoms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lin CE

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Ching-En Lin1,2 1Department of Psychiatry, Taipei Tzu-Chi Hospital, Buddhist Medical Foundation, Taiwan, Republic of China; 2School of Medicine, Tzu-Chi University, Hualien, Taiwan, Republic of China Abstract: Comorbid depression in patients with Sjogren’s syndrome has been reported frequently, while comorbid psychosis in subjects with Sjogren’s syndrome has rarely been reported. Here we report a patient with Sjogren’s syndrome who presented with schizophrenia-like symptoms such as persecutory delusions and auditory hallucinations in contrast to her previous psychiatric presentations, which only included depression and anxiety. Keywords: mental illness, psychosis, Sjogren’s syndrome, schizophrenia

  3. An optimized voxel-based morphometry MRI study of the brain in patients with first episode schizophrenia

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lv Su; Huang Xiaoqi; Tang Hehan; Gong Qiyong; Ouyang Luo; Deng Wei; Jiang Lijun; Li Tao

    2007-01-01

    Objective: To evaluate the structural differences between patients with first episode schizophrenia and normal controls using optimized voxel-based morphometry (VBM) study. Methods: High resolution T 1 weighted images were obtained using 3.0 T MR from 13 first-episode, untreated schizophrenia and 13 age, sex, handedness matched normal controls. Images were preprocessed by employing the optimized VBM and two sample t-test was used to detect differences between patients and normal controls with respect to both density and volume of gray matter in the brain. Results Patients with schizophrenia had significant lower gray matter density and gray matter volume generally distributed among bilateral hemispheres, especially in bilateral frontal and temporal lobes. However, no significant increase of gray matter density and gray matter volume was observed in these patients. Conclusions: Optimized voxel-based morphometry study is an automatic and effective method to study psychological diseases such as schizophrenia. Compared with normal controls, patients with schizophrenia had significantly lower gray matter density and gray matter volume across the bilateral hemispheres. (authors)

  4. Persistent suicide risk in clinically improved schizophrenia patients: challenge of the suicidal dimension

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amresh Shrivastava

    2010-09-01

    Full Text Available Amresh Shrivastava1, Megan E Johnston2, Nilesh Shah3, Marco Innamorati4, Larry Stitt5, Meghana Thakar3, David Lester6, Maurizio Pompili4,71Silver Mind Hospital and Mental Health Foundation of India, Mumbai, India; 2Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; 3Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, University of Mumbai, India; 4Department of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Sensory Functions, Suicide Prevention Center, Sant’Andrea Hospital, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; 5Department of Biostatistics, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada; 6The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Pomona, NJ, USA; 7McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USABackground: Suicide is a major problem in schizophrenia, estimated to affect 9%–13% of patients. About 25% of schizophrenic patients make at least one suicide attempt in their lifetime. Current outcome measures do not address this problem, even though it affects quality of life and patient safety. The aim of this study was to assess suicidality in long-term clinically improved schizophrenia patients who were treated in a nongovernmental psychiatric treatment centre in Mumbai, India.Method: Participants were 61 patients out of 200 consecutive hospitalized first-episode patients with schizophrenia diagnosed according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders who were much improved on the Clinical Global Impression Scale-Improvement (CGI-I scale at the endpoint of a 10-year follow-up. Clinical assessment tools included the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale for Schizophrenia, CGI-I, Global Assessment of Functioning, and suicidality.Results: Many of the patients, although clinically improved, experienced emerging suicidality during the 10-year follow-up period. All of the patients reported significant suicidality (ie, suicide attempts, suicidal crises, or suicidal ideation at the end of the study, whereas only 83% had

  5. Explanatory Models of Illness, Help Seeking Behaviours and Related Factors in Patients with Schizophrenia: A Comparative Study from Two Different Provinces of Turkey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yalvaç, Hayriye Dilek; Mutlu, Elif Aktan; Kotan, Zeynep; Özer, İbrahim; Karslıoğlu, Ersin Hatice; Çayköylü, Ali

    2017-11-01

    This study aims to identify the help seeking behaviours of patients from two geographically distinct provinces of Turkey. A questionnaire about sociodemographic characteristics and help seeking ways was applied to 49 schizophrenia patients from Van, 99 from Ankara. The ratio of patients seeking psychiatric help at the beginning of their illness was 76% in Ankara, the capital city, in contrast to 54% in Van (p = 0.01). Twenty-two percent of patients from Ankara and 69% from Van reported that non-psychiatric help seeking was the choice of their families (p help (p = 0.002). Help seeking behaviours show regional variations. Religious help seeking behaviour is a major way of dealing with the illness. Psychoeducation is a crucial need both for patients and families.

  6. [The resilience and health status of primary caregivers of schizophrenia patients].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fan, Ya-Chi; Chen, Mei-Bih; Lin, Kuan-Chia; Bai, Ya-Mei; Wei, Shiow-Jing

    2014-12-01

    Resilience has been shown to have a positive effect on health status. However, little research has been conducted on the impact of resilience on the health of primary caregivers of schizophrenia patients. This study investigated the correlations between resilience and the health status of caregivers of schizophrenia patients. A cross-sectional, descriptive research design was used. Data collection was conducted using a set of questionnaires that included a demographic datasheet, the SOC-13 (Sense of Coherence), the DASS-21 (Depression Anxiety Stress Scales), and the SF-36 (short form). Seventy caregivers of schizophrenia patients were enrolled as participants at the psychiatric inpatient department of a medical center. SPSS 17.0 and SAS.9.2 statistical software packages were used to conduct descriptive analysis, the Sobel test, and Tobit model analysis. (1) The mean QOL (quality of life) scale score was 67.46 (SD = 17.74). Nearly one-fifth (18.6%) of caregivers were classified in the low to high depression range; 17.1% were classified in the low to high anxiety level; and 10% were classified in low to high stress level. (2) Duration of the caring period correlated negatively with caregiver QOL; having a concomitant disease significantly impacted QOL and resilience; and number of patient hospitalization days correlated negatively with level of caregiver anxiety. (3) The numbers of incidents of patient violence and patient suicide attempts correlated negatively with caregiver resilience and QOL. (4) Resilience was a mediator between care-giver demographic data and QOL. (5) Caregiver resilience was a predictor of QOL, depression, anxiety, and stress. The findings of the present study increase our understanding of the impact of resilience on the health status of caregivers of schizophrenia patients. The authors hope these finding may be referenced in the development of resilience-based nursing caring models in the future.

  7. Pregabalin for anxiety in patients with schizophrenia - A randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schjerning, Ole; Damkier, Per; Lykkegaard, Signe Engelhardt

    2017-01-01

    INTRODUCTION: Anxiety is frequent in patients with schizophrenia and poses a major impact on patients perceived quality of life, daily functioning and risk of suicide. Pregabalin has shown effective in the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder and has been suggested for the treatment of anxiety...... in patients with schizophrenia. As evidence is sparse regarding treatment of anxiety in this patient group, we aimed to investigate the use of pregabalin for anxiety in patients with schizophrenia. METHODS: A randomized, double-blind placebo controlled study was used. Patients were randomized to either...... placebo or pregabalin (≤600mg/d) as add-on treatment. Primary analyses were intention-to-treat based with change in Hamilton Anxiety Scale after 4 and 8weeks of treatment as primary outcome. Secondary outcomes were change in psychopathology, quality-of-life, cognitive functioning and sleep. The study used...

  8. Second-generation long-acting injectable antipsychotics in schizophrenia: patient functioning and quality of life

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Montemagni C

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available Cristiana Montemagni,1,2 Tiziana Frieri,1,2 Paola Rocca1,2 1Department of Neuroscience, Unit of Psychiatry, University of Turin, 2Department of Mental Health, Azienda Sanitaria Locale (ASL Torino 1 (TO1, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria (AOU Città della Salute e della Scienza di Torino, Turin, Italy Abstract: Long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAIs were developed to make treatment easier, improve adherence, and/or signal the clinician when nonadherence occurs. Second-generation antipsychotic LAIs (SGA-LAIs combine the advantages of SGA with a long-acting formulation. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the available literature concerning the impact of SGA-LAIs on patient functioning and quality of life (QOL. Although several studies regarding schizophrenia patients’ functioning and QOL have been performed, the quantity of available data still varies greatly depending on the SGA-LAI under investigation. After reviewing the literature, it seems that SGA-LAIs are effective in ameliorating patient functioning and/or QOL of patients with schizophrenia, as compared with placebo. However, while methodological design controversy exists regarding the superiority of risperidone LAI versus oral antipsychotics, the significant amount of evidence in recently published research demonstrates the beneficial influence of risperidone LAI on patient functioning and QOL in stable patients and no benefit over oral treatment in unstable patients. However, the status of the research on SGA-LAIs is lacking in several aspects that may help physicians in choosing the correct drug therapy. Meaningful differences have been observed between SGA-LAIs in the onset of their clinical efficacy and in the relationships between symptoms and functioning scores. Moreover, head-to-head studies comparing the effects of SGA-LAIs on classical measures of psychopathology and functioning are available mainly on risperidone LAI, while those comparing olanzapine LAI with other

  9. The assessment of the nutritional value of meals consumed by patients with recognized schizophrenia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stefańska, Ewa; Wendołowicz, Agnieszka; Lech, Magdalena; Wilczyńska, Karolina; Konarzewska, Beata; Zapolska, Joanna; Ostrowska, Lucyna

    2018-01-01

    As studies show, changes in diet - so important in the therapy of psychiatric disorders and related to changes in appetite and nutritional preferences, including avoiding of the consumption of specific groups of products and dishes - are much more frequent among patients affected by schizophrenia. The aim of the study was to assess the chosen nutritional habits, including the number and type of meals usually consumed during a day, snacking between meals and the energy value and content of the chosen nutrients in the diets of persons with recognized schizophrenia. The study was carried out in a group of 85 patients with recognized schizophrenia, and 70 healthy volunteers ranging in age from 18-65 years without mental or nutritional disorders. For the purpose of the study, we used a questionnaire containing questions on nutritional habits. A 24-hour diet recall was used in the quantitative nutritional assessment with the use of the computer program Dieta 5.0. Female patients with recognized schizophrenia were having 3 meals a day significantly more frequently as compared to healthy women. They were also having an afternoon snack much more frequently as compared to the control group. The food rations of female patients were characterized by a significantly higher energy value and the content of most of the assessed nutrients as compared to the food rations of healthy women. The food rations of men with recognized schizophrenia were characterized by a much lower energy intake and the content of the majority of assessed nutrients as compared to the food rations of healthy men. In all compared groups, we observed an energetic structure of food rations with the breakdown by specific meals that was inconsistent with the applicable recommendations. Despite of differences between the nutritional value of the meals of patients with recognized schizophrenia and those of healthy subjects, it seems advisable to involve patients with recognized schizophrenia in the education of

  10. Schizophrenia patients and 22q11.2 deletion syndrome adolescents at risk express the same deviant patterns of resting state EEG microstates: A candidate endophenotype of schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miralena I. Tomescu

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Schizophrenia is a complex psychiatric disorder and many of the factors contributing to its pathogenesis are poorly understood. In addition, identifying reliable neurophysiological markers would improve diagnosis and early identification of this disease. The 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS is one major risk factor for schizophrenia. Here, we show further evidence that deviant temporal dynamics of EEG microstates are a potential neurophysiological marker by showing that the resting state patterns of 22q11DS are similar to those found in schizophrenia patients. The EEG microstates are recurrent topographic distributions of the ongoing scalp potential fields with temporal stability of around 80 ms that are mapping the fast reconfiguration of resting state networks. Five minutes of high-density EEG recordings was analysed from 27 adult chronic schizophrenia patients, 27 adult controls, 30 adolescents with 22q11DS, and 28 adolescent controls. In both patient groups we found increased class C, but decreased class D presence and high transition probabilities towards the class C microstates. Moreover, these aberrant temporal dynamics in the two patient groups were also expressed by perturbations of the long-range dependency of the EEG microstates. These findings point to a deficient function of the salience and attention resting state networks in schizophrenia and 22q11DS as class C and class D microstates were previously associated with these networks, respectively. These findings elucidate similarities between individuals at risk and schizophrenia patients and support the notion that abnormal temporal patterns of EEG microstates might constitute a marker for developing schizophrenia.

  11. Irony and Proverb Comprehension in Schizophrenia: Do Female Patients “Dislike” Ironic Remarks?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rapp, Alexander M.; Langohr, Karin; Mutschler, Dorothee E.; Wild, Barbara

    2014-01-01

    Difficulties in understanding irony and sarcasm are part of the social cognition deficits in patients with schizophrenia. A number of studies have reported higher error rates during comprehension in patients with schizophrenia. However, the relationships of these impairments to schizotypal personality traits and other language deficits, such as the comprehension of proverbs, are unclear. We investigated irony and proverb comprehension in an all-female sample of 20 schizophrenia patients and 27 matched controls. Subjects indicated if a statement was intended to be ironic, literal, or meaningless and furthermore rated the meanness and funniness of the stimuli and certainty of their decision. Patients made significantly more errors than controls did. Globally, there were no overall differences in the ratings. However, patients rated the subgroup of stimuli with answers given incorrectly as having significantly less meanness and in case of an error indicated a significantly higher certainty than controls. Across all of the study participants, performances in irony (r = −0.51) and proverb (r = 0.56) comprehension were significantly correlated with schizotypal personality traits, suggesting a continuum of nonliteral language understanding. Because irony is so frequent in everyday conversations, this makes irony an especially promising candidate for social cognition training in schizophrenia. PMID:24991434

  12. Irony and Proverb Comprehension in Schizophrenia: Do Female Patients “Dislike” Ironic Remarks?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexander M. Rapp

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Difficulties in understanding irony and sarcasm are part of the social cognition deficits in patients with schizophrenia. A number of studies have reported higher error rates during comprehension in patients with schizophrenia. However, the relationships of these impairments to schizotypal personality traits and other language deficits, such as the comprehension of proverbs, are unclear. We investigated irony and proverb comprehension in an all-female sample of 20 schizophrenia patients and 27 matched controls. Subjects indicated if a statement was intended to be ironic, literal, or meaningless and furthermore rated the meanness and funniness of the stimuli and certainty of their decision. Patients made significantly more errors than controls did. Globally, there were no overall differences in the ratings. However, patients rated the subgroup of stimuli with answers given incorrectly as having significantly less meanness and in case of an error indicated a significantly higher certainty than controls. Across all of the study participants, performances in irony (r=-0.51 and proverb (r=0.56 comprehension were significantly correlated with schizotypal personality traits, suggesting a continuum of nonliteral language understanding. Because irony is so frequent in everyday conversations, this makes irony an especially promising candidate for social cognition training in schizophrenia.

  13. Neuropsychology, Autobiographical Memory, and Hippocampal Volume in ?Younger? and ?Older? Patients with Chronic Schizophrenia

    OpenAIRE

    Herold, Christina Josefa; L?sser, Marc Montgomery; Schmid, Lena Anna; Seidl, Ulrich; Kong, Li; Fellhauer, Iven; Thomann, Philipp Arthur; Essig, Marco; Schr?der, Johannes

    2015-01-01

    Despite a wide range of studies on neuropsychology in schizophrenia, autobiographical memory (AM) has been scarcely investigated in these patients. Hence, less is known about AM in older patients and hippocampal contribution to autobiographical memories of varying remoteness. Therefore, we investigated hippocampal volume and AM along with important neuropsychological domains in patients with chronic schizophrenia and the respective relationships between these parameters. We compared 25 older ...

  14. Running in the family? : structural brain abnormalities in first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Boos, H.B.M.

    2011-01-01

    The studies conducted in this thesis explored brain structures in first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia. The meta-analysis that Boos and colleagues performed showed that relatives of patients with schizophrenia had smaller hippocampal volumes, smaller gray matter volumes and larger

  15. Source retrieval is not properly differentiated from object retrieval in early schizophrenia: An fMRI study using virtual reality

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Colin Hawco

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Source memory, the ability to identify the context in which a memory occurred, is impaired in schizophrenia and has been related to clinical symptoms such as hallucinations. The neurobiological underpinnings of this deficit are not well understood. Twenty-five patients with recent onset schizophrenia (within the first 4.5 years of treatment and twenty-four healthy controls completed a source memory task. Participants navigated through a 3D virtual city, and had 20 encounters of an object with a person at a place. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed during a subsequent forced-choice recognition test. Two objects were presented and participants were asked to either identify which object was seen (new vs. old object recognition, or identify which of the two old objects was associated with either the person or the place being presented (source memory recognition. Source memory was examined by contrasting person or place with object. Both patients and controls demonstrated significant neural activity to source memory relative to object memory, though activity in controls was much more widespread. Group differences were observed in several regions, including the medial parietal and cingulate cortex, lateral frontal lobes and right superior temporal gyrus. Patients with schizophrenia did not differentiate between source and object memory in these regions. Positive correlations with hallucination proneness were observed in the left frontal and right middle temporal cortices and cerebellum. Patients with schizophrenia have a deficit in the neural circuits which facilitate source memory, which may underlie both the deficits in this domain and be related to auditory hallucinations.

  16. Supernatural beliefs, aetiological models and help seeking behaviour in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kate, Natasha; Grover, Sandeep; Kulhara, Parmanand; Nehra, Ritu

    2012-01-01

    Few studies have evaluated the supernatural beliefs of patients with schizophrenia. This study aimed to study the personal beliefs, aetiological models and help seeking behaviour of patients with schizophrenia using a self-rated questionnaire. Seventy three patients returned the completed supernatural Attitude questionnaire. 62% of patients admitted that people in their community believed in sorcery and other magico-religious phenomena. One fourth to half of patients believed in ghosts/evil spirit (26%), spirit intrusion (28.8%) and sorcery (46.6%). Two-third patients believed that mental illness can occur either due to sorcery, ghosts/evil spirit, spirit intrusion, divine wrath, planetary/astrological influences, dissatisfied or evil spirits and bad deeds of the past. 40% of the subjects attributed mental disorders to more than one of these beliefs. About half of the patients (46.6%) believed that only performance of prayers was sufficient to improve their mental status. Few patients (9.6%) believed that magico-religious rituals were sufficient to improve their mental illness but about one-fourth (24.7%) admitted that during recent episode either they or their caregivers performed magico-religious rituals. Supernatural beliefs are common in patients with schizophrenia and many of them attribute the symptoms of mental disorders to these beliefs.

  17. Stigma and its correlates in patients with schizophrenia attending a general hospital psychiatric unit

    Science.gov (United States)

    Singh, Aakanksha; Mattoo, Surendra K.; Grover, Sandeep

    2016-01-01

    Background: Very few studies from India have studied stigma experienced by patients with schizophrenia. Aim of the Study: To study stigma in patients with schizophrenia (in the form of internalized stigma, perceived stigma and social-participation-restriction stigma) and its relationship with specified demographic and clinical variables (demographic variables, clinical profile, level of psychopathology, knowledge about illness, and insight). Materials and Methods: Selected by purposive random sampling, 100 patients with schizophrenia in remission were evaluated on internalized stigma of mental illness scale (ISMIS), explanatory model interview catalog stigma scale, participation scale (P-scale), positive and negative syndrome scale for schizophrenia, global assessment of functioning scale, scale to assess unawareness of mental disorder, and knowledge of mental illness scale. Results: On ISMIS scale, 81% patients experienced alienation and 45% exhibited stigma resistance. Stereotype endorsement was seen in 26% patients, discrimination experience was faced by 21% patients, and only 16% patients had social withdrawal. Overall, 29% participants had internalized stigma when total ISMIS score was taken into consideration. On P-scale, 67% patients experienced significant restriction, with a majority reporting moderate to mild restriction. In terms of associations between stigma and sociodemographic variables, no consistent correlations emerged, except for those who were not on paid job, had higher participation restriction. Of the clinical variables, level of functioning was the only consistent predictor of stigma. While better knowledge about the disorder was associated with lower level of stigma, there was no association between stigma and insight. Conclusion: Significant proportion of patients with schizophrenia experience stigma and stigma is associated with lower level of functioning and better knowledge about illness is associated with lower level of stigma. PMID

  18. Is there a decline in cognitive functions after combined electroconvulsive therapy and antipsychotic therapy in treatment-refractory schizophrenia?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pawełczyk, Agnieszka; Kołodziej-Kowalska, Emilia; Pawełczyk, Tomasz; Rabe-Jabłońska, Jolanta

    2015-03-01

    An analysis of literature shows that there is still little evidence concerning the efficacy of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) combined with antipsychotic therapy in a group of treatment-resistant schizophrenia patients. More precisely, its influence on cognitive functions is still equivocal. The aim of this study was to assess the influence of ECT combined with antipsychotic therapy on working memory, attention, and executive functions in a group of treatment-refractory schizophrenia patients. Twenty-seven patients completed the study: 14 men and 13 women, aged 21 to 55 years (mean age, 32.8 years), diagnosed with treatment-resistant schizophrenia. Each patient underwent a course of ECT sessions and was treated with antipsychotic medications. Before the ECT and within 3 days after the last ECT session, the participants were assessed with the following neuropsychological tests: Trail Making Test (TMT) and Wisconsin Cart Sorting Test (WCST). There were no significant differences in the TMT and WCST results after combined ECT and antipsychotic therapy in treatment-refractory schizophrenia patients. According to the results of the neuropsychological tests, there was no decline in attention, executive functions, or working memory. The current study shows no significant difference in attention, working memory, or executive functions after treatment with a combination of electroconvulsive and antipsychotic therapy. This suggests that combined electroconvulsive therapy may not have a negative influence on the neuropsychological functioning of patients with treatment resistant schizophrenia.

  19. Cognitive impairment in schizophrenia across age groups: a case-control study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mosiołek, Anna; Gierus, Jacek; Koweszko, Tytus; Szulc, Agata

    2016-02-24

    The potential dynamics of cognitive impairment in schizophrenia is discussed in the literature of the field. Recent publications suggest modest changes in level of cognitive impairment after first psychotic episode. Present article attempts to explore cognitive differences between patients and controls across age groups and differences between age groups in clinical group. One hundred and twenty-eight hospitalized patients with schizophrenia (64 women and 64 men) and 68 individuals from the control group (32 women and 32 men) aged 18-55 years were examined. The patients were divided into age groups (18-25, 26-35, 36-45, 46-55). Both groups were examined using Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, Rey Osterrieth Complex Figure Test, Trail Making Test (A and B), Stroop Test, verbal fluency test and Wechsler digit span. Patients with schizophrenia obtained significantly lower scores versus the control group in regard to all the measured cognitive functions (Mann-Whitney U; p age groups, however, statistically important impairment in executive functions (WCST) were present only in "older" groups. Patients with schizophrenia obtained less favourable results than the control group in all age groups. Deficits regarding executive functions do not seem to be at a significant level among the youngest group, whereas they are more noticeable in the group of 46-55-year-olds. Executive functions are significantly lowered in the group aged 36-45 in comparison to the "younger" groups. The level of cognitive functions shows a mild exacerbation in connection with age, whereas cognitive rigidity proved to be related to the number of years spent without hospital treatment.

  20. Medications Used for Cognitive Enhancement in Patients With Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Parkinson’s Disease

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wen-Yu Hsu

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Background/aimsCognitive impairment, which frequently occurs in patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease, has a significant impact on the daily lives of both patients and their family. Furthermore, since the medications used for cognitive enhancement have limited efficacy, the issue of cognitive enhancement still remains a clinically unsolved challenge.Sampling and methodsWe reviewed the clinical studies (published between 2007 and 2017 that focused on the efficacy of medications used for enhancing cognition in patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease.ResultsAcetylcholinesterase inhibitors and memantine are the standard treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. Some studies have reported selective cognitive improvement in patients with schizophrenia following galantamine treatment. Newer antipsychotics, including paliperidone, lurasidone, aripiprazole, ziprasidone, and BL-1020, have also been reported to exert cognitive benefits in patients with schizophrenia. Dopaminergic medications were found to improve language function in patients with Parkinson’s disease. However, no beneficial effects on cognitive function were observed with dopamine agonists in patients with schizophrenia. The efficacies of nicotine and its receptor modulators in cognitive improvement remain controversial, with the majority of studies showing that varenicline significantly improved the cognitive function in schizophrenic patients. Several studies have reported that N-methyl-d-aspartate glutamate receptor (NMDAR enhancers improved the cognitive function in patients with chronic schizophrenia. NMDAR enhancers might also have cognitive benefits in patients with Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease. Raloxifene, a selective estrogen receptor modulator, has also been demonstrated to have beneficial effects on attention, processing

  1. Are There Gender-Specific Risk Factors for Suicidal Activity among Patients with Schizophrenia and Depression?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaplan, Kalman J.; Harrow, Martin; Faull, Robert N.

    2012-01-01

    Are there gender-specific risk factors for suicidal activity among patients with schizophrenia and depression? A total of 74 schizophrenia patients (51 men, 23 women) and 77 unipolar nonpsychotic depressed patients (26 men, 51 women) from the Chicago Follow-up Study were studied prospectively at 2 years posthospitalization and again at 7.5 years.…

  2. The Danish Schizophrenia Registry

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Baandrup, Lone; Cerqueira, Charlotte; Haller, Lea

    2016-01-01

    Aim of database: To systematically monitor and improve the quality of treatment and care of patients with schizophrenia in Denmark. In addition, the database is accessible as a resource for research. Study population: Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and receiving mental health care...... to the data for use in specific research projects by applying to the steering committee. Conclusion: The Danish Schizophrenia Registry represents a valuable source of informative data to monitor and improve the quality of care of patients with schizophrenia in Denmark. However, continuous resources and time...

  3. Effectiveness of electroconvulsive therapy in patients with treatment resistant schizophrenia: A retrospective study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grover, Sandeep; Chakrabarti, Subho; Hazari, Nandita; Avasthi, Ajit

    2017-03-01

    This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) among patients with treatment resistant schizophrenia (TRS). Records of patients who had received ECT were reviewed to identify patients with TRS who were administered ECT in combination with clozapine. Socio-demographic, clinical data and ECT details were extracted. The most common diagnosis was of paranoid schizophrenia (49%) followed by undifferentiated schizophrenia (36%). A-fifth (22%) of the patients were judged to have poor response to clozapine. The mean number of ECTs given were 13.97 (SD-7.67) and mean clozapine dose was 287.5mgs/day (SD-100.1). About two-thirds (63%) of the patients showed >30% reduction in scores on different symptom-rating scales with combined use of clozapine and ECT. Among clozapine non-responders, approximately 69% responded to the combination. Post-ECT rise in blood pressure was the most common side effect (16.9%) followed by prolonged seizures (7%). Long-term follow-up data was available for 47 out of the 59 patients. More than two-third (N=34; 72%) followed-up for an average of 30 months (SD 32.3; range: 1-120), maintained well with continued clozapine treatment. To conclude, results of this study further endorse the effectiveness, safety and long-term benefits of the clozapine-ECT combination in TRS and clozapine-refractory schizophrenia. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Cigarette smoking in male patients with chronic schizophrenia in a Chinese population: prevalence and relationship to clinical phenotypes.

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    Xiang Yang Zhang

    Full Text Available The high prevalence of smoking in schizophrenia of European background may be related to smoking's reducing clinical symptoms and medication side effects. Because smoking prevalence and its associations with clinical phenotypes are less well characterized in Chinese than European patients with schizophrenia, we assessed these smoking behaviors using clinician-administered questionnaires and the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND in 776 Chinese male schizophrenia and 560 control subjects. Patients also were rated on the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS, the Simpson and Angus Extrapyramidal Symptom Rating Scale (SAES, and the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS. We found that the schizophrenia patients had a higher lifetime incidence of smoking (79% vs 63%, were more likely to be heavy smokers (61% vs 31%, and had lower smoking cessation rates (4% vs 9% (all p0.05 than the non-smoking patients. These results suggest that Chinese males with schizophrenia smoke more frequently than the general population. Further, smokers with schizophrenia may display fewer negative symptoms and possibly less parkinsonism than non-smokers with schizophrenia.

  5. Prevalence of metabolic syndrome and its association with depression in patients with schizophrenia

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    Suttajit S

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available Sirijit Suttajit, Sutrak PilakantaDepartment of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, ThailandPurpose: To identify the point prevalence of metabolic syndrome in patients with schizophrenia and to evaluate the association between depressive symptoms and metabolic syndrome in patients with schizophrenia.Patients and methods: Metabolic syndrome was assessed based on an updated definition derived from the modified National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP-ATP III and the International Diabetes Federation criteria. The 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS-17 was used to measure depressive symptoms in 80 patients with schizophrenia. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were calculated using logistic regression for the association between each depressive symptom and metabolic syndrome.Results: The point prevalence rates of metabolic syndrome according to the modified NCEP-ATP III and International Diabetes Federation criteria were 37% and 35%, respectively. The risk of having metabolic syndrome significantly increased in those who were widowed or separated, or had longer duration of illness. Central obesity was the metabolic feature with the highest odds ratios for metabolic syndrome at 19.3. Three out of 17 items of HDRS subscales were found to be significantly associated with metabolic syndrome, including depressed mood, middle insomnia, and retardation with the odds ratios of 3.0, 3.4, and 3.6, respectively.Conclusion: This study showed that the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in patients with schizophrenia was higher than the overall rate but was slightly lower than in the general population in the USA. Central obesity, measured by waist circumference, was found to be highly correlated with metabolic syndrome. Depressed mood, middle insomnia, and retardation were significantly associated with metabolic syndrome in patients with schizophrenia. Waist circumference and screening

  6. Theory of Mind differences in older patients with early-onset and late-onset paranoid schizophrenia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Smeets-Janssen, M. M. J.; Meesters, P. D.; Comijs, H. C.; Eikelenboom, P.; Smit, J. H.; de Haan, L.; Beekman, A. T. F.; Stek, M. L.

    2013-01-01

    Theory of Mind (ToM) is considered an essential element of social cognition. In younger schizophrenia patients, ToM impairments have extensively been demonstrated. It is not clear whether similar impairments can be found in older schizophrenia patients and if these impairments differ between older

  7. Theory of mind differences in older patients with early-onset and late-onset paranoid schizophrenia

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Smeets-Janssen, M.M.J.; Meesters, P.D.; Comijs, H.C.; Eikelenboom, P.; Smit, J.H.; de Haan, L.; Beekman, A.T.F.; Stek, M.L.

    2013-01-01

    Objective: Theory of Mind (ToM) is considered an essential element of social cognition. In younger schizophrenia patients, ToM impairments have extensively been demonstrated. It is not clear whether similar impairments can be found in older schizophrenia patients and if these impairments differ

  8. Emotional intelligence as an indicator of cognitive functioning in patients with schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Samoylova D.D.

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Aim: to analyze the variability of emotional intelligence as an indicator of cognitive functioning in groups of patients with schizophrenia, depending on the duration of the disease, the duration of treatment and the treatment regimen used. Material and Methods. A total of 420 patients with a clinical diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia were examined. All patients were divided into groups according to the duration of the disease and the therapy. The research included the medical documentation analyses and the application of «Ekman's Faces» psychodiagnostic scale. Results. There was an improvement of the indicator in the group of primary patients receiving treatment with atypical antipsychotics in combination with rehabilitation. Conclusion. The obtained data allows to make a conclusion about the effect of the duration of the disease, the observation, and also the nature of the conducted therapy on the variability of the emotional intelligence indicator in patients with a paranoid form of schizophrenia and may be used to select a psychotherapeutic algorithm for this category of patients. The obtained results prove the necessity of using questionnaire for emotional intelligence «Ekman's faces» and specific therapy in the early stages of the disease.

  9. Magnetic resonance imaging study of corpus callosum abnormalities in patients with different subtypes of schizophrenia

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    Ebru Unlu

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available Background. Reductions in the size of the corpus callosum (CC have been described for schizophrenia patients, but little is known about the possible regional differences in schizophrenia subtypes (paranoid, disorganised, undifferentiated, residual.  Methods. We recruited 58 chronically schizophrenic patients with different subtypes, and 31 age-and-gender matched healthy controls. The callosum was extracted from a midsagittal slice from T1 weighted magnetic resonance images, and areas of the total CC, its five subregions, CC length and total brain volume were compared between schizophrenia subtypes and controls. Five subregions were approximately matched to fibre pathways from cortical regions.  Results. Schizophrenia patients had reduced CC total area and length when compared with controls. Disorganised and undifferentiated schizophrenics had a smaller prefrontal area, while there was no significant difference for the paranoid and residual groups. The premotor/supplementary motor area was smaller in all schizophrenia subtypes. The motor area was smaller only in the disorganised group. A smaller sensory area was found in all subtypes except the residual group. Parietal, temporal and occipital areas were smaller in the paranoid and undifferentiated groups. Total brain volume was smaller in all schizophrenia subtypes compared with controls, but did not reach statistical significance.  Conclusion. These findings suggest that the heterogeneity of symptoms may lead to the different CC morphological characteristics in schizophrenia subtypes.

  10. Aberrant neural networks for the recognition memory of socially relevant information in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oh, Jooyoung; Chun, Ji-Won; Kim, Eunseong; Park, Hae-Jeong; Lee, Boreom; Kim, Jae-Jin

    2017-01-01

    Patients with schizophrenia exhibit several cognitive deficits, including memory impairment. Problems with recognition memory can hinder socially adaptive behavior. Previous investigations have suggested that altered activation of the frontotemporal area plays an important role in recognition memory impairment. However, the cerebral networks related to these deficits are not known. The aim of this study was to elucidate the brain networks required for recognizing socially relevant information in patients with schizophrenia performing an old-new recognition task. Sixteen patients with schizophrenia and 16 controls participated in this study. First, the subjects performed the theme-identification task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. In this task, pictures depicting social situations were presented with three words, and the subjects were asked to select the best theme word for each picture. The subjects then performed an old-new recognition task in which they were asked to discriminate whether the presented words were old or new. Task performance and neural responses in the old-new recognition task were compared between the subject groups. An independent component analysis of the functional connectivity was performed. The patients with schizophrenia exhibited decreased discriminability and increased activation of the right superior temporal gyrus compared with the controls during correct responses. Furthermore, aberrant network activities were found in the frontopolar and language comprehension networks in the patients. The functional connectivity analysis showed aberrant connectivity in the frontopolar and language comprehension networks in the patients with schizophrenia, and these aberrations possibly contribute to their low recognition performance and social dysfunction. These results suggest that the frontopolar and language comprehension networks are potential therapeutic targets in patients with schizophrenia.

  11. Regional gray matter abnormalities in patients with schizophrenia determined with optimized voxel-based morphometry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guo, XiaoJuan; Yao, Li; Jin, Zhen; Chen, Kewei

    2006-03-01

    This study examined regional gray matter abnormalities across the whole brain in 19 patients with schizophrenia (12 males and 7 females), comparing with 11 normal volunteers (7 males and 4 females). The customized brain templates were created in order to improve spatial normalization and segmentation. Then automated preprocessing of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data was conducted using optimized voxel-based morphometry (VBM). The statistical voxel based analysis was implemented in terms of two-sample t-test model. Compared with normal controls, regional gray matter concentration in patients with schizophrenia was significantly reduced in the bilateral superior temporal gyrus, bilateral middle frontal and inferior frontal gyrus, right insula, precentral and parahippocampal areas, left thalamus and hypothalamus as well as, however, significant increases in gray matter concentration were not observed across the whole brain in the patients. This study confirms and extends some earlier findings on gray matter abnormalities in schizophrenic patients. Previous behavior and fMRI researches on schizophrenia have suggested that cognitive capacity decreased and self-conscious weakened in schizophrenic patients. These regional gray matter abnormalities determined through structural MRI with optimized VBM may be potential anatomic underpinnings of schizophrenia.

  12. Effect of systemic family therapy on rehabilitation in patients with schizophrenia

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    Wei Zhang

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Objective: To explore the effect of systemic family therapy on the rehabilitation in patients with schizophrenia. Methods: A total of 86 patients with schizophrenia who were admitted in our hospital from February, 2011 to February, 2014 were included in the study and randomized into the observation group and the control group. A total of 43 healthy individuals for physical examinations were served as the healthy group. The patients in the control group were given risperidone in a single dose, and telephone follow-up. On this basis, the patients in the observation group were given systemic family therapy. The morning fasting venous blood before treatment and 3 months after treatment in the healthy group and patients with schizophrenia was collected. BDNF, NGF, GFAP, IL-6, and TNF-α were detected. After 6-month treatment, SCL-90 was used to evaluate the psychological state. Results: The serum BDNF and NGF levels before and after treatment in the observation group and the control group were significantly lower than those in the healthy group, while GFAP level was significantly higher than that in the healthy group (P0.05. The serum IL-6 and TNF-α levels before and after treatment in the observation group and the control group were significantly higher than those in the healthy group (P0.05. After 6-month treatment, the scores of somatization, interpersonal relationship, fear, anxiety, hostility, paranoid, depression, obsession, and mental disorder in the observation group were significantly reduced when compared with before treatment (P0.05. Conclusions: The systemic family therapy is an effective adjuvant method for the rehabilitation in patients with schizophrenia, and can effectively improve the mental health status; therefore, it deserves to be widely recommended in the clinic.

  13. Effect of systemic family therapy on rehabilitation in patients with schizophrenia

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Wei Zhang; Na Li; Ying-Ting Li; Shu-Qing Dong; Li-Mei Feng

    2016-01-01

    Objective:To explore the effect of systemic family therapy on the rehabilitation in patients with schizophrenia.Methods: A total of 86 patients with schizophrenia who were admitted in our hospital from February, 2011 to February, 2014 were included in the study and randomized into the observation group and the control group. A total of 43 healthy individuals for physical examinations were served as the healthy group. The patients in the control group were given risperidone in a single dose, and telephone follow-up. On this basis, the patients in the observation group were given systemic family therapy. The morning fasting venous blood before treatment and 3 months after treatment in the healthy group and patients with schizophrenia was collected. BDNF, NGF, GFAP, IL-6, and TNF-α were detected. After 6-month treatment, SCL-90 was used to evaluate the psychological state.Results: The serum BDNF and NGF levels before and after treatment in the observation group and the control group were significantly lower than those in the healthy group, while GFAP level was significantly higher than that in the healthy group (P0.05). The serum IL-6 and TNF-α levels before and after treatment in the observation group and the control group were significantly higher than those in the healthy group (P0.05). After 6-month treatment, the scores of somatization, interpersonal relationship, fear, anxiety, hostility, paranoid, depression, obsession, and mental disorder in the observation group were significantly reduced when compared with before treatment (P0.05).Conclusions:The systemic family therapy is an effective adjuvant method for the rehabilitation in patients with schizophrenia, and can effectively improve the mental health status; therefore, it deserves to be widely recommended in the clinic.

  14. Accelerated aging in schizophrenia patients: the potential role of oxidative stress.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Okusaga, Olaoluwa O

    2014-08-01

    Several lines of evidence suggest that schizophrenia, a severe mental illness characterized by delusions, hallucinations and thought disorder is associated with accelerated aging. The free radical (oxidative stress) theory of aging assumes that aging occurs as a result of damage to cell constituents and connective tissues by free radicals arising from oxygen-associated reactions. Schizophrenia has been associated with oxidative stress and chronic inflammation, both of which also appear to reciprocally induce each other in a positive feedback manner. The buildup of damaged macromolecules due to increased oxidative stress and failure of protein repair and maintenance systems is an indicator of aging both at the cellular and organismal level. When compared with age-matched healthy controls, schizophrenia patients have higher levels of markers of oxidative cellular damage such as protein carbonyls, products of lipid peroxidation and DNA hydroxylation. Potential confounders such as antipsychotic medication, smoking, socio-economic status and unhealthy lifestyle make it impossible to solely attribute the earlier onset of aging-related changes or oxidative stress to having a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Regardless of whether oxidative stress can be attributed solely to a diagnosis of schizophrenia or whether it is due to other factors associated with schizophrenia, the available evidence is in support of increased oxidative stress-induced cellular damage of macromolecules which may play a role in the phenomenon of accelerated aging presumed to be associated with schizophrenia.

  15. Soluble Urokinase-Type Plasminogen Activator Receptor Levels in Patients With Schizophrenia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Jimmi; Røge, Rasmus; Pristed, Sofie Gry

    2015-01-01

    PAR) is a protein that can be measured in blood samples and reflects the levels of inflammatory activity. It has been associated with mortality and the development of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. METHODS: suPAR levels in patients with schizophrenia were compared to healthy controls from the Danish......BACKGROUND: The etiology of schizophrenia remains largely unknown but alterations in the immune system may be involved. In addition to the psychiatric symptoms, schizophrenia is also associated with up to 20 years reduction in life span. Soluble urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (su...... Blood Donor Study. SuPAR levels were dichotomized at >4.0 ng/ml, which is considered the threshold for low grade inflammation. A multiple logistic regression model was used and adjusted for age, sex, and current smoking. RESULTS: In total we included 1009 subjects, 105 cases with schizophrenia (10...

  16. Effects of VRK2 (rs2312147 on white matter connectivity in patients with schizophrenia.

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    Hoyoung Sohn

    Full Text Available Recent genome-wide association studies of schizophrenia reported a novel risk variant, rs2312147 at vaccinia-related kinase 2 gene (VRK2, in multiple Asian and European samples. However, its effect on the brain structure in schizophrenia is little known. We analyzed the brain structure of 36 schizophrenia patients and 18 healthy subjects with regard to rs2312147 genotype groups. Brain magnetic resonance scans for gray matter (GM and white matter (WM analysis, and genotype analysis for VRK2 rs2312147, were conducted. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale and the Digit Symbol Test were assessed for schizophrenia patients. There was no significant difference in either GM volume or WM connectivity with regard to rs2312147 genotype in healthy subjects. In contrast, we found significant differences in the WM connectivity between rs2312147 CC and CT/TT genotype groups of schizophrenia patients. The related brain areas included the splenium of corpus callosum, the left occipital lobe WM, the internal capsule (left anterior limb and right retrolenticular part, the bilateral temporal lobe WM, the left fornix/stria terminalis, the left cingulate gyrus WM, and the left parietal lobe WM. Voxelwise correlation analysis revealed that the Digit Symbol Test scores (age corrected correlated with the fractional anisotropy in WM tracts that previously showed significant group differences between the CT/TT and CC genotypes in the rs2312147 CT/TT genotype group, while no significant correlation was found in the CC genotype group. Our data may provide evidence for the effect of VRK2 on WM connectivity in patients with schizophrenia.

  17. A Cross-sectional, Comparative Study of Insight in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Patients in Remission.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramachandran, Arul Saravanan; Ramanathan, Rajkumar; Praharaj, Samir Kumar; Kanradi, Haridas; Sharma, Podila Satya Venkata Narasimha

    2016-01-01

    To study insight correlates in schizophrenia and bipolar mood disorder in remission among out-patients attending the Psychiatry Department of a Tertiary Care Hospital. In a cross-sectional, naturalistic study, adult patients with schizophrenia and bipolar mood disorder in remission (n = 80; schizophrenia-40, mania-20, bipolar depression-20) were compared on insight measures and clinical correlates. Scale to Assess the Unawareness of Mental Disorders (SUMD) was used as the main tool to assess current and past measures of insight. Hogan's Drug Attitude Inventory was used to assess the drug attitude and compliance. Positive and Negative Symptom Scale for Schizophrenia, Young's Mania Rating Scale, and HAMD were used to rate psychopathology. Clinical Global Improvement was used as a screening tool for remission. For comparison of the three clinical groups, analysis of variance and Chi-square test were used. In the post-hoc analysis, the Ryan-Einot-Gabriel-Welsch test was used to find the group difference. About 40% in the schizophrenia group were unaware of their mental illness as against none in the bipolar group. The awareness of mental disorder for the current period, the awareness of the achieved effects of medications, and the awareness of social consequence was better in the bipolar group. The drug attitude (compliant positive attitude) increased as the SUMD item scale decreased or in other words, as the insight improved. Insight, both current and retrospect, showed significant differences between the schizophrenia and bipolar patients. Insight is significantly correlated with the observed compliance and drug attitude of the patient groups.

  18. Risk factors for readmission in schizophrenia patients following involuntary admission.

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    Yu-Yuan Hung

    Full Text Available Individuals with schizophrenia who are involuntarily admitted may have poorer prognosis, including higher readmission rates, than those voluntarily admitted. However, little is known about the risk factors for readmission in those schizophrenia patients who are involuntarily admitted.We aim to explore the risk factors for readmission in this population.We enrolled 138 schizophrenia patients with involuntary admission from July 2008 to June 2013 and followed those patients for readmission outcomes at 3 months and at 1 year.The one-year and 3-months readmission rates were 33.3% and 15.2%, respectively. Unmarried status (adjusted odds ratio (aOR = 6.28, 95% CI: 1.48-26.62, previous history of involuntary admission (aOR = 4.08, 95% CI: 1.19-14.02, longer involuntary admission days (aOR = 1.04, 95% CI: 1.01-1.07 and shorter total admission days (aOR = 1.03, 95% CI: 1.01-1.05 were associated with increased risk for 1-year readmission. Younger age (aOR = 1.10, 95% CI 1.02-1.18 was associated with increased risk for 3-months readmission.Unmarried status, prior history of involuntary admission, longer involuntary admission days and shorter total admission days were associated with increased risk for 1-year readmission. Healthcare providers may need to focus on patients with these risk factors to reduce subsequent readmissions.

  19. Risk factors for readmission in schizophrenia patients following involuntary admission.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hung, Yu-Yuan; Chan, Hung-Yu; Pan, Yi-Ju

    2017-01-01

    Individuals with schizophrenia who are involuntarily admitted may have poorer prognosis, including higher readmission rates, than those voluntarily admitted. However, little is known about the risk factors for readmission in those schizophrenia patients who are involuntarily admitted. We aim to explore the risk factors for readmission in this population. We enrolled 138 schizophrenia patients with involuntary admission from July 2008 to June 2013 and followed those patients for readmission outcomes at 3 months and at 1 year. The one-year and 3-months readmission rates were 33.3% and 15.2%, respectively. Unmarried status (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 6.28, 95% CI: 1.48-26.62), previous history of involuntary admission (aOR = 4.08, 95% CI: 1.19-14.02), longer involuntary admission days (aOR = 1.04, 95% CI: 1.01-1.07) and shorter total admission days (aOR = 1.03, 95% CI: 1.01-1.05) were associated with increased risk for 1-year readmission. Younger age (aOR = 1.10, 95% CI 1.02-1.18) was associated with increased risk for 3-months readmission. Unmarried status, prior history of involuntary admission, longer involuntary admission days and shorter total admission days were associated with increased risk for 1-year readmission. Healthcare providers may need to focus on patients with these risk factors to reduce subsequent readmissions.

  20. Can exercise increase fitness and reduce weight in patients with schizophrenia and depression?

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    Jesper eKrogh

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available BackgroundPsychiatric patients have a reduced life expectancy of 15 to 20 years compared to the general population. Most years of lost life are due to excess mortality from somatic diseases. Sedentary lifestyle and medication is partly responsible for the high frequency of metabolic syndrome in this patient group and low levels of physical activity is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and all-cause mortality. This study aimed to review trials allocating patients with either schizophrenia or depression to exercise interventions for effect on cardiovascular fitness, strength and weight.MethodsWe searched Pubmed, Embase, and Psycinfo including randomized clinical trial allocating patients with either schizophrenia or depression to isolated exercise interventions.ResultsWe identified five trials including patients with schizophrenia and found little evidence that exercise could increase cardiovascular fitness or decrease weight. Nine exercise trials for patients with depression were identified increasing cardiovascular fitness by 11-30% and strength by 33-37%. No evidence in favor of exercise for weight reduction was found.ConclusionBased on the current evidence isolated exercise interventions are unlikely to improve cardiovascular fitness or induce weight loss in patients with schizophrenia. In patients with depression exercise interventions are likely to induce clinically relevant short term effects, however, due to lack of reporting little is known about the effect on cardiovascular fitness beyond the intervention and weight reduction. Future exercise trials regarding patients with mental illness should preferably measure changes in cardiovascular strength, repetition maximum and anthropometric outcomes. Ideally participants should be assessed beyond the intervention

  1. Early trauma, attachment experiences and comorbidities in schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thalita Gabínio

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Objective To evaluate attachment patterns in subjects with schizophrenia and their relationships to early traumatic events, psychotic symptoms and comorbidities. Methods Twenty patients diagnosed with schizophrenia according to criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5 underwent retrospective symptom assessment and careful assessment of the number and manner of childhood caregiver changes. The Diagnostic Interview for Psychosis and Affective Disorders (DI-PAD was used to assess symptoms related to schizophrenia (positive and negative symptoms, depression and mania. Anxiety disorder comorbidities were assessed by the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS, Yale-Brown Obsessions and Compulsions Scale (Y-BOCS and Panic and Schizophrenia Interview (PaSI. Experience in Close Relationships – Relationship Structures (ECR-RS and Early Trauma Inventory Self Report-Short Form (ETISR-SF were used to assess attachment patterns and traumatic history, respectively. Results Moderate and significant correlations between attachment patterns and early trauma showed that greater severity of anxious attachment was predicted by a higher frequency of total early traumas (Spearman ρ = 0.446, p = 0.04, mainly general traumas (ρ = 0.526, p = 0.017; including parental illness and separation, as well as natural disaster and serious accidents. Among the correlations between early trauma and comorbid symptoms, panic attacks occurring before the onset of schizophrenia showed significant and positive correlations with ETISR-SF total scores and the sexual trauma subscale. Conclusion Children with an unstable early emotional life are more vulnerable to the development of psychopathology, such as panic anxiety symptoms. Traumatic events may also predict later schizophrenia.

  2. Does varenicline worsen psychiatric symptoms in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder? A review of published studies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cerimele, Joseph M; Durango, Alejandra

    2012-08-01

    To review published cases and prospective studies describing the use of varenicline in patients with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. PubMed, PsychINFO, and the Cochrane Database were searched in July 2011 using the key words schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, psychosis, positive symptoms, negative symptoms, aggression, hostility, suicidal ideation AND varenicline to identify reports published between January 2006 and July 2011 in English. Five case reports, 1 case series, 1 retrospective study, 10 prospective studies (17 publications), and 1 meeting abstract describing the use of varenicline in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were identified. Review articles and articles describing findings other than the use of varenicline in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were excluded. Thirteen reports were included in the final analysis. Information on each study's patient population, age, diagnosis, medication treatment, tobacco use history, adverse effects, and outcome was collected from the published reports. Of the 260 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder who received varenicline in these published reports, 13 patients (5%) experienced the onset or worsening of any psychiatric symptom, although 3 of the 13 patients experienced a very brief negative effect after 1 dose. No patients experienced suicidal ideation or suicidal behaviors. Published reports suggest that, in most stable, closely monitored patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, varenicline treatment is not associated with worsening of psychiatric symptoms. Current, prospective studies are assessing effectiveness and further assessing safety in this population. © Copyright 2012 Physicians Postgraduate Press, Inc.

  3. Cessation of cannabis use by patients with recent-onset schizophrenia and related disorders

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dekker, Nienke; de Haan, Lieuwe; van den Berg, Sake; de Gier, Martin; Becker, Hiske; Linzen, Don H.

    2008-01-01

    Cannabis abuse has been found to be a component risk factor for the onset and poor outcome during the early course of schizophrenia and related disorders. Cannabis use has become a target for prevention and treatment of schizophrenia patients. Therefore, knowledge of factors that influence

  4. Influence of psycho-social factors on the emergence of depression and suicidal risk in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pješčić, Katarina Dokić; Nenadović, Milutin M; Jašović-Gašić, Miroslava; Trajković, Goran; Kostić, Mirjana; Ristić-Dimitrijević, Radmila

    2014-09-01

    The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of certain psychosocial factors - insight, psycho-education, family and social support, loneliness and social isolation - on the appearance of depression and suicidal risk in schizophrenia. This was a cross-sectional study that comprised hospitalized patients with schizophrenia in the initial remission phase. The assessment of depression and suicidal risk was made by applying a semi-structured psychiatric interview that included scrutinized factors (insight, psycho-education, family and social support, loneliness and social isolation), Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), and Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia (CDSS). On the basis of the assessment results, the sample was divided into two groups: Group of patients with depression and suicidal risk in schizophrenia (N = 53) and Control group (N = 159) of patients with schizophrenia without depression and suicidal risk. In the Group of patients with depression and suicidal risk, compared with the Control group, there was significantly higher frequency of insight in the mental status (χ² = 31.736, p risk in schizophrenia. This study shows that considered psycho-social factors - insight in the mental status, lack of psycho-education, as well as social isolation - could be predictors for appearance of depression and suicidal risk in schizophrenia.

  5. Dual-modality impairment of implicit learning of letter-strings versus color-patterns in patients with schizophrenia.

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    Chiu, Ming-Jang; Liu, Kristina; Hsieh, Ming H; Hwu, Hai-Gwo

    2005-12-12

    Implicit learning was reported to be intact in schizophrenia using artificial grammar learning. However, emerging evidence indicates that artificial grammar learning is not a unitary process. The authors used dual coding stimuli and schizophrenia clinical symptom dimensions to re-evaluate the effect of schizophrenia on various components of artificial grammar learning. Letter string and color pattern artificial grammar learning performances were compared between 63 schizophrenic patients and 27 comparison subjects. Four symptom dimensions derived from a Chinese Positive and Negative Symptom Scale ratings were correlated with patients' artificial grammar implicit learning performances along the two stimulus dimensions. Patients' explicit memory performances were assessed by verbal paired associates and visual reproduction subtests of the Wechsler Memory Scales Revised Version to provide a contrast to their implicit memory function. Schizophrenia severely hindered color pattern artificial grammar learning while the disease affected lexical string artificial grammar learning to a lesser degree after correcting the influences from age, education and the performance of explicit memory function of both verbal and visual modalities. Both learning performances correlated significantly with the severity of patients' schizophrenic clinical symptom dimensions that reflect poor abstract thinking, disorganized thinking, and stereotyped thinking. The results of this study suggested that schizophrenia affects various mechanisms of artificial grammar learning differently. Implicit learning, knowledge acquisition in the absence of conscious awareness, is not entirely intact in patients with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia affects implicit learning through an impairment of the ability of making abstractions from rules and at least in part decreasing the capacity for perceptual learning.

  6. Dual-modality impairment of implicit learning of letter-strings versus color-patterns in patients with schizophrenia

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    Hwu Hai-Gwo

    2005-12-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Implicit learning was reported to be intact in schizophrenia using artificial grammar learning. However, emerging evidence indicates that artificial grammar learning is not a unitary process. The authors used dual coding stimuli and schizophrenia clinical symptom dimensions to re-evaluate the effect of schizophrenia on various components of artificial grammar learning. Methods Letter string and color pattern artificial grammar learning performances were compared between 63 schizophrenic patients and 27 comparison subjects. Four symptom dimensions derived from a Chinese Positive and Negative Symptom Scale ratings were correlated with patients' artificial grammar implicit learning performances along the two stimulus dimensions. Patients' explicit memory performances were assessed by verbal paired associates and visual reproduction subtests of the Wechsler Memory Scales Revised Version to provide a contrast to their implicit memory function. Results Schizophrenia severely hindered color pattern artificial grammar learning while the disease affected lexical string artificial grammar learning to a lesser degree after correcting the influences from age, education and the performance of explicit memory function of both verbal and visual modalities. Both learning performances correlated significantly with the severity of patients' schizophrenic clinical symptom dimensions that reflect poor abstract thinking, disorganized thinking, and stereotyped thinking. Conclusion The results of this study suggested that schizophrenia affects various mechanisms of artificial grammar learning differently. Implicit learning, knowledge acquisition in the absence of conscious awareness, is not entirely intact in patients with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia affects implicit learning through an impairment of the ability of making abstractions from rules and at least in part decreasing the capacity for perceptual learning.

  7. Influence of patient characteristics on care time in patients hospitalized with schizophrenia

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    Sugibayashi Y

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Yukiko Sugibayashi,1 Kimio Yoshimura,1 Keita Yamauchi,1,2 Ataru Inagaki,3 Naoki Ikegami1 1Department of Health Policy and Management, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, 2Keio University Graduate School of Health Management, Kanagawa, 3Aoyama Gakuin University, School of International Politics, Economics and Communication, Tokyo, Japan Background: In the current Japanese payment system for the treatment of psychiatric inpatients, the length of hospital stay and nurse staffing levels are key determinants of the amount of payment. These factors do not fully reflect the costs of care for each patient. The objective of this study was to clarify the relationship between patient characteristics and their care costs as measured by “care time” for patients with schizophrenia.Methods: Patient characteristics and care time were investigated in 14,557 inpatients in 102 psychiatric hospitals in Japan. Of these 14,557 inpatients, data for 8,379 with schizophrenia were analyzed using a tree-based model.Results: The factor exerting the greatest influence on care time was ”length of stay”, so subjects were divided into 2 groups, a “short stay group” with length of stay ≦104 days, and “long stay group” ≧105 days. Each group was further subdivided according to dependence with regard to “activities of daily living”, “psychomotor agitation”, “verbal abuse”, and “frequent demands/repetitive complaints”, which were critical variables affecting care time. The mean care time was shorter in the long-stay group; however, in some long-stay patients, the mean care time was considerably longer than that in patients in the short-stay group.Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that it is necessary to construct a new payment system reflecting not only length of stay and nurse staffing levels, but also individual patient characteristics. Keywords: psychiatric hospital, schizophrenia, care time, case mix, tree-based model

  8. Serum levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and neurotrophin-3 (NT-3) in depressed patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wysokiński, Adam

    2016-01-01

    Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and neurotrophin-3 (NT-3) are neurotrophins-proteins that induce the survival, development, and function of neurons. Their role in the development of schizophrenia and mood disorders is widely studied. This study was aimed to determine whether depression affects levels of BDNF and NT-3 in patients with schizophrenia. Data for 53 Caucasian adult hospitalized patients with chronic paranoid schizophrenia was compared with 27 healthy subjects. Clinical symptoms were assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and positive, negative and general sub-scores, the Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia (CDSS), the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), and the Clinical Global Impressions scale (CGI). Patients were defined as depressed (SHZ-DEP) with scores CDSS > 6 and HDRS > 7, otherwise they were included into the non-depressed group (SHZ-nonDEP). In total, 17 patients (32.1%) with schizophrenia met criteria for depression. SHZ-DEP patients had higher scores in HDRS, CDSS, PANSS total, PANSS negative, PANSS general and CGI (p BDNF or NT-3 levels between patients with schizophrenia and controls. BDNF levels were lower in SHZ-DEP compared to SHZ-nonDEP: 18.82 ± 5.95 versus 22.10 ± 5.31 ng/mL, p = 0.045. NT-3 levels were higher in SHZ-DEP compared to SHZ-nonDEP: 133.31 ± 222.19 versus 56.04 ± 201.28 pg/mL, p = 0.033. There were no differences in neurotrophin levels between patients with schizophrenia and controls. We found lower BDNF and higher NT-3 serum levels in depressed patients with schizophrenia.

  9. Social alienation in schizophrenia patients: association with insula responsiveness to facial expressions of disgust.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lindner, Christian; Dannlowski, Udo; Walhöfer, Kirsten; Rödiger, Maike; Maisch, Birgit; Bauer, Jochen; Ohrmann, Patricia; Lencer, Rebekka; Zwitserlood, Pienie; Kersting, Anette; Heindel, Walter; Arolt, Volker; Kugel, Harald; Suslow, Thomas

    2014-01-01

    Among the functional neuroimaging studies on emotional face processing in schizophrenia, few have used paradigms with facial expressions of disgust. In this study, we investigated whether schizophrenia patients show less insula activation to macro-expressions (overt, clearly visible expressions) and micro-expressions (covert, very brief expressions) of disgust than healthy controls. Furthermore, departing from the assumption that disgust faces signal social rejection, we examined whether perceptual sensitivity to disgust is related to social alienation in patients and controls. We hypothesized that high insula responsiveness to facial disgust predicts social alienation. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure insula activation in 36 schizophrenia patients and 40 healthy controls. During scanning, subjects passively viewed covert and overt presentations of disgust and neutral faces. To measure social alienation, a social loneliness scale and an agreeableness scale were administered. Schizophrenia patients exhibited reduced insula activation in response to covert facial expressions of disgust. With respect to macro-expressions of disgust, no between-group differences emerged. In patients, insula responsiveness to covert faces of disgust was positively correlated with social loneliness. Furthermore, patients' insula responsiveness to covert and overt faces of disgust was negatively correlated with agreeableness. In controls, insula responsiveness to covert expressions of disgust correlated negatively with agreeableness. Schizophrenia patients show reduced insula responsiveness to micro-expressions but not macro-expressions of disgust compared to healthy controls. In patients, low agreeableness was associated with stronger insula response to micro- and macro-expressions of disgust. Patients with a strong tendency to feel uncomfortable with social interactions appear to be characterized by a high sensitivity for facial expression signaling social

  10. Relationship between Suicidality and Low Self-esteem in Patients with Schizophrenia

    OpenAIRE

    Yoo, Taeyoung; Kim, Sung-Wan; Kim, Seon-Young; Lee, Ju-Yeon; Kang, Hee-Ju; Bae, Kyung-Yeol; Kim, Jae-Min; Shin, Il-Seon; Yoon, Jin-Sang

    2015-01-01

    Objective Low self-esteem is associated with suicide risk in the general psychiatric population. The aim of this study was to examine associations between suicidality and self-esteem in patients with schizophrenia. Methods Subjects meeting the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV) diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia were enrolled. Sociodemographic and clinical variables, including previous suicide attempt history, were assessed. Psychopathology, self-es...

  11. Use of clozapine in older Asian patients with schizophrenia between 2001 and 2009.

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    Yu-Tao Xiang

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: To date there has been no large-scale international study that examined the use of clozapine in older patients with schizophrenia. This study examined the use of clozapine and its demographic and clinical correlates in older patients with schizophrenia in East Asia during the period between 2001 and 2009. METHOD: Information on 1,157 hospitalized patients with schizophrenia aged 50 or older in five East Asian countries and territories (China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan was extracted from the database of the Research on Asian Psychotropic Prescription Patterns (REAP project. Socio-demographic and clinical characteristics and prescription of psychotropic medications were recorded. RESULTS: Clozapine was prescribed for 20.6% of the pooled sample; 19.0% in 2001, 19.4% in 2004 and 22.9% in 2009. Multiple logistic regression analysis of the whole sample revealed that patients taking clozapine had a longer duration of illness, more negative symptoms and were less likely to receive first generation antipsychotic and anticholinergic drugs, but more likely to report weight gain compared to those not receiving clozapine. Compared to those in other sites, older patients in China were more likely to receive clozapine. CONCLUSIONS: The prescription of clozapine for older Asian schizophrenia inpatients has remained at a stable level during the past decade. The appropriateness of use of clozapine in China needs to be further explored.

  12. Oscillatory underpinnings of mismatch negativity and their relationship with cognitive function in patients with schizophrenia.

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    Muzaffer Kaser

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Impairments in mismatch negativity (MMN generation have been consistently reported in patients with schizophrenia. However, underlying oscillatory activity of MMN deficits in schizophrenia and the relationship with cognitive impairments have not been investigated in detail. Time-frequency power and phase analyses can provide more detailed measures of brain dynamics of MMN deficits in schizophrenia. METHOD: 21 patients with schizophrenia and 21 healthy controls were tested with a roving frequency paradigm to generate MMN. Time-frequency domain power and phase-locking (PL analysis was performed on all trials using short-time Fourier transforms with Hanning window tapering. A comprehensive battery (CANTAB was used to assess neurocognitive functioning. RESULTS: Mean MMN amplitude was significantly lower in patients with schizophrenia (95% CI 0.18 - 0.77. Patients showed significantly lower EEG power (95% CI -1.02 - -0.014 in the ~4-7 Hz frequency range (theta band between 170 and 210 ms. Patients with schizophrenia showed cognitive impairment in multiple domains of CANTAB. However, MMN impairments in amplitude and power were not correlated with clinical measures, medication dose, social functioning or neurocognitive performance. CONCLUSION: The findings from this study suggested that while MMN may be a useful marker to probe NMDA receptor mediated mechanisms and associated impairments in gain control and perceptual changes, it may not be a useful marker in association with clinical or cognitive changes. Trial-by-trial EEG power analysis can be used as a measure of brain dynamics underlying MMN deficits which also can have implications for the use of MMN as a biomarker for drug discovery.

  13. Depressive disorders and family functioning among the caregivers of patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Osman, C B; Alipah, B; Tutiiryani, M D; Ainsah, O

    2010-09-01

    To determine the prevalence of depressive disorders among caregivers of patients with schizophrenia, its association with patient's and caregiver's socio-demographic characteristics and family functioning. This was a cross-sectional study of caregivers of patients with schizophrenia at the outpatient clinic, Hospital Permai Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The study was conducted between August and October 2008. A total of 243 caregivers who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were enrolled, of whom 232 completed the self-administered socio-demographic questionnaire, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-30) and the McMaster Family Assessment Device. A total of 33 caregivers with the GHQ-30 cut-off point of 7/8 were assessed further by the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview to diagnose depressive disorder. The prevalence of psychological distress in our study sample was 14% (n = 33) and that of depressive disorders was 6% (n = 14). There was no association between patients' and caregivers' socio-demographic characteristics with depressive disorders, but there were significant associations between depressive disorders and family functioning dimensions in terms of Communication and Roles. Although the causal link was not established, the results suggested that depression had a significant association with family functioning among caregivers of patients with schizophrenia.

  14. Antipsychotic medication and long-term mortality risk in patients with schizophrenia; a systematic review and meta-analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vermeulen, J; van Rooijen, G; Doedens, P; Numminen, E; van Tricht, M; de Haan, L

    2017-10-01

    Patients with schizophrenia have a higher mortality risk than patients suffering from any other psychiatric disorder. Previous research is inconclusive regarding the association of antipsychotic treatment with long-term mortality risk. To this aim, we systematically reviewed the literature and performed a meta-analysis on the relationship between long-term mortality and exposure to antipsychotic medication in patients with schizophrenia. The objectives were to (i) determine long-term mortality rates in patients with schizophrenia using any antipsychotic medication; (ii) compare these with mortality rates of patients using no antipsychotics; (iii) explore the relationship between cumulative exposure and mortality; and (iv) assess causes of death. We systematically searched the EMBASE, MEDLINE and PsycINFO databases for studies that reported on mortality and antipsychotic medication and that included adults with schizophrenia using a follow-up design of more than 1 year. A total of 20 studies fulfilled our inclusion criteria. These studies reported 23,353 deaths during 821,347 patient years in 133,929 unique patients. Mortality rates varied widely per study. Meta-analysis on a subgroup of four studies showed a consistent trend of an increased long-term mortality risk in schizophrenia patients who did not use antipsychotic medication during follow-up. We found a pooled risk ratio of 0.57 (LL:0.46 UL:0.76 p value schizophrenia without antipsychotic medication require further research. Prospective validation studies, uniform measures of antipsychotic exposure and classified causes of death are commendable.

  15. The importance of self-determined motivation towards physical activity in patients with schizophrenia.

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    Vancampfort, Davy; De Hert, Marc; Vansteenkiste, Maarten; De Herdt, Amber; Scheewe, Thomas W; Soundy, Andrew; Stubbs, Brendon; Probst, Michel

    2013-12-30

    There is a need for theoretically-based research on the motivational processes linked to the commencement and continuation of physical activity in patients with schizophrenia. Within the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) framework, we investigated the SDT tenets in these patients by examining the factor structure of the Behavioral Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire-2 (BREQ-2) and by investigating associations between motivation and PA. The secondary aim was to study differences in motivation according to gender, educational level, treatment setting and disease stage. A total of 129 patients (44♀) with schizophrenia agreed to participate. Exploratory factor analysis showed sufficient convergence with the original factor for amotivation, external and introjected regulation, while identified and intrinsic regulations loaded on a single factor which we labeled "autonomous regulation". Significant positive correlations were found between the total physical activity score and the subscales amotivation (r = -0.44, P important role in the adoption and maintenance of health promoting behaviors in patients with schizophrenia. © 2013 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.

  16. Eyeblink conditioning in unmedicated schizophrenia patients: a positron emission tomography study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parker, Krystal L; Andreasen, Nancy C; Liu, Dawei; Freeman, John H; O'Leary, Daniel S

    2013-12-30

    Previous studies suggest that patients with schizophrenia exhibit dysfunctions in a widely distributed circuit-the cortico-cerebellar-thalamic-cortical circuit, or CCTCC-and that this may explain the multiple cognitive deficits observed in the disorder. This study uses positron emission tomography (PET) with O(15) H₂O to measure regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in response to a classic test of cerebellar function, the associative learning that occurs during eyeblink conditioning, in a sample of 20 unmedicated schizophrenia patients and 20 closely matched healthy controls. The PET paradigm examined three phases of acquisition and extinction (early, middle and late). The patients displayed impaired behavioral performance during both acquisition and extinction. The imaging data indicate that, compared to the control subjects, the patients displayed decreases in rCBF in all three components of the CCTCC during both acquisition and extinction. Specifically, patients had less rCBF in the middle and medial frontal lobes, anterior cerebellar lobules I/V and VI, as well as the thalamus during acquisition and although similar areas were found in the frontal lobe, ipsilateral cerebellar lobule IX showed consistently less activity in patients during extinction. Thus this study provides additional support for the hypothesis that patients with schizophrenia have a cognitive dysmetria--an inability to smoothly coordinate many different types of mental activity--that affects even a very basic cognitive task that taps into associative learning. © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. The association between intelligence scores and family history of psychiatric disorder in schizophrenia patients, their siblings and healthy controls

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Verweij, K.; Derks, E.M.; Bruggeman, R.; Cahn, W.; de Haan, L.; Kahn, R.; Krabbendam, L.; Linzen, D.; Myin-Germeys, I.; van Os, J.; Wiersma, D.

    2013-01-01

    Background:The degree of intellectual impairment in schizophrenia patients and their relatives has been suggested to be associated with the degree of familial loading for schizophrenia. Since other psychiatric disorders are also more present in relatives of schizophrenia patients, the definition of

  18. The association between intelligence scores and family history of psychiatric disorder in schizophrenia patients, their siblings and healthy controls

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Verweij, Kim H. W.; Derks, Eske M.; Kahn, René S.; Linszen, Don; van Os, Jim; Wiersma, Durk; Bruggeman, Richard; Cahn, Wiepke; de Haan, Lieuwe; Krabbendam, Lydia; Myin-Germeys, Inez

    2013-01-01

    The degree of intellectual impairment in schizophrenia patients and their relatives has been suggested to be associated with the degree of familial loading for schizophrenia. Since other psychiatric disorders are also more present in relatives of schizophrenia patients, the definition of family

  19. Memantine enhances the effect of olanzapine in patients with schizophrenia: A randomized, placebo-controlled study

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    Ahmad Fakhri

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Glutamate dysregulation may be involved in the neuropathology of schizophrenia. Memantine, a drug approved by the FDA for the treatment of moderate to severe Alzheimer's disease, acts as a partial uncompetitive NMDA receptor antagonist. The aim of this study was to examine the efficacy of memantine as an adjunctive treatment to olanzapine in patients with schizophrenia. In this double-blind, placebo-controlled studies, patients with schizophrenia according to DSM-IV clinical criteria were selected. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either memantine (week 1:10 mg/day; weeks 2-6:20 mg/day plus olanzapine (15-20 mg/day or olanzapine plus placebo. At baseline, no statistically significant difference regarding the mean total PANSS scores between treatment groups was found. Results showed that memantine significantly improved the positive and negative PANSS score in patients maintained on olanzapine after six weeks compared to olanzapine alone (P<0.001. Furthermore, female patients showed significantly better response than males, especially in positive PANSS score. No significant changes in extrapyramidal symptoms were observed.These findings indicate that olanzapine efficacy might be augmented with memantine. Furthermore, this effect is more remarkable in female patients with schizophrenia.

  20. Courtesy stigma--a focus group study of relatives of schizophrenia patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Angermeyer, Matthias C; Schulze, Beate; Dietrich, Sandra

    2003-10-01

    Stigmatization of people with mental illness has been investigated in numerous studies. Little research, however, has been done to explore how relatives of people with schizophrenia perceive and experience stigmatization and how they can fight such stigmatization. Aiming to explore stigma from the perspective of relatives of people with schizophrenia, focus group interviews were conducted with 122 members of advocacy groups from different parts of Germany. Focus group sessions were tape- and video-recorded and transcribed. Transcripts were coded using an inductive method, generating categories (domains) from the material. The analysis of focus group data shows that, contrary to previous research findings, discrimination and disadvantages encountered by relatives of schizophrenia patients reach far beyond the spheres of direct social interaction and access to social roles. Our study revealed two additional domains in which relatives encounter stigmatization: structural discrimination and public images of mental illness. Furthermore, psychiatry has been identified as one important source of stigma. Relatives also suggested numerous anti-stigma interventions. These can be grouped into five main categories: communication measures, support for the ill and their relatives, changes in mental health care, education and training, and control and supervision. Based on our findings,ways of how relatives of schizophrenia patients and mental health professionals can fight against stigma are discussed.

  1. Quality of Life in Patients With Chronic Schizophrenia in Semnan, Iran

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    Jamali

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Background Schizophrenia is one of the most common psychiatric disorders and one of the ten leading causes of mental disability. Level of education, family factors and individual culture affect the patients’ quality of life. Objectives Due to the greater prevalence of this disease and the impact of its symptoms on the one’s quality of life, this study was conducted on the people with chronic schizophrenia to determine in which aspects of their quality of life is more likely affected in Semnan, Iran. Patients and Methods This descriptive, analytical and cross-sectional study was conducted on 37 patients with non-paranoid schizophrenia. To evaluate their quality of life, the short-form of the questionnaire of world health organization quality of life (WHOQOL-26 was used. Data were analyzed using one-way analysis of variance. Results The participants in this study gained the highest quality of life in the domain of physical, environmental and psychological health and social relationships. There was no significant relationship between the different aspects of the quality of life in this study. Conclusions It can be concluded that schizophrenia can have an effect on the quality of life. Some items such as family care, early and on time treatment play an important role in increasing the quality of life.

  2. Attitudes toward metabolic adverse events among patients with schizophrenia in Japan

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    Sugawara N

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available Norio Sugawara,1–3 Norio Yasui-Furukori,2,3 Manabu Yamazaki,4 Kazutaka Shimoda,3,5 Takao Mori,4 Takuro Sugai,3,6 Hiroshi Matsuda,4 Yutaro Suzuki,3,6 Yoshitake Minami,4 Yuji Ozeki,3,5 Kurefu Okamoto,4 Toyoaki Sagae,7 Toshiyuki Someya3,6 1Aomori Prefectural Center for Mental Health and Welfare, Aomori, 2Department of Neuropsychiatry, Hirosaki University School of Medicine, Hirosaki, 3Japanese Society of Clinical Neuropsychopharmacology, 4Japan Psychiatric Hospital Association, Tokyo, 5Department of Psychiatry, Dokkyo Medical University School of Medicine, Mibu, 6Department of Psychiatry, Niigata University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Niigata, 7Department of Health and Nutrition, Yamagata Prefectural Yonezawa University of Nutrition Sciences, Yonezawa, Japan Background: Metabolic syndrome is a growing concern among patients with schizophrenia because metabolic abnormalities are widely regarded as a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and premature death. The current study assessed attitudes toward metabolic adverse events among patients with schizophrenia. Methods: A brief questionnaire was constructed to investigate patient recognition of the following broad areas: dietary habits, lifestyle, self-monitoring, knowledge, and medical practice. Between January 2012 and June 2013, questionnaires were sent to patients associated with 520 outpatient facilities and 247 inpatient facilities belonging to the Japan Psychiatric Hospital Association. All of the participants (n=22,072; inpatients =15,170, outpatients =6,902 were diagnosed with schizophrenia based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, or the International Classification of Diseases, tenth revision. Results: Approximately 55.0% (8,069/14,669 of inpatients and 44.8% of outpatients (2,978/6,649 reported that they did not exercise at all. Although 60.9% (4,116/6,760 of outpatients reported that they felt obese, only 35.6% (5

  3. An Integrated Care Initiative to Improve Patient Outcome in Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mayer-Amberg, Norbert; Woltmann, Rainer; Walther, Stefanie

    2015-01-01

    The optimal treatment of schizophrenia patients requires integration of medical and psychosocial inputs. In Germany, various health-care service providers and institutions are involved in the treatment process. Early and continuous treatment is important but often not possible because of the fragmented medical care system in Germany. The Integrated Care Initiative Schizophrenia has implemented a networked care concept in the German federal state of Lower Saxony that integrates various stakeholders of the health care system. In this initiative, office-based psychiatrists, specialized nursing staff, psychologists, social workers, hospitals, psychiatric institutional outpatient's departments, and other community-based mental health services work together in an interdisciplinary approach. Much emphasis is placed on psychoeducation. Additional efforts cover socio-therapy, visiting care, and family support. During the period from October 2010 (start of the initiative) to December 2012, first experiences and results of quality indicators were collected of 713 registered patients and summarized in a quality monitoring report. In addition, standardized patient interviews were conducted, and duration of hospital days was recorded in 2013. By the end of 2012, patients had been enrolled for an average of 18.7 months. The overall patient satisfaction measured in a patient survey in June 2013 was high and the duration of hospital days measured in a pre-post analysis in July 2013 was reduced by 44%. Two years earlier than planned, the insurance fund will continue the successfully implemented Integrated Care Initiative and adopt it in the regular care setting. This initiative can serve as a learning case for how to set up and measure integrated care systems that may improve outcomes for patients suffering from schizophrenia.

  4. Quality of life in stabilized patients with schizophrenia is mainly associated with resilience and self-esteem.

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    Wartelsteiner, F; Mizuno, Y; Frajo-Apor, B; Kemmler, G; Pardeller, S; Sondermann, C; Welte, A; Fleischhacker, W W; Uchida, H; Hofer, A

    2016-10-01

    Improving quality of life (QoL) is an important objective in the treatment of schizophrenia. The aim of the current study was to examine to what extent resilience, self-esteem, hopelessness, and psychopathology are correlated with QoL. We recruited 52 out-patients diagnosed with schizophrenia according to DSM-IV criteria and 77 healthy control subjects from the general community. In patients, psychopathology was quantified by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. The following scales were used in both patients and control subjects: the Berliner Lebensqualitätsprofil, the Resilience Scale, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Beck Hopelessness Scale to assess QoL, resilience, self-esteem, and hopelessness respectively. Patients with schizophrenia presented with significantly less QoL, resilience, self-esteem, and hope compared to healthy control subjects. In patients, QoL correlated moderately with resilience, self-esteem, and hopelessness and weakly with symptoms. With respect to the latter, particularly depression and positive symptoms were negatively correlated with QoL. Our results highlight the complex nature of QoL in patients suffering from schizophrenia. They underscore that significant efforts are necessary to enhance resilience and self-esteem and to diminish hopelessness as well as affective and positive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  5. Tumor necrosis factor-α and -β genetic polymorphisms as a risk factor in Saudi patients with schizophrenia

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    Kadasah S

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Saeed Kadasah,1 Misbahul Arfin,2 Sadaf Rizvi,2 Mohammed Al-Asmari,2 Abdulrahman Al-Asmari2 1Department of Psychiatry, 2Division of Molecular Biology & Genetics, Scientific Research Center, Prince Sultan Military Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Background: Schizophrenia is one of the most common devastating psychiatric disorders that negatively affects the quality of life and psychosocial functions. Its etiology involves the interplay of complex polygenic influences and environmental risk factors. Inflammatory markers are well-known etiological factors for psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the association of proinflammatory cytokine genes, tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α (-308G/A and TNF-β (+252A/G polymorphisms with schizophrenia susceptibility. Subjects and methods: TNF-α and TNF-β genes were amplified using amplification refractory mutation system primers in 180 schizophrenia patients and 200 healthy matched controls recruited from the Psychiatry Clinic of Prince Sultan Military Medical City, Riyadh. The frequencies of alleles and genotypes of TNF-α (-308G/A and TNF-β (+252A/G polymorphisms in patients were compared with those in controls. Results: The frequencies of TNF-α (-308 allele A and genotype GA were significantly higher, while those of allele G and genotype GG were lower in schizophrenia patients as compared to controls, indicating that genotype GA and allele A of TNF-α (-308G/A may increase susceptibility to schizophrenia, while genotype GG and allele G may reduce it. On the other hand, the distribution of alleles and genotypes of TNF-β (+252A/G polymorphism does not differ significantly in patients from controls; however, the frequency of genotype GG of TNF-β (+252A/G was significantly higher in male patients than in female patients. The distribution of TNF-α (-308G/A and TNF-β (+252A/G polymorphisms was almost similar in schizophrenia patients with

  6. Attenuation of beta and gamma oscillations in schizophrenia spectrum patients following hand posture perturbation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Arnfred, Sidse M.; Mørup, Morten; Thalbitzer, Jørgen

    2011-01-01

    Several electroencephalographic (EEG) studies in schizophrenia report that the patients have reduced evoked gamma activity following visual and auditory stimulation. Somatosensory gamma activity has not previously been examined. It has been suggested that a dysfunction basic to schizophrenia spec...

  7. Gamma power and cognition in patients with schizophrenia and their first-degree relatives.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Díez, Álvaro; Suazo, Vanessa; Casado, Pilar; Martín-Loeches, Manuel; Molina, Vicente

    2014-01-01

    Gamma oscillations are essential for functional neural assembly formation underlying higher cerebral functions. Previous studies concerning gamma band power in schizophrenia have yielded diverse results. In this study, we assessed gamma band power in minimally treated patients with schizophrenia, their first-degree relatives and healthy controls during an oddball paradigm performance, as well as the relation between gamma power and cognitive performance. We found a higher gamma power in the patient group than in the healthy controls at the P3, P4, Fz, Pz and T5 sites. Compared with their relatives, gamma power in the patients was only marginally higher over P3 and P4. We found a nearly significant inverse association between gamma power at F4 and Tower of London performance in the patients, as well as a significant inverse association between gamma power at T5 and verbal memory and working memory scores in the relatives. These results support higher total gamma power in association with schizophrenia and its inverse association with cognitive performance in patients and their first-degree relatives.

  8. Processes of In-Hospital Psychiatric Care and Subsequent Criminal Behaviour Among Patients With Schizophrenia: A National Population-Based, Follow-Up Study

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pedersen, Charlotte Gjørup; Olrik Wallenstein Jensen, Signe; Johnsen, Søren Paaske

    2013-01-01

    Objectives: It is unknown whether evidence-based, in-hospital processes of care may influence the risk of criminal behaviour among patients with schizophrenia. Our study aimed to examine the association between guideline recommended in-hospital psychiatric care and criminal behaviour among patients...... on criminal charges obtained from the Danish Crime Registry until November 2010. Results: Twenty per cent (n = 2175) of patients were charged with a crime during follow-up (median = 428 days). Violent crimes accounted for 59% (n = 1282) of the criminal offences. The lowest risk of crime was found among...... patients receiving the most processes of inhospital care (top quartile of received recommended care, compared with bottom quartiles, adjusted hazard ratio = 0.86, 95% CI 0.75 to 0.99). The individual processes of care associated with the lowest risk of criminal behaviour were antipsychotic treatment...

  9. Quality of care and clinical outcomes of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in patients with schizophrenia. A Danish nationwide study

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jørgensen, Mette; Mainz, Jan; Lange, Peter

    2018-01-01

    antagonists (LAMA) or long-acting β2-agonists (LABA) (Relative risk (RR) 0.92, 95% CI: 0.87–0.98). Female sex was associated with a higher chance of receiving LAMA/LABA treatment among COPD patients with schizophrenia. COPD patients with schizophrenia had a higher risk of 30-day mortality (adjusted odds ratio...... (OR) 1.27, 95% CI: 1.01–1.59) but not a higher risk of readmission compared with COPD patients without schizophrenia.ConclusionsCOPD patients with schizophrenia had a slightly lower chance of receiving LAMA/LABA treatment, but a substantially increased risk of death following admission...

  10. Expression of schizophrenia biomarkers in extraocular muscles from patients with strabismus: an explanation for the link between exotropia and schizophrenia?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrea B. Agarwal

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Recent studies have implicated exotropia as a risk factor for schizophrenia. We determined whether schizophrenia biomarkers have abnormal levels of expression in extraocular muscles from patients with strabismus and explored whether differences in gene expression between medial and lateral rectus muscles may explain the specific association of schizophrenia with exotropia but not esotropia. Samples from horizontal extraocular muscles were obtained during strabismus surgery and compared with age- and muscle type-matched normal muscles from organ donors. We used PCR arrays to identify differences in gene expression among 417 signaling molecules. We then focused on established schizophrenia-related growth factors, cytokines, and regulators of the extracellular matrix. Among 36 genes with significantly altered gene expression in dysfunctional horizontal rectus muscles, over one third were schizophrenia-related: CTGF, CXCR4, IL1B, IL10RA, MIF, MMP2, NPY1R, NRG1, NTRK2, SERPINA3, TIMP1, TIMP2, and TNF (adjusted p value ≤ 0.016667. By PCR array, expression of three of these genes was significantly different in medial rectus muscles, while eleven were significantly altered in lateral rectus muscles. Comparing baseline levels between muscle types, three schizophrenia-related genes (NPY1R, NTRK2, TIMP2 had lower levels of expression in medial rectus muscles. Despite the surprisingly large number of schizophrenia-related genes with altered gene expression levels in dysfunctional muscles, the lack of specificity for medial rectus muscles undermines a model of shared, region-specific gene expression abnormalities between exotropia and schizophrenia, but rather suggests consideration of the alternative model: that exotropia-induced aberrant early visual experiences may enable and/or contribute as a causative factor to the development of schizophrenia.

  11. [Risk factors for schizophrenia patients with type 2 diabetes: a metaanalysis].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Min; Xiao, Chuan; Yang, Min; Yuan, Ping; Liu, Yuanyuan

    2015-03-01

    To investigate risk factors for schizophrenia patients with complication of type 2 diabetes mellitus and to provide scientific evidence for prevention and management of this disease. Relevant studies on schizophrenia with type 2 diabetes mellitus in China were searched through PubMed, Medline, CBM, CNKI and VIP from 1997 to 2014. Meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.2 soft ware. A total of 26 studies involving 6 373 participants (including 957 cases and 5 416 controls) were included. The results of Meta-analysis showed that the risk factors for schizophrenic patients with complication of type 2 diabetes mellitus were: gender (female) (OR=1.28, 95%CI: 1.09-1.50), age (≥ 40 year) (OR=6.02, 95%CI: 4.48-8.09), overweight (OR=2.32, 95%CI: 1.52-2.88), family history of diabetes (OR=6.12, 95%CI: 3.16-11.86), duration of schizophrenia (>10 years) (OR=3.60, 95%CI: 2.39-5.41), triglycerides (MD=0.38, 95%CI: 0.05-0.71). Male, old age, overweight, family history of diabetes, longer duration and high level of triglycerides are risk factors for schizophrenic patients with complication of diabetes mellitus.

  12. Risk factors for sudden cardiac death among patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hou, Ping-Yi; Hung, Galen Chin-Lun; Jhong, Jia-Rong; Tsai, Shang-Ying; Chen, Chiao-Chicy; Kuo, Chian-Jue

    2015-10-01

    Patients with schizophrenia suffer from excessive premature mortality, and sudden cardiac death (SCD) is receiving growing attention as a potential cause. The present study investigated the incidence of SCD and its risk factors in a large schizophrenia cohort. We enrolled a consecutive series of 8264 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia (according to DSM-III-R and DSM-IV criteria) who were admitted to a psychiatric center in northern Taiwan from January 1, 1985 through December 31, 2008. By linking with national mortality database, 64 cases of SCD were identified. The standardized mortality ratio (SMR) for SCD was estimated. The cases were matched with controls randomly selected using risk-set sampling in a 1:2 ratio. A standardized chart review process was used to collect socio-demographic and clinical characteristics and the prescribed drugs for each study subject. Multivariate conditional logistic regression analysis was used to identify correlates of SCD at the index admission and the latest admission. The SMR for SCD was 4.5. For the clinical profiles at the index admission, physical disease (adjusted risk ratio [aRR]=2.91, Prisk of SCD. Regarding the latest admission, electrocardiographic abnormalities (aRR=5.46, Prisk for SCD. Consistently, aggressive behaviors (aRR=3.26, Prisk as well. Apart from cardiovascular profiles and antipsychotics, physical aggression is a crucial risk factor that deserves ongoing work for clarifying the mechanisms mediating SCD in schizophrenia. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  13. Risperidone long-acting injection in the treatment of schizophrenia: 24-month results from the electronic Schizophrenia Treatment Adherence Registry in Canada

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    Williams R

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available Richard Williams,1 Ranjith Chandrasena,2 Linda Beauclair,3 Doanh Luong,4 Annette Lam4 On behalf of the e-STAR study group 1Vancouver Island Health Authority, Victoria, BC, Canada; 2Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, Chatham, ON, Canada; 3Allan Memorial Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada; 4Janssen Inc., Toronto, ON, Canada Objective: To assess outcomes over 24 months in Canadian patients with schizophrenia initiated on risperidone long-acting injection (RLAI and participating in the electronic Schizophrenia Treatment Adherence Registry (e-STAR. Materials and methods: Patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were enrolled from 24 sites after an independent decision to initiate RLAI. Subsequent patient management was based on usual clinical practice at each site and was not protocol-driven. Relevant data were collected retrospectively by chart review for 12 months prior to RLAI and prospectively for 24 months following RLAI initiation. Results: Patients (n=188 had a mean age of 39.2 years, were 66.3% male, and 27.7% were inpatients at baseline. Twenty-four months after initiating therapy (initial dose =28.7 mg, 34.1% (95% confidence interval 27.2%–42.2% of patients had discontinued RLAI with a mean time to discontinuation of 273.4±196 days. Over the treatment period, there were significant (P<0.001 changes from baseline in Clinical Global Impression-Severity (CGI-S; 3.48 versus [vs] 4.31 at baseline, Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF; 56.1 vs 48.1, and Personal and Social Performance (PSP; 59.1 vs 46.9 scale scores. In addition, after 12 months, there were significant (P<0.001 decreases in the percentage of patients hospitalized (23.9% vs 58.5% pre-RLAI, mean length of stay (11.4 vs 30.4 days, and number of hospitalizations (0.32 vs 0.87 compared to the 12-month pre-RLAI period. Reductions in hospitalization continued into the second 12 months of therapy, when only 9% of patients were hospitalized and mean length of stay was 2.0 days

  14. Cognitive Remediation in Schizophrenia

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    Joana Vieira

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available Several reviews of the literature support the idea that cognitive deficits observed in a large percentage of patients with schizophrenia are responsible for the cognitive performance deficit and functional disability associated with the disease. The grow- ing importance of neurocognition in Psychiatry, especially with regard to planning strategies and rehabilitative therapies to improve the prognosis of patients contrib- utes to the interest of achieving this literature review on cognitive rehabilitation in schizophrenia. In this work, drawn from research in the areas of schizophrenia, cog- nition, cognitive rehabilitation and cognitive remediation (2000-2012 through PubMed and The Cochrane Collaboration, it is intended, to describe the types of psychological and behavioral therapies recommended in the treatment of cognitive disabilities in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. This review will also highlight the clinical and scientific evidence of each of these therapies, as their effect on cognitive performance, symptoms and functionality in patients with schizophrenia.

  15. Right Frontotemporal Cortex Mediates the Relationship between Cognitive Insight and Subjective Quality of Life in Patients with Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pu, Shenghong; Nakagome, Kazuyuki; Itakura, Masashi; Ohtachi, Hiroaki; Iwata, Masaaki; Nagata, Izumi; Kaneko, Koichi

    2018-01-01

    Although prior studies identified a relationship between cognitive insight and subjective quality of life (QOL) in patients with schizophrenia, the brain regions mediating this relationship remain unknown. Recent studies have shown that the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex may be particularly important for cognitive insight in individuals with schizophrenia. Here, we examined whether frontotemporal function mediates the relationship between cognitive insight and QOL in 64 participants, including 32 patients with schizophrenia and 32 healthy controls. Cognitive insight was measured using the Beck Cognitive Insight Scale (BCIS), while participants' subjective QOL was assessed using the Medical Outcomes Study 36-item Short-form Health Survey. Frontotemporal function was evaluated during a verbal fluency task using multichannel near-infrared spectroscopy. Consistent with previous findings, we found that frontotemporal function was impaired in patients with schizophrenia. Interestingly, our data also revealed that the right ventrolateral PFC and the right anterior part of the temporal cortex significantly mediated the relationship between the self-reflectiveness (SR) subscale of the BCIS and subjective QOL. These findings suggest that cognitive insight, particularly SR, is associated with subjective QOL in patients with schizophrenia via right frontotemporal function. The findings of this study provide important insight into a QOL model of schizophrenia, which may guide the development of cost-effective interventions that target frontotemporal function in patients with schizophrenia.

  16. Gray matter morphological anomalies in the cerebellar vermis in first-episode schizophrenia patients with cognitive deficits.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jingjuan; Zhou, Li; Cui, Chunlei; Liu, Zhening; Lu, Jie

    2017-11-22

    Cognitive deficits are a core feature of early schizophrenia. However, the pathological foundations underlying cognitive deficits are still unknown. The present study examined the association between gray matter density and cognitive deficits in first-episode schizophrenia. Structural magnetic resonance imaging of the brain was performed in 34 first-episode schizophrenia patients and 21 healthy controls. Patients were divided into two subgroups according to working memory task performance. The three groups were well matched for age, gender, and education, and the two patient groups were also further matched for diagnosis, duration of illness, and antipsychotic treatment. Voxel-based morphometric analysis was performed to estimate changes in gray matter density in first-episode schizophrenia patients with cognitive deficits. The relationships between gray matter density and clinical outcomes were explored. Patients with cognitive deficits were found to have reduced gray matter density in the vermis and tonsil of cerebellum compared with patients without cognitive deficits and healthy controls, decreased gray matter density in left supplementary motor area, bilateral precentral gyrus compared with patients without cognitive deficits. Classifier results showed GMD in cerebellar vermis tonsil cluster could differentiate SZ-CD from controls, left supplementary motor area cluster could differentiate SZ-CD from SZ-NCD. Gray matter density values of the cerebellar vermis cluster in patients groups were positively correlated with cognitive severity. Decreased gray matter density in the vermis and tonsil of cerebellum may underlie early psychosis and serve as a candidate biomarker for schizophrenia with cognitive deficits.

  17. [Neurophysiological Features of Perception of Emotional Stimuli in Health and in Patients with Paranoid Schizophrenia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arkhipov, A Yu; Strelets, V B

    2015-01-01

    Cognitive and emotional disorders, as far as is known, are the main syndromes of schizophrenia. Disorders of these functions are mainly determined by the clinical picture, as well as by psychophysiological correlates. The purpose of our study was to identify some psychophysiological factors which cause perceptual and emotional disturbances in patients with schizophrenia. These disorders of mental functions form the first rank (top) syndrome in patients with schizophrenia [1]. The studied patients had acute psychosis with a predominance of paranoid hallucinatory syndrome and did not receive antipsychotic therapy; i.e., the disturbances of sensory perception were most pronounced. The analysis of early component P100 and intermediate one N170 of event related potentials (ERPs) in the control group showed an increased level of excitation in response to emotionally threatening stimuli; the amplitude increased and the latency decreased in all leads. In contrast the analysis of components P100 and N170 in the group of patients with schizophrenia showed the increased latency and decreased amplitude. The obtained data provide evidence of pathological inhibition in the passive perception of emotionally significant stimuli.

  18. Abnormal synchrony and effective connectivity in patients with schizophrenia and auditory hallucinations

    Science.gov (United States)

    de la Iglesia-Vaya, Maria; Escartí, Maria José; Molina-Mateo, Jose; Martí-Bonmatí, Luis; Gadea, Marien; Castellanos, Francisco Xavier; Aguilar García-Iturrospe, Eduardo J.; Robles, Montserrat; Biswal, Bharat B.; Sanjuan, Julio

    2014-01-01

    Auditory hallucinations (AH) are the most frequent positive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. Hallucinations have been related to emotional processing disturbances, altered functional connectivity and effective connectivity deficits. Previously, we observed that, compared to healthy controls, the limbic network responses of patients with auditory hallucinations differed when the subjects were listening to emotionally charged words. We aimed to compare the synchrony patterns and effective connectivity of task-related networks between schizophrenia patients with and without AH and healthy controls. Schizophrenia patients with AH (n = 27) and without AH (n = 14) were compared with healthy participants (n = 31). We examined functional connectivity by analyzing correlations and cross-correlations among previously detected independent component analysis time courses. Granger causality was used to infer the information flow direction in the brain regions. The results demonstrate that the patterns of cortico-cortical functional synchrony differentiated the patients with AH from the patients without AH and from the healthy participants. Additionally, Granger-causal relationships between the networks clearly differentiated the groups. In the patients with AH, the principal causal source was an occipital–cerebellar component, versus a temporal component in the patients without AH and the healthy controls. These data indicate that an anomalous process of neural connectivity exists when patients with AH process emotional auditory stimuli. Additionally, a central role is suggested for the cerebellum in processing emotional stimuli in patients with persistent AH. PMID:25379429

  19. Temporomandibular disorders in patients with schizophrenia using antipsychotic agents: a discussion paper

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    de Araújo AN

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available Arão Nogueira de Araújo,1 Marion Alves do Nascimento,1 Eduardo Pondé de Sena,1,2 Abrahão Fontes Baptista3,4 1Postgraduate Program in Interactive Processes of Organs and Systems, 2Department of Pharmacology, Institute of Health Sciences, 3Department of Biomorphology, Institute of Health Sciences, 4Postgraduate Program in Medicine and Health, Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil Abstract: Patients with psychiatric problems show a tendency to develop temporomandibular disorders (TMD. Particularly, patients with schizophrenia are quite likely to have signs and symptoms of TMD due to the impairment of their oral health, the use of antipsychotic drugs, and other general health problems. In nonschizophrenic populations, TMD have been considered as the main cause of nondental pain in the orofacial region, involving mechanisms associated with changes in masticatory activity at the cortical and neuromuscular levels. Individuals with schizophrenia do not usually complain of pain, and TMD is misdiagnosed in this population. In this paper, we aimed to review the clinical aspects of TMD in people with schizophrenia on antipsychotic drug therapy. Keywords: schizophrenia, temporomandibular joint, pain, antipsychotic agents

  20. Haloperidol versus second-generation antipsychotics in the long-term treatment of schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buoli, Massimiliano; Kahn, René S; Serati, Marta; Altamura, A Carlo; Cahn, Wiepke

    2016-07-01

    The purpose of the study was to compare antipsychotic monotherapies in terms of time to discontinuation in a sample of schizophrenia patients followed-up for 36 months. Two hundred and twenty schizophrenia patients, treated with antipsychotic monotherapy and followed-up in psychiatric outpatient clinics of Universities of Milan and Utrecht were included in the study. A survival analysis (Kaplan-Meier) of the 36-month follow-up period was performed to compare the single treatment groups. End-point was considered as discontinuation of treatment for recurrence, side effects or non-compliance. Patients treated with haloperidol discontinued more than the other groups (Breslow: risperidone p haloperidol group than in the olanzapine group (p haloperidol group than with olanzapine (p haloperidol. In addition, atypical antipsychotics seem to be more protective against recurrences than haloperidol. However, these results should be cautiously interpreted in the light of potential confounder factors such as duration of illness. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  1. Belief revision and delusions: how do patients with schizophrenia take advice?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaliuzhna, Mariia; Chambon, Valérian; Franck, Nicolas; Testud, Bérangère; Van der Henst, Jean-Baptiste

    2012-01-01

    The dominant cognitive model that accounts for the persistence of delusional beliefs in schizophrenia postulates that patients suffer from a general deficit in belief revision. It is generally assumed that this deficit is a consequence of impaired reasoning skills. However, the possibility that such inflexibility affects the entire system of a patient's beliefs has rarely been empirically tested. Using delusion-neutral material in a well-documented advice-taking task, the present study reports that patients with schizophrenia: 1) revise their beliefs, 2) take into account socially provided information to do so, 3) are not overconfident about their judgments, and 4) show less egocentric advice-discounting than controls. This study thus shows that delusional patients' difficulty in revising beliefs is more selective than had been previously assumed. The specificities of the task and the implications for a theory of delusion formation are discussed.

  2. Unawareness of the disease in patients with schizophrenia: diagnosis and insight-oriented psychotherapy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    O. I. Osokina

    2018-06-01

    Full Text Available Relevance. Phenomenon of patients' unawareness of their illness (insight is a pathognomonic diagnostic criterion that distinguishes schizophrenia from many other psychiatric disorders. More than half of patients with schizophrenia do not realize their illness that makes their treatment more difficult. Diagnosis of insight in patients with schizophrenia is an important issue. The volume and content of rehabilitation programs depends on it. The purpose of research is to study the structure of insight in patients with schizophrenia, its relationship with certain clinical, social and psychological indicators, and to assess the influence of insight-oriented psychotherapy on the outcomes of schizophrenia. Material and methods. 237 patients with schizophrenia were studied: 139 (58.6 % men and 98 (41.4 % women aged 18-35 years. Patients of the main group (122 people received pharmacotherapy and were included in the program of insight-oriented psychotherapy. Patients of the comparison group (115 people received standard treatment. Measurement of the insight level was carried out using the scale of unawareness of mental disorder (SUMD. To study social indicators the scale of social functioning in various spheres was used (Zaitsev, 1999. The quality of life level and social stigma were measured by WHOQOL-BREF and adapted version of the self-stigmatization scale (SSMIS. Evaluation of outcomes in schizophrenia was carried out using the IMR and RMQ scales. The level of cognitive functioning was assessed by the GACF-CogFu scale. The severity of depression was measured by the scale developed by Beck (BDI. The mechanisms of psychological defense were assessed using the scale of R. Plutchik, H. Kellerman (1979. Mathematical processing of the results was also carried out. Results. Correlations were found between a higher level of patient awareness of the disease and its better prognosis (r= -0.507; p<0.05, a higher level of social functioning (r= 0.478; p<0

  3. Health care resource use and direct medical costs for patients with schizophrenia in Tianjin, People’s Republic of China

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wu J

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Jing Wu,1 Xiaoning He,1 Li Liu,2 Wenyu Ye,2 William Montgomery,3 Haibo Xue,2 Jeffery S McCombs41School of Pharmaceutical Science and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China; 2Lilly Suzhou Pharmaceutical Company, Ltd, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 3Eli Lilly and Company, Sydney, Australia; 4Departments of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy, School of Pharmacy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USAObjective: Information concerning the treatment costs of schizophrenia is scarce in People’s Republic of China. The aims of this study were to quantify health care resource utilization and to estimate the direct medical costs for patients with schizophrenia in Tianjin, People’s Republic of China.Methods: Data were obtained from the Tianjin Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance (UEBMI database. Adult patients with ≥1 diagnosis of schizophrenia and 12-month continuous enrollment after the first schizophrenia diagnosis between 2008 and 2009 were included. Both schizophrenia-related, psychiatric-related, and all-cause related resource utilization and direct medical costs were estimated.Results: A total of 2,125 patients were included with a mean age of 52.3 years, and 50.7% of the patients were female. The annual mean all-cause costs were $2,863 per patient with psychiatric-related and schizophrenia-related costs accounting for 84.1% and 62.0% respectively. The schizophrenia-related costs for hospitalized patients were eleven times greater than that of patients who were not hospitalized. For schizophrenia-related health services, 60.8% of patients experienced at least one hospitalization with a mean (median length of stay of 112.1 (71 days and a mean cost of $1,904 per admission; 59.0% of patients experienced at least one outpatient visit with a mean (median number of visits of 6.2 (4 and a mean cost of $42 per visit during the 12-month follow-up period. Non

  4. Effects of high aerobic intensity training in patients with schizophrenia: a controlled trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heggelund, Jørn; Nilsberg, Geir E; Hoff, Jan; Morken, Gunnar; Helgerud, Jan

    2011-09-01

    Patients with schizophrenia have a high risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). High aerobic intensity training (HIT) improve peak oxygen uptake (VO(2peak)), net mechanical efficiency of walking and risk factors for CVD but has not been investigated in patients with schizophrenia. To investigate effects from HIT on VO(2peak), net mechanical efficiency of walking and risk factors for CVD in patients with schizophrenia. 25 inpatients (F20-29, ICD-10) were allocated to either HIT or playing computer games (CG), 3 days per week for 8 weeks. HIT consisted of 4 × 4-min intervals with 3-min break periods, at 85-95% and 70% of peak heart rate, respectively. 12 and seven patients completed HIT and CG, respectively. The baseline VO(2peak) in both groups combined (n = 19) was 36.8 ± 8.2 ml/kg/min and 3.12 ± 0.55 l/min. The HIT group improved VO(2peak) by 12% from 3.17 ± 0.59 to 3.56 ± 0.68 l/min (P Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and the Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia (CDSS), did not improve in either group. VO(2peak) and net mechanical efficiency of walking improved significantly by 8 weeks of HIT. HIT should be included in rehabilitation in order to improve physical capacity and contribute risk reduction of CVD.

  5. A multicenter, randomized controlled trial of individualized occupational therapy for patients with schizophrenia in Japan

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ohori, Manami; Inagaki, Yusuke; Shimooka, Yuko; Sugimura, Naoya; Ishihara, Ikuyo; Yoshida, Tomotaka

    2018-01-01

    The individualized occupational therapy (IOT) program is a psychosocial program that we developed to facilitate proactive participation in treatment and improve cognitive functioning and other outcomes for inpatients with acute schizophrenia. The program consists of motivational interviewing, self-monitoring, individualized visits, handicraft activities, individualized psychoeducation, and discharge planning. This multicenter, open-labeled, blinded-endpoint, randomized controlled trial evaluated the impact of adding IOT to a group OT (GOT) program as usual for outcomes in recently hospitalized patients with schizophrenia in Japanese psychiatric hospitals setting compared with GOT alone. Patients with schizophrenia were randomly assigned to the GOT+IOT group or the GOT alone group. Among 136 randomized patients, 129 were included in the intent-to-treat population: 66 in the GOT+IOT and 63 in the GOT alone groups. Outcomes were administered at baseline and discharge or 3 months following hospitalization including the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia Japanese version (BACS-J), the Schizophrenia Cognition Rating Scale Japanese version, the Social Functioning Scale Japanese version, the Global Assessment of Functioning scale, the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory Japanese version (IMI-J), the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8 (MMAS-8), the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), and the Japanese version of Client Satisfaction Questionnaire-8 (CSQ-8J). Results of linear mixed effects models indicated that the IOT+GOT showed significant improvements in verbal memory (p IOT demonstrated significant improvements on the CSQ-8J compared with the GOT alone (p IOT program and its effectiveness for improving cognitive impairment and other outcomes in patients with schizophrenia. PMID:29621261

  6. The effects of assertiveness training in patients with schizophrenia: a randomized, single-blind, controlled study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Tso-Ying; Chang, Shih-Chin; Chu, Hsin; Yang, Chyn-Yng; Ou, Keng-Liang; Chung, Min-Huey; Chou, Kuei-Ru

    2013-11-01

    In this study, we investigated the effects of group assertiveness training on assertiveness, social anxiety and satisfaction with interpersonal communication among patients with chronic schizophrenia. Only limited studies highlighted the effectiveness of group assertiveness training among inpatients with schizophrenia. Given the lack of group assertiveness training among patients with schizophrenia, further development of programmes focusing on facilitating assertiveness, self-confidence and social skills among inpatients with chronic schizophrenia is needed. This study used a prospective, randomized, single-blinded, parallel-group design. This study employed a prospective, randomized, parallel-group design. Seventy-four patients were randomly assigned to experimental group receiving 12 sessions of assertiveness training, or a supportive control group. Data collection took place for the period of June 2009-July 2010. Among patients with chronic schizophrenia, assertiveness, levels of social anxiety and satisfaction with interpersonal communication significantly improved immediately after the intervention and at the 3-month follow-up in the intervention group. The results of a generalized estimating equation (GEE) indicated that: (1) assertiveness significantly improved from pre- to postintervention and was maintained until the follow-up; (2) anxiety regarding social interactions significantly decreased after assertiveness training; and (3) satisfaction with interpersonal communication slightly improved after the 12-session intervention and at the 3-month follow-up. Assertivenss training is a non-invasive and inexpensive therapy that appears to improve assertiveness, social anxiety and interpersonal communication among inpatients with chronic schizophrenia. These findings may provide a reference guide to clinical nurses for developing assertiveness-training protocols. © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

  7. Antioxidant and anti-inflammatory nutrient status, supplementation, and mechanisms in patients with schizophrenia.

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    Mitra, Sumedha; Natarajan, Radhika; Ziedonis, Douglas; Fan, Xiaoduo

    2017-08-01

    Over 50 million people around the world suffer from schizophrenia, a severe mental illness characterized by misinterpretation of reality. Although the exact causes of schizophrenia are still unknown, studies have indicated that inflammation and oxidative stress may play an important role in the etiology of the disease. Pro-inflammatory cytokines are crucial for normal central nervous development and proper functioning of neural networks and neurotransmitters. Patients with schizophrenia tend to have abnormal immune activation resulting in elevated pro-inflammatory cytokine levels, ultimately leading to functional brain impairments. Patients with schizophrenia have also been found to suffer from oxidative stress, a result of an imbalance between the production of free radicals and the ability to detoxify their harmful effects. Furthermore, inflammation and oxidative stress are implicated to be related to the severity of psychotic symptoms. Several nutrients are known to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant functions through various mechanisms in our body. The present review evaluates studies and literature that address the status and supplementation of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, vitamin D, B vitamins (B6, folate, B12), vitamin E, and carotenoids in different stages of schizophrenia. The possible anti-inflammatory and antioxidant mechanisms of action of each nutrient are discussed. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Attitudes toward Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trials of Patients with Schizophrenia in Japan.

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    Norio Sugawara

    Full Text Available Although the use of placebo in clinical trials of schizophrenia patients is controversial because of medical and ethical concerns, placebo-controlled clinical trials are commonly used in the licensing of new drugs.The objective of this study was to assess the attitudes toward placebo-controlled clinical trials among patients with schizophrenia in Japan.Using a cross-sectional design, we recruited patients (n = 251 aged 47.7±13.2 (mean±SD with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder who were admitted to six psychiatric hospitals from December 2013 to March 2014. We employed a 14-item questionnaire specifically developed to survey patients' attitudes toward placebo-controlled clinical trials.The results indicated that 33% of the patients would be willing to participate in a placebo-controlled clinical trial. Expectations for improvement of disease, a guarantee of hospital treatment continuation, and encouragement by family or friends were associated with the willingness to participate in such trials, whereas a belief of additional time required for medical examinations was associated with non-participation.Fewer than half of the respondents stated that they would be willing to participate in placebo-controlled clinical trials. Therefore, interpreting the results from placebo-controlled clinical trials could be negatively affected by selection bias.

  9. EEG correlates of a mental arithmetic task in patients with first episode schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder.

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    Garakh, Zhanna; Zaytseva, Yuliya; Kapranova, Alexandra; Fiala, Ondrej; Horacek, Jiri; Shmukler, Alexander; Gurovich, Isaac Ya; Strelets, Valeria B

    2015-11-01

    To evaluate the spectral power of the cortical bands in patients with first episode schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder at rest and during the performance of a mental arithmetic task. We analyzed EEG spectral power (SP) in the resting state and subsequently while counting down from 200 in steps of 7, in 32 first episode schizophrenia patients (SZ), 32 patients with first episode schizoaffective disorder (SA) and healthy controls (HC, n=40). Behavioral parameters such as accuracy and counting speed were also evaluated. Both SZ and SA patients were slower in counting than HC, no difference was obtained in the accuracy and counting speed in the patient groups. In the resting state patients showed elevated midline theta power, off-midline anterior beta 2 power and decreased central/posterior alpha power. The SA group occupied an intermediate position between the schizophrenia patients and controls. In task performance patients lacked a typical increase of midline theta, left anterior beta 2, and anterior gamma power; however, schizoaffective patients demonstrated a growing trend of power in the gamma band in left anterior off-midline sites similar to HC. Moreover, alpha power was less inhibited in schizoaffective patients and more pronounced in schizophrenia patients indicating distinct inhibitory mechanisms in these psychotic disorders. Patients with SA demonstrate less alteration in the spectral power of bands at rest than SZ, and present spectral power changes during cognitive task performance close to the controls. Our study contributes to the present evidence on the neurophysiological distinction between schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. Copyright © 2015 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. Field visual perspective during autobiographical memory recall is less frequent among patients with schizophrenia.

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    Potheegadoo, Jevita; Berna, Fabrice; Cuervo-Lombard, Christine; Danion, Jean-Marie

    2013-10-01

    There is growing interest in clinical research regarding the visual perspective adopted during memory retrieval, because it reflects individuals' self-attitude towards their memories of past personal events. Several autobiographical memory deficits, including low specificity of personal memories, have been identified in schizophrenia, but visual perspective during autobiographical memory retrieval has not yet been investigated in patients. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate the visual perspective with which patients visualize themselves when recalling autobiographical memories and to assess the specificity of their memories which is a major determinant of visual perspective. Thirty patients with schizophrenia and 30 matched controls recalled personal events from 4 life periods. After each recall, they were asked to report their visual perspective (Field or Observer) associated with the event. The specificity of their memories was assessed by independent raters. Our results showed that patients reported significantly fewer Field perspectives than comparison participants. Patients' memories, whether recalled with Field or Observer perspectives, were less specific and less detailed. Our results indicate that patients with schizophrenia adopt Field perspectives less frequently than comparison participants, and that this may contribute to a weakened sense of the individual of being an actor of his past events, and hence to a reduced sense of self. They suggest that this may be related to low specificity of memories and that all the important aspects involved in re-experiencing autobiographical events are impaired in patients with schizophrenia. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  11. Neuropsychology, autobiographical memory and hippocampal volume in younger and older patients with chronic schizophrenia

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    Christina Josefa Herold

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Despite a wide range of studies on neuropsychology in schizophrenia, autobiographical memory (AM has been scarcely investigated in these patients. Hence less is known about AM in older patients and hippocampal contribution to autobiographical memories of varying remoteness. Therefore we investigated hippocampal volume and AM along with important neuropsychological domains in patients with chronic schizophrenia and the respective relationships between these parameters. We compared 25 older patients with chronic schizophrenia to 23 younger patients and an older healthy control group (N = 21 with respect to AM, additional neuropsychological parameters and hippocampal volume. Personal episodic and semantic memory was investigated using a semi-structured interview. Additional neuropsychological parameters were assessed by using a battery of standard neuropsychological tests. Structural magnetic resonance imaging data were analysed with an automated region-of-interest procedure. While hippocampal volume reduction and neuropsychological impairment were more pronounced in the older than in the younger patients, both groups showed equivalent reduced AM performance for recent personal episodes. In the patient group significant correlations between left hippocampal volume and recent autobiographical episodes as well as personal semantic memories arose. Verbal memory and working memory were significantly correlated with right hippocampal volume, executive functions, however, were associated with bilateral hippocampal volumes. These findings underline the complexity of AM and its impairments in the course of schizophrenia in comparison to rather progressive neuropsychological deficits and address the importance of hippocampal contribution.

  12. Neuropsychology, autobiographical memory, and hippocampal volume in "younger" and "older" patients with chronic schizophrenia.

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    Herold, Christina Josefa; Lässer, Marc Montgomery; Schmid, Lena Anna; Seidl, Ulrich; Kong, Li; Fellhauer, Iven; Thomann, Philipp Arthur; Essig, Marco; Schröder, Johannes

    2015-01-01

    Despite a wide range of studies on neuropsychology in schizophrenia, autobiographical memory (AM) has been scarcely investigated in these patients. Hence, less is known about AM in older patients and hippocampal contribution to autobiographical memories of varying remoteness. Therefore, we investigated hippocampal volume and AM along with important neuropsychological domains in patients with chronic schizophrenia and the respective relationships between these parameters. We compared 25 older patients with chronic schizophrenia to 23 younger patients and an older healthy control group (N = 21) with respect to AM, additional neuropsychological parameters, and hippocampal volume. Personal episodic and semantic memory was investigated using a semi-structured interview. Additional neuropsychological parameters were assessed by using a battery of standard neuropsychological tests. Structural magnetic resonance imaging data were analyzed with an automated region-of-interest procedure. While hippocampal volume reduction and neuropsychological impairment were more pronounced in the older than in the younger patients, both groups showed equivalent reduced AM performance for recent personal episodes. In the patient group, significant correlations between left hippocampal volume and recent autobiographical episodes as well as personal semantic memories arose. Verbal memory and working memory were significantly correlated with right hippocampal volume; executive functions, however, were associated with bilateral hippocampal volumes. These findings underline the complexity of AM and its impairments in the course of schizophrenia in comparison to rather progressive neuropsychological deficits and address the importance of hippocampal contribution.

  13. Predicting Future High-Cost Schizophrenia Patients Using High-Dimensional Administrative Data

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    Yajuan Wang

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available BackgroundThe burden of serious and persistent mental illness such as schizophrenia is substantial and requires health-care organizations to have adequate risk adjustment models to effectively allocate their resources to managing patients who are at the greatest risk. Currently available models underestimate health-care costs for those with mental or behavioral health conditions.ObjectivesThe study aimed to develop and evaluate predictive models for identification of future high-cost schizophrenia patients using advanced supervised machine learning methods.MethodsThis was a retrospective study using a payer administrative database. The study cohort consisted of 97,862 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia (ICD9 code 295.* from January 2009 to June 2014. Training (n = 34,510 and study evaluation (n = 30,077 cohorts were derived based on 12-month observation and prediction windows (PWs. The target was average total cost/patient/month in the PW. Three models (baseline, intermediate, final were developed to assess the value of different variable categories for cost prediction (demographics, coverage, cost, health-care utilization, antipsychotic medication usage, and clinical conditions. Scalable orthogonal regression, significant attribute selection in high dimensions method, and random forests regression were used to develop the models. The trained models were assessed in the evaluation cohort using the regression R2, patient classification accuracy (PCA, and cost accuracy (CA. The model performance was compared to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Hierarchical Condition Categories (CMS-HCC model.ResultsAt top 10% cost cutoff, the final model achieved 0.23 R2, 43% PCA, and 63% CA; in contrast, the CMS-HCC model achieved 0.09 R2, 27% PCA with 45% CA. The final model and the CMS-HCC model identified 33 and 22%, respectively, of total cost at the top 10% cost cutoff.ConclusionUsing advanced feature selection leveraging detailed

  14. Impact of antipsychotic medication on transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) effects in schizophrenia patients.

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    Agarwal, Sri Mahavir; Bose, Anushree; Shivakumar, Venkataram; Narayanaswamy, Janardhanan C; Chhabra, Harleen; Kalmady, Sunil V; Varambally, Shivarama; Nitsche, Michael A; Venkatasubramanian, Ganesan; Gangadhar, Bangalore N

    2016-01-30

    Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has generated interest as a treatment modality for schizophrenia. Dopamine, a critical pathogenetic link in schizophrenia, is also known to influence tDCS effects. We evaluated the influence of antipsychotic drug type (as defined by dopamine D2 receptor affinity) on the impact of tDCS in schizophrenia. DSM-IV-TR-diagnosed schizophrenia patients [N=36] with persistent auditory hallucinations despite adequate antipsychotic treatment were administered add-on tDCS. Patients were divided into three groups based on the antipsychotic's affinity to D2 receptors. An auditory hallucinations score (AHS) was measured using the auditory hallucinations subscale of the Psychotic Symptom Rating Scales (PSYRATS). Add-on tDCS resulted in a significant reduction inAHS. Antipsychotic drug type had a significant effect on AHS reduction. Patients treated with high affinity antipsychotics showed significantly lesser improvement compared to patients on low affinity antipsychotics or a mixture of the two. Furthermore, a significant sex-by-group interaction occurred; type of medication had an impact on tDCS effects only in women. Improvement differences could be due to the larger availability of the dopamine receptor system in patients taking antipsychotics with low D2 affinity. Sex-specific differences suggest potential estrogen-mediated effects. This study reports a first-time observation on the clinical utility of antipsychotic drug type in predicting tDCS effects in schizophrenia. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. An Integrated Care Initiative to Improve Patient Outcome in Schizophrenia

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    Norbert eMayer-Amberg

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The optimal treatment of schizophrenia patients requires integration of medical and psychosocial inputs. In Germany, various healthcare service providers and institutions are involved in the treatment process. Early and continuous treatment is important but often not possible because of the fragmented medical care system in Germany. The current work is a quality monitoring report of a novel care setting, called Integrated Care Initiative Schizophrenia. It has implemented a networked care concept in the German federal state of Lower Saxony that integrates various stakeholders of the health care system. In this initiative, office-based psychiatrists, specialised nursing staff, psychologists, social workers, hospitals, psychiatric institutional outpatient’s departments and other community-based mental health services work together in an interdisciplinary approach. Much emphasis is placed on psychoeducation. Additional efforts cover socio-therapy, visiting care, and family support. During the period from October 2010 (start of the initiative to December 2012, first experiences and results of quality indicators were collected of 713 registered patients and summarised in a quality monitoring report. In addition, standardised patient interviews were conducted, and duration of hospital days was recorded in 2013. By the end of 2012, patients had been enrolled for an average of 18.7 months. The overall patient satisfaction measured in a patient survey in June 2013 was high and the duration of hospital days measured in a pre-post analysis in July 2013 was reduced by 44%. Two years earlier than planned, the insurance fund will continue the successfully implemented integrated care initiative and adopt it in the regular care setting. This initiative can serve as a learning case for how to set up and measure integrated care systems that may improve outcomes for patients suffering from schizophrenia.

  16. The Effect of Cognitive Remediation Therapy on Social Skills in Institutionalized Elderly Patients with Schizophrenia.

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    Mohammadi, Fatemeh; Momtaz, Yadollah Abolfathi; Motallebi, Seyedeh Ameneh; Boosepasi, Shahnaz

    2017-01-01

    There are limited scientific investigations on cognitive remediation in elderly patients with schizophrenia. The present study was aimed to examine the efficacy of cognitive remediation therapy on social skills in institutionalized elderly patients with schizophrenia. The study employed a randomized clinical trial. A total of 60 institutionalized elderly patients with schizophrenia from Razi Psychiatric Hospital, Tehran were selected and randomly allocated into two equal groups (control and intervention). The intervention group attended to cognitive remediation therapy for 8 weeks. The Evaluation of Living Skills Scale for psychiatric patients was used for data collection. The Chi Square, independent and paired t-tests using SPSS, version 22, were employed to analyze the data. The mean age of 60 elderly patients participated in the study was 65.25 ± 4.19 years. No significant differences were found between two groups at baseline. However, independent t-tests showed significant differences between the intervention and the control group in social skills after implementation of intervention. Additionally, the results of paired t-tests revealed significant improvements in intervention group on communication skills (t=5.50, psocial skills of elderly patients with schizophrenia. Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.org.

  17. An Event Related Potentials Study of Semantic Coherence Effect during Episodic Encoding in Schizophrenia Patients

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    Lâle Battal Merlet

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available The objective of this electrophysiological study was to investigate the processing of semantic coherence during encoding in relation to episodic memory processes promoted at test, in schizophrenia patients, by using the N400 paradigm. Eighteen schizophrenia patients and 15 healthy participants undertook a recognition memory task. The stimuli consisted of pairs of words either semantically related or unrelated to a given category name (context. During encoding, both groups exhibited an N400 external semantic coherence effect. Healthy controls also showed an N400 internal semantic coherence effect, but this effect was not present in patients. At test, related stimuli were accompanied by an FN400 old/new effect in both groups and by a parietal old/new effect in the control group alone. In the patient group, external semantic coherence effect was associated with FN400, while, in the control group, it was correlated to the parietal old/new effect. Our results indicate that schizophrenia patients can process the contextual information at encoding to enhance familiarity process for related stimuli at test. Therefore, cognitive rehabilitation therapies targeting the implementation of semantic encoding strategies can mobilize familiarity which in turn can overcome the recollection deficit, promoting successful episodic memory performance in schizophrenia patients.

  18. Cigarette smoking modulates medication-associated deficits in a monetary reward task in patients with schizophrenia.

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    Lernbass, Birgit; Grön, Georg; Wolf, Nadine D; Abler, Birgit

    2013-09-01

    Imaging studies of reward processing have demonstrated a mesolimbic-mesocortical dopaminergic dysfunction in schizophrenia. Such studies on reward processing in patients and also in healthy controls showed that differential activations of dopaminergic brain areas are associated with adaptive changes in response speed related to different reward values. Given this relationship, we investigated reward processing on the behavioural level in a larger sample of 49 medicated patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia (ICD-10 F20) and 49 healthy controls. Subjects were instructed to react by button press upon two different stimuli in order to retain a 60 % chance winning a previously announced high (1$) or low (20¢) amount of money paid to participants after the experiment. Concordant with previous reports on deficits in reward processing, acceleration of reaction times in patients upon low rewards differed significantly (p non-smoking subgroup of patients (n = 24). In this subgroup, we also observed a significant (p monetary reward task might constitute a feasible behavioural proxy for dopaminergic dysfunction and its different dimensions regarding psychopathology but also medication in patients with schizophrenia. In line with clinical observations, our findings support the notion that smoking modulates medication-associated side effects on reward processing in patients with schizophrenia.

  19. Diabetes mellitus and impaired glucose tolerance in patients with schizophrenia, before and after antipsychotic treatment

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    Rayees Ahmad Wani

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Treatment with antipsychotics increases the risk of developing diabetes in patients of schizophrenia but this diabetogenic potential of different antipsychotics seems to be different. Moreover, there may be an independent link between schizophrenia and diabetes. So we plan to study the prevalence of glucose dysregulation in patients of schizophrenia before and after treatment with various antipsychotics. Materials and Methods: Fifty patients (32 males and 18 females diagnosed with schizophrenia were evaluated for glucose dysregulation using oral glucose tolerance test, initially (drug naive and after antipsychotic treatment. Age- and sex-matched healthy volunteer group of 50 subjects (35 males and 15 females was taken for comparison. Results were interpreted using American Diabetic Association criteria. Results: Though the glycemic status of the patient group was comparable with healthy controls initially but antipsychotic treatment was associated with glucose dysregulation. For first 6 weeks the antipsychotic (olanzapine, risperidone, haloperidol and aripiprazole-induced glucose dysregulation was comparable, which was seen to be maximum with the olanzapine-treated group at the end of this study, 14 weeks. Conclusion: We conclude that antipsychotic treatment of nondiabetic drug naive schizophrenia patients was associated with adverse effects on glucose regulation. For initial 6 weeks the antipsychotic-induced glucose dysregulation was comparable, which was seen to be maximum with olanzapine at the end of study, i.e. 14 weeks. Keeping this at the back of mind we can stabilize a patient initially with a more effective drug, olanzapine, and later on shift to one with less metabolic side effects.

  20. Sexual obsessions and suicidal behaviors in patients with mood disorders, panic disorder and schizophrenia

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    Dell’Osso Liliana

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The topic of sexual obsessions as a psychiatric symptom has not been well investigated. The aim of this study was twofold: 1 to explore the presence of sexual obsessions in patients with mood disorders (n=156, panic disorder (n=54 and schizophrenia (n=79, with respect to non-psychiatric subjects (n=100; 2 to investigate the relationship between sexual obsessions and suicidal behaviors, taking into account socio-demographic variables ad mental disorders. Methods 289 psychiatric patients with mood disorders, panic disorder or schizophrenia, were recruited at the Italian University departments of psychiatry along with 100 non-psychiatric subjects, who presented for a routine eye exam at the ophthalmology department of the same Universities. The assessments included: the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV-TR, the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS, the Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Self-Report (OBS-SR, for sexual obsession, and the Mood Spectrum-Self Report lifetime version (MOODS-SR. Suicidality was assessed by means of 6 items of the MOODS-SR. Results Sexual obsessions were more frequent in schizophrenia (54.4%, followed by mood disorders (35.9%. Among schizophrenia patients, males reported more sexual obsessions than females (P Conclusions Special attention should be given to investigate and establish effective strategies of treatment for sexual obsessions, especially those with comorbid mood disorders or schizophrenia.

  1. Health-related quality of life, adiposity, and sedentary behavior in patients with early schizophrenia: preliminary study

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    Strassnig M

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available Martin Strassnig,1 Jaspreet S Brar,2 Rohan Ganguli31Department of Psychiatry, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA; 2Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA; 3Department of Psychiatry, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, CanadaObjective: To examine adiposity and sedentary behavior in relation to health-related quality of life (QoL in patients with early schizophrenia.Methods: A cross-sectional study was used to assess adiposity by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scans, habitual physical activity and idle sitting time by the Short Form International Physical Activity Questionnaire, and health-related QoL by the RAND Medical Outcomes Study SF-36. QoL scores were compared with age-adjusted Canadian normative population data.Results: There were 36 participants with early schizophrenia, average age 25.1 (±3.6. Twenty-nine (72.5% were males. Mean illness duration was 30 (±18 months, and mean body mass index was 28.3 (±5. Females had higher body fat content than males (30.8 ± 6.9 vs 24.7 ± 10.6; t = −2.6, df = 34; P = 0.015. Total body fat (F = 14; P = 0.001, lean body mass (F = 10.2; P = 0.001, and sedentary behavior (F = 5; P = 0.013 significantly increased across body mass index categories. Total body fat was correlated with sedentary behavior (r = 0.62; P = 0.001, and total lean body mass was negatively correlated with sedentary behavior (r = 0.39; P = 0.03. Based on SF-36 scores, participants had significantly lower physical functioning (P = 0.0034, role physical (P = 0.0003, general health (P < 0.0001, vitality (P = 0.03, and physical component scores (P = 0.003 than Canadian population comparisons. Habitual sedentary behavior, more than activity or adiposity levels, was associated with health-related QoL in early schizophrenia.Conclusion: Health-related QoL is lower in early schizophrenia and is predominantly experienced in the physical

  2. Schizophrenia research participants' responses to protocol safeguards: recruitment, consent, and debriefing.

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    Roberts, Laura Weiss; Warner, Teddy D; Anderson, Charles T; Smithpeter, Megan V; Rogers, Melinda K

    2004-04-01

    To examine the perspectives and preferences regarding ethically important aspects of recruitment, consent, and debriefing of people with schizophrenia who volunteered for research protocols. A structured interview to assess research-related views of people with schizophrenia was developed and piloted. Data collection occurred at three sites. For this analysis, we examined the subset of responses from schizophrenia patients currently enrolled in a protocol. Data from 28 schizophrenia research volunteers were analyzed. Of these, 22 were men and 11 were voluntary inpatients. Most (n=23) recalled speaking with someone before enrolling in the protocol, and most (n=26) reported trusting the person who told them about it. Participants reported a moderate understanding of their protocols. All but one person (n=27) remembered signing a consent form. Twenty-one volunteers indicated that consent forms are meant to help both the patient and the researcher. Most (n=23) reported making the enrollment decision alone, with 22 making this decision prior to reviewing the consent form. The decision was described as relatively easy. Respondents felt some pressure to enroll, with women experiencing more pressure. Debriefing practices were strongly endorsed by participants. All 28 of the volunteers wished to be informed if a health problem (i.e., "something wrong") was discovered during the protocol. The persons living with schizophrenia who were interviewed for this project expressed interesting perspectives and preferences regarding ethically important aspects of recruitment, consent, and debriefing in clinical research that may help guide efforts to make research processes more attuned to participants and merit further inquiry.

  3. Temporal information processing in short- and long-term memory of patients with schizophrenia.

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    Landgraf, Steffen; Steingen, Joerg; Eppert, Yvonne; Niedermeyer, Ulrich; van der Meer, Elke; Krueger, Frank

    2011-01-01

    Cognitive deficits of patients with schizophrenia have been largely recognized as core symptoms of the disorder. One neglected factor that contributes to these deficits is the comprehension of time. In the present study, we assessed temporal information processing and manipulation from short- and long-term memory in 34 patients with chronic schizophrenia and 34 matched healthy controls. On the short-term memory temporal-order reconstruction task, an incidental or intentional learning strategy was deployed. Patients showed worse overall performance than healthy controls. The intentional learning strategy led to dissociable performance improvement in both groups. Whereas healthy controls improved on a performance measure (serial organization), patients improved on an error measure (inappropriate semantic clustering) when using the intentional instead of the incidental learning strategy. On the long-term memory script-generation task, routine and non-routine events of everyday activities (e.g., buying groceries) had to be generated in either chronological or inverted temporal order. Patients were slower than controls at generating events in the chronological routine condition only. They also committed more sequencing and boundary errors in the inverted conditions. The number of irrelevant events was higher in patients in the chronological, non-routine condition. These results suggest that patients with schizophrenia imprecisely access temporal information from short- and long-term memory. In short-term memory, processing of temporal information led to a reduction in errors rather than, as was the case in healthy controls, to an improvement in temporal-order recall. When accessing temporal information from long-term memory, patients were slower and committed more sequencing, boundary, and intrusion errors. Together, these results suggest that time information can be accessed and processed only imprecisely by patients who provide evidence for impaired time comprehension

  4. Functional and structural abnormalities associated with empathy in patients with schizophrenia: An fMRI and VBM study

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    Singh, Sadhana; Modi, Shilpi; Goyal, Satnam; Kaur, Prabhjot; Singh, Namita; Bhatia, Triptish; Deshpande, Smita N; Khushu, Subash

    2015-01-01

    Empathy deficit is a core feature of schizophrenia which may lead to social dysfunction. The present study was carried out to investigate functional and structural abnormalities associated with empathy in patients with schizophrenia using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and voxel-based morphometry (VBM). A sample of 14 schizophrenia patients and 14 healthy control subjects matched for age, sex and education were examined with structural high-resolution T1-weighted MRI; fMRI image...

  5. CAREGIVER BURDEN AMONG PEOPLE CARING FOR PATIENTS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA

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    Shivani Bansal

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND Caregivers of patients suffering from mental illness report burden in different areas including effects on family functioning, psychological problems, financial problems and health. The aim of the study is to determine the sociodemographic profile and caregiver burden among caregivers of persons with schizophrenia and to study the effect of patients’ psychopathology on caregiver burden scale. MATERIALS AND METHODS The present study was conducted in the Psychiatry Department, Government Medical College, Amritsar. A sample size of 34 was taken who were primary caregivers (preferably parents or spouse of schizophrenia patients diagnosed using ICD10. Measures included caregiver’s demographic variables and caregiver’s burden using the Zarit burden interview and PANSS scale in patients. Statistical Analysis- Data was analysed using SPSS software version 21. RESULTS The mean age of the caregiver was 42 SD (12.16 years. The majority of the caregivers were parents, married and employed. The mean average score of the responses to Zarit burden interview was (SD=59.52 ± 20.92. Majority of the caregivers experienced severe burden (52.9%, 9 (26.4% caregivers had reported moderate burden and 6 (17.6% had reported mild burden. The mean duration of illness was 6.89 (SD=5.03 years. The level of burden experienced was significantly associated with total PANSS score, negative symptoms, positive symptoms, general psychopathology score and duration of schizophrenia illness (p=0.00. CONCLUSION There is need for psychological assistance and social support for the vulnerable caregivers to help them reduce the burden levels and employ positive coping strategies.

  6. [Cortical Release Signs in Patients with Schizophrenia, Depressive Disorders, and Bipolar Affective Disorder].

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    de la Espriella, Ricardo Andrés; Hernández, José Fernando; Espejo, Lina María

    2013-12-01

    Determining the presence of cortical release signs associated with white matter damage, is a clinically easy method to perform. The objective of this study is to determine the presence of cortical release signs in patients with mental illnesses and cerebrovascular disease, as well as its clinical usefulness, given that it indicates cortical damage. A review was made of cortical release signs in patients hospitalized in clinical psychiatry and general hospitals with bipolar affective disorder (40), depression (37), schizophrenia (33), cardiovascular disease (33) and dementia (37). The signs of cortical release do not have the same importance as cortical damage. For example, the glabellar reflex was found in all the groups, that of paratonia, particularly in the group with schizophrenia, and others signs in the group of patients with dementia. It is suggested that these signs imply subcortical white matter damage. The appearance of these signs shows the need for a follow up of patients diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder, depression and schizophrenia. Copyright © 2013 Asociación Colombiana de Psiquiatría. Publicado por Elsevier España. All rights reserved.

  7. Recovery outcomes of schizophrenia patients treated with paliperidone palmitate in a community setting: patient and provider perspectives on recovery.

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    Williams, Wesley; McKinney, Christopher; Martinez, Larry; Benson, Carmela

    2016-01-01

    This study evaluated the effect of paliperidone palmitate long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotic on recovery-oriented mental health outcomes from the perspective of healthcare providers and patients during the treatment of patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders. Archival data for patients with a primary diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder receiving ≥6 months of paliperidone palmitate LAI were retrieved from the electronic medical records system at the Mental Health Center of Denver. Mental health recovery was assessed from both a provider's (Recovery Markers Inventory [RMI]) and patient's (Consumer Recovery Measure [CRM]) perspective. A three-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) was utilized to determine changes in CRM and RMI scores by including independent variables in the models: intercept, months from treatment (slope), treatment time period (pretreatment and treatment), age, gender, primary diagnosis, substance abuse diagnosis, concurrent medications, and adherence to paliperidone palmitate LAI. A total of 219 patients were identified and included in the study. Results of the final three-level HLMs indicated an overall increase in CRM scores (p a retrospective, non-comparative design, and did not adjust for multiplicity Conclusions: The current study demonstrates that changes in recovery-oriented mental health outcomes can be detected following the administration of a specific antipsychotic treatment in persons with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders. Furthermore, patients receiving paliperidone palmitate LAI can effectively improve recovery-oriented outcomes, thereby supporting the drug's use as schizophrenia treatment from a recovery-oriented perspective.

  8. Satisfaction with quality of life varies with temperament types of patients with schizophrenia.

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    Ritsner, Michael; Farkas, Herman; Gibel, Anatoly

    2003-10-01

    We sought to explore the relationships of three temperament factors with domain-specific subjective quality of life (QOL) of patients with schizophrenia. Ninety patients with schizophrenia were evaluated using the Quality of Life Enjoyment and Life Satisfaction Questionnaire, the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire, the Positive and Negative Syndromes Scale, the Distress Scale for Adverse Symptoms, the Insight and Treatment Attitudes Questionnaire, the Insight Self-Report Scale, and standardized questionnaires for self-reported emotional distress and stress process-related variables. Predictors of domain-specific QOL were identified using multiple regression techniques. Temperament factors explain 6% to 16% of variability in QOL domain scores among patients with schizophrenia after controlling for the remaining variables (emotional distress, social support, self-esteem, avoidance coping, age, side effects, and depression). We found that higher levels of novelty seeking are associated with better general QOL, physical health, and more positive subjective feelings, whereas higher levels of reward dependence are related to better satisfaction from social relationships. Higher levels of harm avoidance are associated with poorer satisfaction with general activities, and medication. Thus, temperament factors, as assessed by the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire, substantially influence satisfaction with life quality in schizophrenia. Novelty seeking, reward dependence, and harm avoidance are associated with different domains of QOL.

  9. Negative attitude towards medication is associated with working memory impairment in schizophrenia patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goodman, Craig; Knoll, Gabriella; Isakov, Victoria; Silver, Henry

    2005-03-01

    A lack of insight into illness and negative attitudes towards medication are common among individuals with schizophrenia and impact clinical outcomes. This study aimed to examine the relationships between attitudes towards medication and cognitive function in schizophrenia patients. Thirty-five male forensic inpatients who were suffering from chronic schizophrenia participated in the study. A drug attitude inventory was used to evaluate the attitudes of the patients towards medication. Neuropsychological function was assessed with a comprehensive battery of tests. Patients with positive attitudes towards medication performed significantly better than those with negative attitudes on tests of verbal working memory (digit span forwards and backwards), inhibition and set shifting (Penn Inhibition test), delayed object memory and overall mental status (Mini Mental State Examination). There were no differences in age, education, hospitalizations or clinical symptoms between the groups. Our findings support an association between negative attitudes towards medication and poor cognitive performance, particularly of working memory.

  10. The relationship between alexithymia and frontal lobe function in patients with schizophrenia: a preliminary report

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Haluk Usta

    2015-03-01

    Conclusion: It is observed that the alexithymia has effects on the frontal functions of patients with schizophrenia. This mediated effect is related with the clinic of schizophrenia. [Cukurova Med J 2015; 40(1.000: 80-85

  11. T210. PSYCHOSOCIAL CORRELATES OF INTERPERSONAL PLEASURE IN SCHIZOPHRENIA-SPECTRUM PATIENTS

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gooding, Diane; Ratner, Yael; Mendyk, Nina; Farkash, Herman; Ermiyev, Michael; Ritsner, Michael S

    2018-01-01

    Abstract Background Although many people with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders report high levels of social anhedonia, it is not clear what differentiates those patients who self-report social anhedonia from those who do not. Moreover, the extent to which the hedonic functioning of severely disordered patients is associated with their clinical symptoms or with personality-related factors remains unresolved. Methods We administered the Anticipatory and Consummatory Interpersonal Pleasure Scale (ACIPS; Gooding & Pflum, 2014), a self-report measure designed to assess hedonic capacity for social and interpersonal pleasure, to 125 consecutively admitted inpatients with schizophrenia-spectrum disorder. The (81 schizophrenia, 44 schizoaffective disordered) patients were assessed in terms of their illness and symptom severity. They were also administered measures of self-efficacy (GSES; Jerusalem & Schwarzer, 1992), quality of life (Q-LES-Q-18; Ritsner et al., 2005), and recovery level (RAS-20; Salzer, 2010). Based on total ACIPS scores, two cut-off points were defined in order to classify participants as ‘normally hedonic’, ‘hypohedonic’ or ‘anhedonic’. Results The ACIPS negatively correlated with 8 PANSS items: conceptual disorganization (P2, r=-0.24, pmannerism and posturing (G5, r=-0.22, p<0.05), and disturbance of volition (G13, r=-0.26, p<0.01).In addition, the ACIPS positively correlated with self-efficacy, self-esteem, perceived social support, subjective quality of life, and recovery scale scores. Discussion The ACIPS is a reliable and valid means to measure social anhedonia in a clinical sample. The findings revealed that the self-reported hedonic functioning of schizophrenia-spectrum patients is associated with both clinical symptomatology as well as some personality-related variables. Suggestions for further clinical and research applications using the ACIPS will be provided.

  12. Heterochronicity of white matter development and aging explains regional patient control differences in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kochunov, Peter; Ganjgahi, Habib; Winkler, Anderson; Kelly, Sinead; Shukla, Dinesh K; Du, Xiaoming; Jahanshad, Neda; Rowland, Laura; Sampath, Hemalatha; Patel, Binish; O'Donnell, Patricio; Xie, Zhiyong; Paciga, Sara A; Schubert, Christian R; Chen, Jian; Zhang, Guohao; Thompson, Paul M; Nichols, Thomas E; Hong, L Elliot

    2016-12-01

    Altered brain connectivity is implicated in the development and clinical burden of schizophrenia. Relative to matched controls, schizophrenia patients show (1) a global and regional reduction in the integrity of the brain's white matter (WM), assessed using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) fractional anisotropy (FA), and (2) accelerated age-related decline in FA values. In the largest mega-analysis to date, we tested if differences in the trajectories of WM tract development influenced patient-control differences in FA. We also assessed if specific tracts showed exacerbated decline with aging. Three cohorts of schizophrenia patients (total n = 177) and controls (total n = 249; age = 18-61 years) were ascertained with three 3T Siemens MRI scanners. Whole-brain and regional FA values were extracted using ENIGMA-DTI protocols. Statistics were evaluated using mega- and meta-analyses to detect effects of diagnosis and age-by-diagnosis interactions. In mega-analysis of whole-brain averaged FA, schizophrenia patients had lower FA (P = 10 -11 ) and faster age-related decline in FA (P = 0.02) compared with controls. Tract-specific heterochronicity measures, that is, abnormal rates of adolescent maturation and aging explained approximately 50% of the regional variance effects of diagnosis and age-by-diagnosis interaction in patients. Interactive, three-dimensional visualization of the results is available at www.enigma-viewer.org. WM tracts that mature later in life appeared more sensitive to the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and were more susceptible to faster age-related decline in FA values. Hum Brain Mapp 37:4673-4688, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  13. Hoarding behaviour in Xhosa patients with schizophrenia - prevalence and clinical presentation

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    T Ameer

    2007-12-01

    Full Text Available Objective:Hoarding is commonly defined as the acquisition ofand failure to discard possessions of little use or value, and isincluded as a symptom in the diagnostic criteria for obsessivecompulsive personality disorder (OCPD and obsessivecompulsive disorder (OCD. However, it has also beenobserved in other clinical syndromes including schizophrenia.This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence andclinical presentation of hoarding behaviour in schizophreniaamong Xhosa patients.Method:The sample consisted of 102 patients, recruited aspart of a larger genetic study in the Cape Town metropolebetween November 2004 and January 2005, diagnosed withschizophrenia or schizoaffective disorders according to theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM-IVcriteria. They were screened for clinically significant hoardingsymptoms. If these were present, additional information onthe phenomenology was obtained by means of a structuredquestionnaire. The Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview(MINI (screen and full version, the Yale Brown ObsessiveCompulsive Scale (Y-BOCS Checklist, Y-BOCS, Clutter ImageRating Scale (CIRS and a structured questionnaire on hoardingwere administered.Results:Only four patients with schizophrenia were classifiedas hoarders. Although their clinical presentation resembled thatof hoarders described elsewhere in the literature, they had lowY-BOCS scores and did not report other obsessive-compulsivesymptoms.Conclusion:Our results suggest that hoarding behaviour isnot common in Xhosa patients with schizophrenia. Furtherinvestigation of protective factors for hoarding behaviour in theXhosa population is warranted.

  14. Three dysconnectivity patterns in treatment-resistant schizophrenia patients and their unaffected siblings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jicai; Cao, Hongbao; Liao, Yanhui; Liu, Weiqing; Tan, Liwen; Tang, Yanqing; Chen, Jindong; Xu, Xiufeng; Li, Haijun; Luo, Chunrong; Liu, Chunyu; Ries Merikangas, Kathleen; Calhoun, Vince; Tang, Jinsong; Shugart, Yin Yao; Chen, Xiaogang

    2015-01-01

    Among individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, approximately 20%-33% are recognized as treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS) patients. These TRS patients suffer more severely from the disease but struggle to benefit from existing antipsychotic treatments. A few recent studies suggested that schizophrenia may be caused by impaired synaptic plasticity that manifests as functional dysconnectivity in the brain, however, few of those studies focused on the functional connectivity changes in the brains of TRS groups. In this study, we compared the whole brain connectivity variations in TRS patients, their unaffected siblings, and healthy controls. Connectivity network features between and within the 116 automated anatomical labeling (AAL) brain regions were calculated and compared using maps created with three contrasts: patient vs. control, patient vs. sibling, and sibling vs. To evaluate the predictive power of the selected features, we performed a multivariate classification approach. We also evaluated the influence of six important clinical measures (e.g. age, education level) on the connectivity features. This study identified abnormal significant connectivity changes of three patterns in TRS patients and their unaffected siblings: 1) 69 patient-specific connectivity (PCN); 2) 102 shared connectivity (SCN); and 3) 457 unshared connectivity (UCN). While the first two patterns were widely reported by previous non-TRS specific studies, we were among the first to report widespread significant connectivity differences between TRS patient groups and their healthy sibling groups. Observations of this study may provide new insights for the understanding of the neurophysiological mechanisms of TRS.

  15. The schizophrenia risk gene ZNF804A influences the antipsychotic response of positive schizophrenia symptoms

    OpenAIRE

    Mössner, R; Schumacher, A; Wagner, M; Lennertz, L; Steinbrecher, A; Quednow, Boris B; Rujescu, D; Rietschel, M; Maier, W

    2012-01-01

    Genetic factors determining the response to antipsychotic treatment in schizophrenia are poorly understood. A new schizophrenia susceptibility gene, the zinc-finger gene ZNF804A, has recently been identified. To assess the pharmacogenetic importance of this gene, we treated 144 schizophrenia patients and assessed the response of positive and negative symptoms by PANSS. Patients homozygous for the ZNF804A risk allele for schizophrenia (rs1344706 AA) showed poorer improvement of positive sympto...

  16. Decision-making deficits in patients with chronic schizophrenia: Iowa Gambling Task and Prospect Valence Learning model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Myung-Sun; Kang, Bit-Na; Lim, Jae Young

    2016-01-01

    Decision-making is the process of forming preferences for possible options, selecting and executing actions, and evaluating the outcome. This study used the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and the Prospect Valence Learning (PVL) model to investigate deficits in risk-reward related decision-making in patients with chronic schizophrenia, and to identify decision-making processes that contribute to poor IGT performance in these patients. Thirty-nine patients with schizophrenia and 31 healthy controls participated. Decision-making was measured by total net score, block net scores, and the total number of cards selected from each deck of the IGT. PVL parameters were estimated with the Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling scheme in OpenBugs and BRugs, its interface to R, and the estimated parameters were analyzed with the Mann-Whitney U-test. The schizophrenia group received significantly lower total net scores compared to the control group. In terms of block net scores, an interaction effect of group × block was observed. The block net scores of the schizophrenia group did not differ across the five blocks, whereas those of the control group increased as the blocks progressed. The schizophrenia group obtained significantly lower block net scores in the fourth and fifth blocks of the IGT and selected cards from deck D (advantageous) less frequently than the control group. Additionally, the schizophrenia group had significantly lower values on the utility-shape, loss-aversion, recency, and consistency parameters of the PVL model. These results indicate that patients with schizophrenia experience deficits in decision-making, possibly due to failure in learning the expected value of each deck, and incorporating outcome experiences of previous trials into expectancies about options in the present trial.

  17. [Impairment of attention and executive functions in patients with paranoid schizophrenia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsygankov, B D; Khannanova, A N; Nekrasova, S V

    2013-01-01

    To study changes in attention and executive functions during psychopharmacotherapy in patients with paranoid schizophrenia, we have examined 120 patients with a first episode of paranoid schizophrenia treated with typical and atypical neuroleptics. Clinical and statistical analyses have revealed the heterogeneity within treatment groups that allowed to define two subgroups. These subgroups were characterized by a differed disease course (favorable or poor type). Before remission was achieved, the effect of atypical neuroleptics on cognitive performance was higher compared to typical neuroleptics. After remission, when doses of neuroleptics were decreased, a type of disease course played a main role. At 6 months after remission, attention and executive functions have improved in subgroups with favorable course of disease regardless of treatment.

  18. The use of electroconvulsive therapy in a cohort of forensic psychiatric patients with schizophrenia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kristensen, Diana; Brandt-Christensen, Anne Mette; Ockelmann, Hans Henrik

    2012-01-01

    ) for schizophrenia, but not explicitly for this complex forensic group. AIMS: The aim of this study was to describe the outcome of using ECT as augmentation therapy in a cohort of forensic psychiatric patients with schizophrenia who were failing to respond to antipsychotic medication. METHODS: In one university......-based psychiatric clinic, data were extracted from the medical records of all patients treated with ECT during a 6-year period. Fifty-nine of these patients were diagnosed within the schizophrenia spectrum and eight were in specialist forensic hospital services. RESULTS: The mean duration of illness...... for the forensic cohort was 16¿years (range 3-33¿years), with the index episode having lasted a mean of 34¿months (3¿weeks to 8¿years) in spite of treatment with at least two antipsychotic drugs. Psychotic symptoms were accompanied by seriously assaultive behaviour in all cases. All but one of these patients had...

  19. New opportunities of medical and psychological rehabilitation of patients with schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hanna Kozhyna

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available 142 female patients, aged 18 – 35 y. o. with diagnosis of schizophrenia have been comprehensively examined in the period of stabilization. The integrative model of psychoeducational work which includes application of various information modules, techniques of cognitive-behavioral therapy, training effects, problem-oriented discussions, and family psychotherapy was offered. The psychoeducation was determined to be superior over conventional complex treatment intended for the reduction of negative symptoms, productive symptoms and general psychopathological symptoms of schizophrenia patients. It is supported by dynamic analysis of the clinical disturbances and psychopathological ones on the PANSS. The improvement of psychosocial functioning and quality of life of the patients under study who participated in the psychoeducational activities was determined. It is proved that psychoeducation not only increases the amount of knowledge intensifies confidence in the fight against the disease, but solves the problem of social reintegration of the patient.

  20. Predisposing factors for early retirement in patients with schizophrenia in Germany.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schnabel, Reinhard; Friedel, Heiko; Erfurth, Andreas; Angermayer, Matthias; Clouth, Johannes; Eichmann, Florian

    2008-08-01

    Although early retirement causes major changes in the life of schizophrenic patients and is among the major cost factors to be covered by payers, the causes leading to early retirement of schizophrenic patients have not been investigated in detail. Therefore, the objective of this retrospective non-interventional case-control study was to generate hypotheses on predisposing factors for early retirement in schizophrenia. Logistic regression was used to explore potential predisposing parameters with regard to their effect on the outcome early retirement. As the study results indicate, schizophrenia severity, assistance or care in the patient's everyday life, age and antipsychotic treatment with typical antipsychotics are linked to the occurrence of early retirement. Further research should be planned to confirm or refute the hypotheses determined in this retrospective analysis and to determine whether atypical antipsychotics could help to avoid early retirement and to improve the situation of schizophrenic patients.

  1. Belief revision and delusions: how do patients with schizophrenia take advice?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mariia Kaliuzhna

    Full Text Available The dominant cognitive model that accounts for the persistence of delusional beliefs in schizophrenia postulates that patients suffer from a general deficit in belief revision. It is generally assumed that this deficit is a consequence of impaired reasoning skills. However, the possibility that such inflexibility affects the entire system of a patient's beliefs has rarely been empirically tested. Using delusion-neutral material in a well-documented advice-taking task, the present study reports that patients with schizophrenia: 1 revise their beliefs, 2 take into account socially provided information to do so, 3 are not overconfident about their judgments, and 4 show less egocentric advice-discounting than controls. This study thus shows that delusional patients' difficulty in revising beliefs is more selective than had been previously assumed. The specificities of the task and the implications for a theory of delusion formation are discussed.

  2. Low levels of vitamin D poorly responsive to daylight exposure in patients with therapy-resistant schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bogers, Jan P.A.M.; Bostoen, Tijmen; Broekman, Theo G.

    2016-01-01

    Low vitamin D levels are associated with schizophrenia, but the possible association between vitamin D levels and illness severity or duration of exposure to daylight has barely been investigated. To compare vitamin D levels in therapy-refractory severely ill schizophrenia patients and members of staff. To investigate the influence of daylight exposure on vitamin D levels in patients. Vitamin D was measured in patients with therapy-resistant schizophrenia in April, after the winter, and in patients and staff members in June, after an exceptionally sunny spring. Vitamin D levels in April and June were compared in patients, and levels in June were compared in patients and staff. The influence of daylight was taken into account by comparing the time patients spent outdoors during the day with the recommended minimum time for adequate vitamin D synthesis, and by comparing time spent outdoors in patients and staff. Patients had high rates of vitamin D deficiency (79-90%) and lower levels of vitamin D than staff members (p vitamin D levels did not normalize, despite the considerably longer than recommended exposure of the skin to daylight (p vitamin D deficiency of therapy-resistant schizophrenia patients is pronounced and cannot be explained by differences in skin pigmentation or by an inactive, indoor lifestyle on the ward. Even theoretically sufficient exposure of the patients to daylight did not ameliorate the low vitamin D levels. While vitamin D deficiency probably plays a role in somatic health problems, it may also play a role in schizophrenia. Interestingly, exposure to daylight during an unusually sunny spring was not sufficient to correct the vitamin D deficiency seen in the patients. This emphasizes the need to measure and correct vitamin D levels in these patients.

  3. High-level, but not low-level, motion perception is impaired in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kandil, Farid I; Pedersen, Anya; Wehnes, Jana; Ohrmann, Patricia

    2013-01-01

    Smooth pursuit eye movements are compromised in patients with schizophrenia and their first-degree relatives. Although research has demonstrated that the motor components of smooth pursuit eye movements are intact, motion perception has been shown to be impaired. In particular, studies have consistently revealed deficits in performance on tasks specific to the high-order motion area V5 (middle temporal area, MT) in patients with schizophrenia. In contrast, data from low-level motion detectors in the primary visual cortex (V1) have been inconsistent. To differentiate between low-level and high-level visual motion processing, we applied a temporal-order judgment task for motion events and a motion-defined figure-ground segregation task using patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls. Successful judgments in both tasks rely on the same low-level motion detectors in the V1; however, the first task is further processed in the higher-order motion area MT in the magnocellular (dorsal) pathway, whereas the second task requires subsequent computations in the parvocellular (ventral) pathway in visual area V4 and the inferotemporal cortex (IT). These latter structures are supposed to be intact in schizophrenia. Patients with schizophrenia revealed a significantly impaired temporal resolution on the motion-based temporal-order judgment task but only mild impairment in the motion-based segregation task. These results imply that low-level motion detection in V1 is not, or is only slightly, compromised; furthermore, our data restrain the locus of the well-known deficit in motion detection to areas beyond the primary visual cortex.

  4. The Role of Conformity in Relation to Cohesiveness and Intimacy in Day-Hospital Groups of Patients with Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Il Ho; Park, Sun Young; Choi, Sulkee; Lee, Soo Young; Kim, Jae-Jin

    2017-07-01

    Conformity is defined as the act of adjusting one's behavior to match the social responses of others. Patients with schizophrenia often adjust their maladaptive behaviors by conforming in group treatment settings. This study aimed to examine whether the opinions of group members influence conformity of patients with schizophrenia who attend day-hospital programs. Nineteen patients with schizophrenia from four different day-hospital programs and 23 healthy controls from four different social clubs completed the homographic meaning choice task under conditions of prior exposure to the pseudo-opinions of their group members, strangers, and unknown information sources. Group influences on conformity were observed when the level of group cohesiveness was high and the level of intimacy was low across participant groups. Controls did not exhibit a significant effect of group influence on conformity, whereas patients were significantly influenced by their group members when making conformity-based decisions despite significantly lower intimacy and cohesiveness levels. These findings suggest that unlike controls, patients with schizophrenia tend to respond with conformity when influenced by the opinions of their affiliated group. In patients with schizophrenia group conformity may be used to select a more accurate decision and to enhance feelings of affiliation among them.

  5. Decreased left middle temporal gyrus volume in antipsychotic drug-naive, first-episode schizophrenia patients and their healthy unaffected siblings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Maorong; Li, Jun; Eyler, Lisa; Guo, Xiaofeng; Wei, Qingling; Tang, Jingsong; Liu, Feng; He, Zhong; Li, Lihua; Jin, Hua; Liu, Zhening; Wang, Juan; Liu, Fang; Chen, Huafu; Zhao, Jingping

    2013-03-01

    The shared neuropathological characteristics of patients with schizophrenia and their siblings might represent intermediate phenotypes that could be used to investigate genetic susceptibility to the illness. We sought to discover gray matter volume differences in patients with schizophrenia and their unaffected siblings with voxel-based morphometry (VBM). We recruited antipsychotic drug-naive, first-episode schizophrenia (FES) patients, their unaffected siblings and age-, sex- and handedness-matched healthy controls. We used VBM to investigate differences in gray matter volume among the 3 groups. There were significant gray matter volumetric differences among the 3 groups in bilateral hippocampal and parahippocampal gyri, bilateral middle temporal gyri, and superior temporal gyri (FDR ptemporal gyrus, and volume of this region was not different between siblings and patients. Our findings confirm and extend previous VBM analyses in schizophrenia and it indicate that schizophrenia may be characterized by an abnormal development of cerebral lateralization. Furthermore, these data argue that patients and their unaffected siblings might share decreases in the gray matter volume of the left middle temporal gyrus, and this regional reduction might be a potential endophenotype for schizophrenia. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  6. Electrophysiological Neuroimaging using sLORETA Comparing 100 Schizophrenia Patients to 48 Patients with Major Depression

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andy R. Eugene

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available In this retrospective of electroencephalograms were to identify a surrogate biomarker for the Dopamine D2 receptors in the brain by comparing patients diagnosed with Schizophrenia taking Atypical Antipsychotics to Depressive patients medicated with Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. To achieve this, thirty-seconds of resting EEG were spectrally transformed in sLORETA. Three-dimensional statistical non-paramentric maps (SnPM for the sLORETA Global Field Power within each band were then computed. Our results illustrated that the Right Superior Frontal Gyrus (t=2.049, p=0.007, along the dopamine mesolimbic pathway, had higher neuronal oscillations in the delta frequency band in the 100 Schizophrenia patients as compared to the 32-depressive female patients. The comparisons with both the 48 depressive patient cohort or the sixteen male depressive patient cohort did not yield any statistically significant findings. We conclude that the Superior Frontal Gyrus should be investigated as a possible surrogate biomarker for preclinical and clinical drug discovery in neuropharmacology.

  7. Aripiprazole-associated tic in a schizophrenia patient

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Guo X

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available Xieli Guo,1,2,* Dali Lu,3,* Yugang Jiang1 1Department of Neurosurgery, Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Neurosurgery, Jinjiang Hospital of Quanzhou Medical College, Jinjiang, Fujian, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Psychiatry, Xiamen Xianyue Hospital, Xiamen, Fujian, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: Tic disorder, characterized by the presence of both motor and vocal tics is common in adolescents and adults. Antipsychotics including typical antipsychotics and atypical antipsychotics are generally recognized by experts as the most effective pharmacological treatment for tics. However, previous studies suggest that tic-like symptoms might manifest during treatment with atypical antipsychotics such as clo­zapine, quetiapine, but not aripiprazole. We present the first case, to our knowledge, of an adult schizophrenia patient who developed tics during treatment with aripiprazole. Keywords: aripiprazole, antipsychotics, tic, schizophrenia, side effect

  8. The Effect of Nicotine Dependence on Psychopathology in Patients with Schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anne Yee

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Introduction. Our study aims to determine the prevalence of nicotine dependence and investigate the effect of nicotine dependence on psychopathology among schizophrenia patients. Methods. A cross-sectional study was carried out in an outpatient psychiatric clinic at a general hospital in Malaysia. 180 recruited subjects were administered the Malay version of Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI, the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS, and the Malay version of Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND-M questionnaires. Results. The prevalence of nicotine dependence among the subjects was 38.1% (n=69 and they were mainly composed of male gender, Malay ethnicity, being treated with atypical antipsychotics, and taking other illicit drugs or alcohol. Subjects with severe nicotine dependence scored less in the negative subscale of PANSS compared with the nonsmokers (P=0.011. On performing the hierarchy multiple regressions, dependence status still significantly predicted negative scores after adjusting the confounders (t=-2.87, P=0.005. Conclusion. The rate of nicotine use disorder among schizophrenia patients in this study is higher than that of the general population in Malaysia. The significant association between nicotine dependence and negative psychopathology symptoms will help the healthcare practitioners in their management of nicotine dependence among schizophrenia patients.

  9. Relationship between first treatment contact and supernatural beliefs in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grover, S; Nebhinani, N; Chakrabarti, S; Shah, R; Avasthi, A

    2014-06-01

    OBJECTIVE. To explore the relationship between attribution of symptoms to supernatural beliefs and first treatment contact in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia attending a tertiary care hospital located in North India. METHODS. A total of 122 caregivers (aged ≥ 18 years, staying with patient ≥ 1 year and involved in patients' care) of consecutive patients with diagnosis of schizophrenia (according to the ICD-10) were evaluated for their supernatural beliefs and first treatment contact. RESULTS. The first treatment contact was a government or private psychiatrist in slightly more than half (53.3%) of the patients, while it was faith healers in 23.8% of the patients. Around three quarters (74.6%) of the caregivers attributed patients' symptoms to ≥ 1 supernatural belief (like sorcery / witchcraft, ghosts, spirit intrusion, divine wrath, planetary influences, evil spirits, and bad deeds in previous life) and more than half (57.4%) of the caregivers attributed patients' symptoms to > 1 supernatural belief. It was observed that those who contacted faith healers for their patients' treatment had significantly higher attribution of the symptoms to supernatural causes. CONCLUSIONS. Supernatural beliefs were common in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia and the majority attributed their patients' symptoms to these beliefs. It signifies an urgent need for mental health literacy in India.

  10. The role of co-morbid personality pathology in predicting self-reported aggression in patients with schizophrenia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bo, Sune; Abu-Akel, Ahmad; Kongerslev, Mickey

    2013-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Personality pathology affects behavioral patterns in patients with schizophrenia notwithstanding psychotic symptomatology. An investigation of the role of co-morbid personality pathology in the occurrence of aggression in schizophrenia is explored using both categorical and dimensional...... approaches to personality pathology. METHODS: In a cross-sectional study we evaluate, in 97 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, the effect of personality pathology on the occurrence of aggression in schizophrenia using both a categorical approach, as described in DSM-IV-TR Axis II, and a dimensional...... approach, as operationalized in the Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology-Basic Questionnaire (DAPP-BQ). We also employ mediation analyses to explore the extent to which dimensions within the DAPP mediate the relationship between co-morbid personality disorders and aggression. RESULTS...

  11. Eating habits and nutritional status of patients with affective disorders and schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stefańska, Ewa; Lech, Magdalena; Wendołowicz, Agnieszka; Konarzewska, Beata; Waszkiewicz, Napoleon; Ostrowska, Lucyna

    2017-12-30

    The aim of the study was to assess the nutritional value of the food intake in the group of men and women suffering from recurrent affective disorders and schizophrenia, and also to determine the relation between selected nutritional parameters with anthropometric indices defining the nutritional status of the subjects. 219 persons participated in the study (61 patients with recurrent depressive disorders, 60 patients with schizophrenia and 98 healthy volunteers). A24-hour dietary recall was used in the quantitative assessment of the diet. Anthropometric and biochemical measurements as well as body composition analysis were used to assess the nutritional status. It was shown that women with depression and schizophrenia had a significantly higher content of both visceral adipose tissue and subcutaneous adipose tissue as compared with the control group. A diet with a higher content of energy from protein, a higher supply of calcium promoted a lower fat content in the bodies of women suffering from depression (no such relationship was observed in the group of men). In the group of patients with schizophrenia, a diet with a lower supply of energy promoted a lower BMI value, waist circumference, lower waist-hip ratio and a lower fat content in the body. An improper energy structure and an improper content of nutrients can, in the future, contribute to the development of many somatic diseases, thus leading to deterioration of life quality of subjects and preventing the maintenance of mental health.

  12. Screening of cardiovascular risk factors in patients with schizophrenia and patients treated with antipsychotic drugs: are we equally exhaustive as with the general population?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Castillo-Sánchez, Miguel; Fàbregas-Escurriola, Mireia; Bergè-Baquero, Daniel; Fernández-SanMartín, MªIsabel; Goday-Arno, Albert

    2017-01-01

    Many studies have previously shown increased cardiovascular risk factors related to schizophrenia independently from the use of antipsychotic drugs. However, a poorer effort in clinical detection and management of cardiovascular risk in patients with severe mental illness could also explain these results. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed the differences in screening and incidence of cardiovascular risk factors between schizophrenia, non-schizophrenic patients on treatment with antipsychotic drugs (NS-TAD) and the general population. Data from adult subjects assessed by high-quality register general practitioners from 2006 to 2011 were extracted from the Catalonian SIDIAP database. The schizophrenia, NS-TAD, and control groups were compared in terms of measurements and incidence of diabetes, dyslipidemia, obesity, hypertension, and smoking. A total of 4911 patients in the schizophrenia group, 4157 in NS-TAD group, and 98644 in the control group were included. Schizophrenia patients were screened for dyslipidemia and diabetes more frequently than the control group, while for obesity or hypertension, they were screened equal to controls. Also, as compared to the control group, the NS-TAD group was more frequently screened for obesity with no differences in dyslipidemia and diabetes and less frequently for hypertension. Smoking was less frequently screened in both study groups. The incidence of all risk factors studied in both study groups was higher than or equal to the control group, except for hypertension, which had lower incidence. The lack of screening of risk factors does not appear decisive in the increased cardiovascular risk of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia seen in primary care. Studies evaluating the possible under diagnosis of the risk factors are required. Schizophrenia (SZ); Treatment with antipsychotic drugs (TAD); Cardiovascular risk factor/s (CVRF); Without schizophrenia but on therapy with antipsychotic drugs (NS-TAD); Defined Daily Dose

  13. Symptom severity, quality of sleep, and treatment adherence among patients suffering from schizophrenia and depression

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bosch, M.P.C.; Waberg, J.; Noort, M.W.M.L. van den; Staudte, H.; Lim, S.; Egger, J.I.M.

    2016-01-01

    Aim: Treatment non-adherence is a common problem in patients suffering from schizophrenia and depression. This study investigated the possible relationships between symptom severity, quality of sleep, and treatment adherence. Methods: Thirty outpatients with schizophrenia and 58 outpatients with

  14. Missing link in community psychiatry: When a patient with schizophrenia was expelled from her home

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    I-Ming Chen

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Treatment and disposition of homeless patients with schizophrenia represent a great challenge in clinical practice. We report a case of this special population, and discuss the development of homelessness, the difficulty in disposition, their utilization of health services, and possible applications of mandatory community treatment in this group of patients. A 51-year-old homeless female was brought to an emergency department for left femur fracture caused by an assault. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia about 20 years ago but received little help from mental health services over the decades. During hospitalization, her psychotic symptoms were only partially responsive to treatment. Her family refused to handle caretaking duties. The social welfare system was mobilized for long-term disposition. Homeless patients with schizophrenia are characterized by family disruption, poor adherence to health care, and multiple emergency visits and hospitalization. We hope this article can provide information about the current mental health policy to medical personnel. It is possible that earlier intervention and better outcome can be achieved by utilizing mandatory community treatment in the future, as well as preventing patients with schizophrenia from losing shelters.

  15. Functional remission and employment among patients with schizophrenia in Malaysia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dahlan, Rahima; Midin, Marhani; Shah, Shamsul Azhar; Nik Jaafar, Nik Ruzyanei; Abdul Rahman, Fairuz Nazri; Baharudin, Azlin; Das, Srijit; Sidi, Hatta

    2014-01-01

    The study aimed to determine the rates of functional remission and employment as well as the factors associated with functional remission among patients with Schizophrenia, receiving community psychiatric service in an urban setting in Malaysia. From a total of 250 patients randomly selected, 155 fulfilled the study requirement and were assessed on their functional remission status using the Personal and Social Performance Scale. The relationships between functional remission and socio-demographic factors, clinical factors, social support, symptom remission and rates of hospitalization were examined. The results revealed that 74% (n=115) of the respondents had functional remission with only 20% (n=31) currently employed. Functional remission was found to be significantly associated with good social support (84.4% versus 36.4% psocial support, lower hospitalization rate and symptom remission, as significant predictors of functional remission. A majority of patients with Schizophrenia in this study achieved functional remission, however, only a small percentage of them were employed. Functional remission was influenced by severity of illness and levels of social support in these patients. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  16. Cognitive differences between men and women: a comparison of patients with schizophrenia and healthy volunteers

    OpenAIRE

    Longenecker, Julia; Dickinson, Dwight; Weinberger, Daniel R.; Elvevåg, Brita

    2010-01-01

    Gender modulates cognition such that women display advantages in certain domains while men excel in others tasks. Similar patterns have been seen in patients with schizophrenia. We derived six cognitive factor domain scores from a cognitive battery and examined gender-based cognitive differences in patients with schizophrenia and controls. There were strikingly different effects of gender in patients as compared to controls. The large sample size and broad range of tests in our study add impo...

  17. Volumetric and morphological characteristics of the hippocampus are associated with progression to schizophrenia in patients with first-episode psychosis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sauras, R; Keymer, A; Alonso-Solis, A; Díaz, A; Molins, C; Nuñez, F; Rabella, M; Roldán, A; Grasa, E; Alvarez, E; Portella, M J; Corripio, I

    2017-09-01

    Abnormalities in the hippocampus have been implicated in the pathophysiology of psychosis. However, it is still unclear whether certain abnormalities are a pre-existing vulnerability factor, a sign of disease progression or a consequence of environmental factors. We hypothesized that first-episode psychosis patients who progress to schizophrenia after one year of follow up will display greater volumetric and morphological changes from the very beginning of the disorder. We studied the hippocampus of 41 patients with a first-episode psychosis and 41 matched healthy controls. MRI was performed at the time of the inclusion in the study. After one year, the whole sample was reevaluated and divided in two groups depending on the diagnoses (schizophrenia vs. non-schizophrenia). Patients who progressed to schizophrenia showed a significantly smaller left hippocampus volume than control group and no-schizophrenia group (F=3.54; df=2, 77; P=0.03). We also found significant differences in the morphology of the anterior hippocampus (CA1) of patients with first-episode psychosis who developed schizophrenia compared with patients who did not. These results are consistent with the assumption of hyperfunctioning dopaminergic cortico-subcortical circuits in schizophrenia, which might be related with an alteration of subcortical structures, such as the hippocampus, along the course of the disease. According with these results, hippocampus abnormalities may serve as a prognostic marker of clinical outcome in patients with a first-episode psychosis. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

  18. Resting EEG deficits in accused murderers with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schug, Robert A; Yang, Yaling; Raine, Adrian; Han, Chenbo; Liu, Jianghong; Li, Liejia

    2011-10-31

    Empirical evidence continues to suggest a biologically distinct violent subtype of schizophrenia. The present study examined whether murderers with schizophrenia would demonstrate resting EEG deficits distinguishing them from both non-violent schizophrenia patients and murderers without schizophrenia. Resting EEG data were collected from five diagnostic groups (normal controls, non-murderers with schizophrenia, murderers with schizophrenia, murderers without schizophrenia, and murderers with psychiatric conditions other than schizophrenia) at a brain hospital in Nanjing, China. Murderers with schizophrenia were characterized by increased left-hemispheric fast-wave EEG activity relative to non-violent schizophrenia patients, while non-violent schizophrenia patients instead demonstrated increased diffuse slow-wave activity compared to all other groups. Results are discussed within the framework of a proposed left-hemispheric over-processing hypothesis specific to violent individuals with schizophrenia, involving left hemispheric hyperarousal deficits, which may lead to a homicidally violent schizophrenia outcome. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. Blood Biomarkers Predict the Cognitive Effects of Aripiprazole in Patients with Acute Schizophrenia

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    Hikaru Hori

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Aripiprazole has been reported to exert variable effects on cognitive function in patients with schizophrenia. Therefore, in the present study, we evaluated biological markers, clinical data, and psychiatric symptoms in order to identify factors that influence cognitive function in patients with schizophrenia undergoing aripiprazole treatment. We evaluated cognitive function in 51 patients with schizophrenia using Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS, as well as background information, psychiatric symptoms, plasma catecholamine metabolites—homovanillic acid (HVA, 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (MHPG—, and serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF. Multivariate analyses were performed in order to identify factors independently associated with cognitive function. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels, number of hospitalizations, and MHPG levels were associated with verbal memory and learning. Total hospitalization period and MHPG levels were associated with working memory. Age at first hospitalization and education were associated with motor speed. The number of hospital admissions, Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale negative subscale scores (PANSS-N, MHPG levels, BDNF levels, and Drug-Induced Extrapyramidal Symptoms Scale (DIEPSS scores were associated with verbal fluency. Homovanillic acid and MHPG levels, duration of illness, and PANSS-N scores were associated with attention and processing speed. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor and MHPG levels were associated with executive function. These results suggest that treatment of psychiatric symptoms and cognitive dysfunction may be improved in patients treated with aripiprazole by controlling for these contributing factors.

  20. Association Study of 60 Candidate Genes with Antipsychotic-induced Weight Gain in Schizophrenia Patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ryu, S; Huh, I-S; Cho, E-Y; Cho, Y; Park, T; Yoon, S C; Joo, Y H; Hong, K S

    2016-03-01

    This study aimed to investigate the association of multiple candidate genes with weight gain and appetite change during antipsychotic treatment. A total of 233 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within 60 candidate genes were genotyped. BMI changes for up to 8 weeks in 84 schizophrenia patients receiving antipsychotic medication were analyzed using a linear mixed model. In addition, we assessed appetite change during antipsychotic treatment in a different group of 46 schizophrenia patients using the Drug-Related Eating Behavior Questionnaire. No SNP showed a statistically significant association with BMI or appetite change after correction for multiple testing. We observed trends of association (PGHRL showed suggestive evidence of association with not only weight gain (P=0.001) but also appetite change (P=0.042). Patients carrying the GG genotype of rs696217 exhibited higher increase in both BMI and appetite compared to patients carrying the GT/TT genotype. Our findings suggested the involvement of a GHRL polymorphism in weight gain, which was specifically mediated by appetite change, during antipsychotic treatment in schizophrenia patients. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

  1. VIRTUAL AVATAR FOR EMOTION RECOGNITION IN PATIENTS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA: A PILOT STUDY

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    Samuel Marcos Pablos

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Persons who suffer from schizophrenia have difficulties in recognizing emotions in others’ facial expressions, which affects their capabilities for social interaction and hinders their social integration. Photographic images have traditionally been used to explore emotion recognition impairments in schizophrenia patients, which lack of the dynamism that is inherent to face to face social interactions. In order to overcome those inconveniences, in the present work the use of an animated, virtual face is approached. The avatar has the appearance of a highly realistic human face and is able to express different emotions dynamically, introducing some advantages over photograph-based approaches such as its dynamic appearance.We present the results of a pilot study in order to assess the validity of the interface as a tool for clinical psychiatrists. 20 subjects who suffer from schizophrenia of long evolution and 20 control subjects were invited to recognize a set of facial emotions showed by a virtual avatar and images. The objective of the study is to explore the possibilities of using a realistic-looking avatar for the assessment of emotion recognition deficits in patients who suffer schizophrenia. Our results suggest that the proposed avatar may be a suitable tool for the diagnosis and treatment of deficits in the facial recognition of emotions.

  2. Transcultural spirituality: the spiritual journey of hospitalized patients with schizophrenia in Taiwan.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Chun-Tien; Narayanasamy, Aru; Chang, Sung-Ling

    2012-02-01

    The aim of this study was to explore how hospitalization and the diagnosis of schizophrenia have an impact on Taiwanese patients' spiritual life. Psychiatric nurses tend to construe patients' spiritual issues as pathological problems and consequently are reluctant to address patient's spirituality, which results in spirituality being overlooked in mental illness. An individual's spiritual journey is dependent upon their cultural background and beliefs; however, the professional's preconceived ideas suppress the voice of patients with schizophrenia to share their experiences of their spiritual journey. The lack of research exploring spirituality in mental illness in Taiwan means that spiritual care is overlooked in practice. This study sets out to explore spirituality from the perspectives of patients in two mental hospitals in Taiwan. Using a qualitative approach, 22 long-term hospitalized patients diagnosed with schizophrenia were interviewed. Several themes from the data were identified using Ritchie and Spencer's (1994) five stages analytical framework. The study was carried out from 2006 to 2008. Patients revealed spiritual distress as a consequence of prolonged hospitalization. They used referents consistent with traditional Chinese philosophical perspectives derived from Taoism and Confucianism to describe various features of their spiritual distress and their longing for spiritual revival, transcendence and to be accepted as normal persons. In this age of globalization, nurses need to be fully cognisant of the cultural aspects of patients to respond to a mental health patient's spirituality. Clinical and educational guidelines and policies could be developed for spiritual care in Taiwan. © 2011 The Authors. Journal of Advanced Nursing © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

  3. Impaired cue identification and intention retrieval underlie prospective memory deficits in patients with first-episode schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Dengtang; Ji, Chengfeng; Zhuo, Kaiming; Song, Zhenhua; Wang, Yingchan; Mei, Li; Zhu, Dianming; Xiang, Qiong; Chen, Tianyi; Yang, Zhilei; Zhu, Guang; Wang, Ya; Cheung, Eric Fc; Xiang, Yu-Tao; Fan, Xiaoduo; Chan, Raymond Ck; Xu, Yifeng; Jiang, Kaida

    2017-03-01

    Schizophrenia is associated with impairment in prospective memory, the ability to remember to carry out an intended action in the future. It has been established that cue identification (detection of the cue event signaling that an intended action should be performed) and intention retrieval (retrieval of an intention from long-term memory following the recognition of a prospective cue) are two important processes underlying prospective memory. The purpose of this study was to examine prospective memory deficit and underlying cognitive processes in patients with first-episode schizophrenia. This study examined cue identification and intention retrieval components of event-based prospective memory using a dual-task paradigm in 30 patients with first-episode schizophrenia and 30 healthy controls. All participants were also administered a set of tests assessing working memory and retrospective memory. Both cue identification and intention retrieval were impaired in patients with first-episode schizophrenia compared with healthy controls ( ps cue identification (Cohen's d = 0.98) and a medium effect size for intention retrieval (Cohen's d = 0.62). After controlling for working memory and retrospective memory, the difference in cue identification between patients and healthy controls remained significant. However, the difference in intention retrieval between the two groups was no longer significant. In addition, there was a significant inverse relationship between cue identification and negative symptoms ( r = -0.446, p = 0.013) in the patient group. These findings suggest that both cue identification and intention retrieval in event-based prospective memory are impaired in patients with first-episode schizophrenia. Cue identification and intention retrieval could be potentially used as biomarkers for early detection and treatment prognosis of schizophrenia. In addition, addressing cue identification deficit through cognitive enhancement training may

  4. Inefficient preparatory fMRI-BOLD network activations predict working memory dysfunctions in patients with schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anja eBaenninger

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Patients with schizophrenia show abnormal dynamics and structure of temporally coherent networks (TCNs assessed using fMRI, which undergo adaptive shifts in preparation for a cognitively demanding task. During working memory (WM tasks, patients with schizophrenia show persistent deficits in TCNs as well as EEG indices of WM. Studying their temporal relationship during WM tasks might provide novel insights into WM performance deficits seen in schizophrenia.Simultaneous EEG-fMRI data were acquired during the performance of a verbal Sternberg WM task with two load levels (load 2 & load 5 in 17 patients with schizophrenia and 17 matched healthy controls. Using covariance mapping, we investigated the relationship of the activity in the TCNs before the memoranda were encoded and EEG spectral power during the retention interval. We assessed four TCNs – default mode network (DMN, dorsal attention network (dAN, left and right working memory networks (WMNs – and three EEG bands – theta, alpha, and beta.In healthy controls, there was a load dependent inverse relation between DMN and frontal-midline theta power and an anti-correlation between DMN and dAN. Both effects were not significantly detectable in patients. In addition, healthy controls showed a left-lateralized load-dependent recruitment of the WMNs. Activation of the WMNs was bilateral in patients, suggesting more resources were recruited for successful performance on the WM task.Our findings support the notion of schizophrenia patients showing deviations in their neurophysiological responses before the retention of relevant information in a verbal WM task. Thus, treatment strategies as neurofeedback targeting pre-states could be beneficial as task performance relies on the preparatory state of the brain.

  5. Comparison of predictive equations for resting energy expenditure among patients with schizophrenia in Japan

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sugawara N

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available Norio Sugawara,1 Norio Yasui-Furukori,1 Tetsu Tomita,1,2 Hanako Furukori,3 Kazutoshi Kubo,1,4 Taku Nakagami,1,4 Sunao Kaneko1 1Department of Neuropsychiatry, Hirosaki University School of Medicine, Hirosaki, 2Department of Psychiatry, Hirosaki-Aiseikai Hospital, Hirosaki, 3Department of Psychiatry, Kuroishi-Akebono Hospital, Kuroishi, 4Department of Psychiatry, Odate Municipal General Hospital, Odate, Japan Background: Recently, a relationship between obesity and schizophrenia has been reported. The prediction of resting energy expenditure (REE is important to determine the energy expenditure of patients with schizophrenia. However, there is a lack of research concerning the most accurate REE predictive equations among Asian patients with schizophrenia. The purpose of the study reported here was to compare the validity of four REE equations for patients with schizophrenia taking antipsychotics. Methods: For this cross-sectional study, we recruited patients (n=110 who had a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, diagnosis of schizophrenia and were admitted to four psychiatric hospitals. The mean (± standard deviation age of these patients was 45.9±13.2 years. Anthropometric measurements (of height, weight, body mass index were taken at the beginning of the study. REE was measured using indirect calorimetry. Comparisons between the measured and estimated REEs from the four equations (Harris–Benedict, Mifflin–St Jeor, Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization/United Nations University, and Schofield were performed using simple linear regression analysis and Bland–Altman analysis. Results: Significant trends were found between the measured and predicted REEs for all four equations (P<0.001, with the Harris–Benedict equation demonstrating the strongest correlation in both men and women (r=0.617, P<0.001. In all participants, Bland–Altman analysis revealed that the Harris–Benedict and

  6. Patient satisfaction with inpatient psychiatric treatment and its relation to treatment outcome in unipolar depression and schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Köhler, Stephan; Unger, Theresa; Hoffmann, Sabine; Steinacher, Bruno; Fydrich, Thomas

    2015-06-01

    Patient satisfaction with psychiatric treatment has emerged as an important factor with respect to the quality of health care. Patient satisfaction using the Zurich Satisfaction Questionnaire (ZUF-8) as well as symptom severity (measured with the Hamilton Depression Scale [HRSD], Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale and Clinical Global Impression Scale) was assessed at admission and discharge of inpatient treatment in patients with a major depressive episode (MDD, N = 217) and schizophrenia (N = 75). Differences between the two diagnostic groups (using T-tests) and correlations of patient satisfaction with different social and treatment variables were calculated (Pearson product-moment correlation). The mean score of patient satisfaction was 26.8 points (ZUF-8; range 8-32 points), without differences between MDD and schizophrenia (t = 0.45, p = 0.78). Patients with MDD and personality disorder showed lower satisfaction than patients with MDD without personality disorder (t = 2.31, p = 0.03). Patient satisfaction correlated negatively with severity of depressive symptoms at discharge (HRSD: r = - 0.38; p patient satisfaction in both groups (depression: r = - 0.28, p = 0.02; schizophrenia: r = - 0.24; p = 0.03). Patient satisfaction was high without differences between MDD and schizophrenia. Severity of disease and comorbidites in MDD and number of prescribed drugs in both groups were related with reduced patient satisfaction.

  7. Superior intellectual ability in schizophrenia: neuropsychological characteristics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    MacCabe, James H; Brébion, Gildas; Reichenberg, Abraham; Ganguly, Taposhri; McKenna, Peter J; Murray, Robin M; David, Anthony S

    2012-03-01

    It has been suggested that neurocognitive impairment is a core deficit in schizophrenia. However, it appears that some patients with schizophrenia have intelligence quotients (IQs) in the superior range. In this study, we sought out schizophrenia patients with an estimated premorbid Intelligence Quotient (IQ) of at least 115 and studied their neuropsychological profile. Thirty-four patients meeting diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV), with mean estimated premorbid IQ of 120, were recruited and divided into two subgroups, according to whether or not their IQ had declined by at least 10 points from their premorbid estimate. Their performance on an extensive neuropsychological battery was compared with that of 19 IQ-matched healthy controls and a group of 16 "typical" schizophrenia patients with estimated premorbid IQ Schizophrenia patients whose estimated premorbid and current IQ both lay in the superior range were statistically indistinguishable from IQ-matched healthy controls on all neurocognitive tests. However, their profile of relative performance in subtests was similar to that of typical schizophrenia patients. Patients with superior premorbid IQ and evidence of intellectual deterioration had intermediate scores. Our results confirm the existence of patients meeting DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia who have markedly superior premorbid intellectual level and appear to be free of gross neuropsychological deficits. We discuss the implications of these findings for the primacy of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia.

  8. Relationship between spirituality/religiousness and coping in patients with residual schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shah, Ruchita; Kulhara, Parmanand; Grover, Sandeep; Kumar, Suresh; Malhotra, Rama; Tyagi, Shikha

    2011-09-01

    To measure spirituality/religiousness and its relation to coping skills in patients with residual schizophrenia. Using a cross-sectional design, 103 persons with residual schizophrenia were assessed on Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale [PANSS] and Ways of Coping Checklist [WCC] to assess the repertoire of coping skills and WHO Quality of Life-Spirituality, Religiousness and Personal Belief scale [WHOQOL-SRPB] to assess religiousness and spirituality. Positive reappraisal as a coping strategy had significant positive correlation with all the facets of WHOQOL-SRPB and SRPB total domain scores. The coping subscales of accepting responsibility, planful problem solving, distancing, confrontive coping, and self-controlling also had significant positive correlations with different facets of WHOQOL-SRPB and total SRPB domain score. Seeking social support and escape-avoidance as coping mechanisms had no correlations with any of the WHOQOL-SRPB facets. A sound spiritual, religious, or personal belief system is associated with active and adaptive coping skills in subjects with residual schizophrenia. Understanding and assessing the spirituality and religiousness of subjects with schizophrenia can help in better management of the disorder.

  9. Complexity analysis of EEG in patients with schizophrenia using fractal dimension

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Raghavendra, B S; Dutt, D Narayana; Halahalli, Harsha N; John, John P

    2009-01-01

    We computed Higuchi's fractal dimension (FD) of resting, eyes closed EEG recorded from 30 scalp locations in 18 male neuroleptic-naïve, recent-onset schizophrenia (NRS) subjects and 15 male healthy control (HC) subjects, who were group-matched for age. Schizophrenia patients showed a diffuse reduction of FD except in the bilateral temporal and occipital regions, with the reduction being most prominent bifrontally. The positive symptom (PS) schizophrenia subjects showed FD values similar to or even higher than HC in the bilateral temporo-occipital regions, along with a co-existent bifrontal FD reduction as noted in the overall sample of NRS. In contrast, this increase in FD values in the bilateral temporo-occipital region was absent in the negative symptom (NS) subgroup. The regional differences in complexity suggested by these findings may reflect the aberrant brain dynamics underlying the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and its symptom dimensions. Higuchi's method of measuring FD directly in the time domain provides an alternative for the more computationally intensive nonlinear methods of estimating EEG complexity

  10. Patients' Preferences Related to Benefits, Risks, and Formulations of Schizophrenia Treatment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Levitan, Bennett; Markowitz, Michael; Mohamed, Ateesha F; Johnson, F Reed; Alphs, Larry; Citrome, Leslie; Bridges, John F P

    2015-07-01

    The objective of this study was to quantify patients' preferences related to benefits and risks of antipsychotic treatments for schizophrenia and to assess the relative importance of treatment attributes and adherence. Treatment-related preferences among U.S. residents with a self-reported physician diagnosis of schizophrenia were assessed via a discrete-choice experiment. Patients chose between competing hypothetical scenarios characterized by improvements in positive symptoms, negative symptoms, and social functioning; incidence of weight gain, extrapyramidal symptoms (EPS), hyperprolactinemia, and hyperglycemia; and medication formulation. Preferences were estimated by using a random-parameters logit model, and the impact of adherence was estimated with conditional logit models. The final sample consisted of 271 patients. Complete improvement in positive symptoms was the most preferred outcome (relative importance score of 10.0), followed by elimination of hyperglycemia (3.6, 95% confidence interval [CI]=2.6-4.6), improvement in negative symptoms (3.0, CI=1.6-4.3), reduced weight gain (2.6, CI=1.2-4.0), avoidance of hyperprolactinemia (1.7, CI=.9-2.6), improved social functioning (1.5, CI=.4-2.5), and avoidance of EPS (1.0, CI=.3-1.8). Patients judged a daily pill superior to monthly injections (p<.01) and monthly injections superior to injections every three months (p<.01) for adherent patients and monthly injections superior to a daily pill for nonadherent patients (p=.01). Persons who self-identified as having schizophrenia judged improvement in positive symptoms as the most important treatment benefit. Hyperglycemia was identified as the most important adverse event. Patients judged oral formulations to be better than monthly injections for adherent patients and monthly injections to be a better choice for nonadherent patients.

  11. Overcoming Disembodiment: The Effect of Movement Therapy on Negative Symptoms in Schizophrenia- A Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lily Anna Lina Martin

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available AbstractObjective. Negative symptoms of patients with Schizophrenia are resistant to medical treatment or conventional group therapy. Understanding schizophrenia as a form of disembodiment of the self, a number of scientists have argued that the approach of embodiment and associated embodied therapies, such as Dance and Movement Therapy (DMT or Body Psychotherapy (BPT, may be more suitable to explain the psychopathology underlying the mental illness and to address its symptoms. Hence the present randomized controlled trial (DRKS00009828, http://apps.who.int/trialsearch/ aimed to examine the effectiveness of manualized movement therapy (BPT/DMT on the negative symptoms of patients with schizophrenia.Method. A total of 68 out-patients with a diagnosis of a schizophrenia spectrum disorder were randomly allocated to either the treatment (n = 44, 20 sessions of BPT/DMT or the control condition (n = 24, treatment as usual (TAU. Changes in negative symptom scores on the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS were analyzed using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA with Simpson-Angus Scale (SAS scores as covariates in order to control for side effects of antipsychotic medication.Results. After twenty sessions of treatment (BPT/DMT or TAU, patients receiving movement therapy had significantly lower negative symptom scores (SANS total score, blunted affect, attention. Effect sizes were moderate and mean symptom reduction in the treatment group was 20.65%.Conclusion. The study demonstrates that embodied therapies, such as BPT/DMT, are highly effective in the treatment of patients with schizophrenia. Results strongly suggest that BPT/DMT should be embedded in the daily clinical routine.

  12. Patient preferences for medicine administration for acute agitation: results from an internet-based survey of patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia in two Nordic countries.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jørgensen, Tine Rikke; Emborg, Charlotte; Dahlen, Karianne; Bøgelund, Mette; Carlborg, Andreas

    2018-01-01

    The objective was to elicit patient preferences for medicine administration method in the management of acute agitation episodes among patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. The patients' experiences of acute agitation episodes and their management of episodes were also explored. Data were collected via an anonymous, internet-based survey of residents in Denmark or Sweden with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (October 2014 to December 2014). Inclusion criteria were having a diagnosis of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, and being above 18 years of age. The questionnaire included questions about preferences for medication attributes, experiences with pharmacological treatment for agitation and involvement in treatment plans. A total of 237 diagnosed patients (61 with schizophrenia; 176 with bipolar disorder) completed the questionnaire. Agitation episodes were experienced by 90% of the respondents. In total, 83% of the respondents reported having received treatment with tablets. When patients were presented with the attributes of an inhalation method, respondents stated that the fast onset of action, low risk of adverse reactions and least invasive form of drug delivery were positive attributes of treatment with inhalation. Inhalation is a new delivery route for treatment of acute agitation in patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. Inhalation is the preferred treatment method for acute agitation among Danish and Swedish patients with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

  13. GABAergic system impairment in the hippocampus and superior temporal gyrus of patients with paranoid schizophrenia: A post-mortem study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Steiner, Johann; Brisch, Ralf; Schiltz, Kolja; Dobrowolny, Henrik; Mawrin, Christian; Krzyżanowska, Marta; Bernstein, Hans-Gert; Jankowski, Zbigniew; Braun, Katharina; Schmitt, Andrea; Bogerts, Bernhard; Gos, Tomasz

    2016-11-01

    Glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) is a key enzyme in GABA synthesis and alterations in GABAergic neurotransmission related to glial abnormalities are thought to play a crucial role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. This study aimed to identify potential differences regarding the neuropil expression of GAD between paranoid and residual schizophrenia. GAD65/67 immunostained histological sections were evaluated by quantitative densitometric analysis of GAD-immunoreactive (ir) neuropil. Regions of interest were the hippocampal formation (CA1 field and dentate gyrus [DG]), superior temporal gyrus (STG), and laterodorsal thalamic nucleus (LD). Data from 16 post-mortem schizophrenia patient samples (10 paranoid and 6 residual schizophrenia cases) were compared with those from 16 matched controls. Overall, schizophrenia patients showed a lower GAD-ir neuropil density (P=0.014), particularly in the right CA1 (P=0.033). However, the diagnostic subgroups differed significantly (Pparanoid versus residual patients (P=0.036) and controls (Pparanoid versus residual schizophrenia cases (P=0.042). GAD-ir neuropil density correlated positively with antipsychotic dosage, particularly in CA1 (right: r=0.850, P=0.004; left: r=0.800, P=0.010). Our finding of decreased relative density of GAD-ir neuropil suggests hypofunction of the GABAergic system, particularly in hippocampal CA1 field and STG layer V of patients with paranoid schizophrenia. The finding that antipsychotic medication seems to counterbalance GABAergic hypofunction in schizophrenia patients suggests the possibility of exploring new treatment avenues which target this system. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  14. Sex-specific factors for bone density in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Chieh-Hsin; Lin, Chun-Yuan; Huang, Tiao-Lai; Wang, Hong-Song; Chang, Yue-Cune; Lane, Hsien-Yuan

    2015-03-01

    Patients with schizophrenia are susceptible to low bone mineral density (BMD). Many risk factors have been suggested. However, it remains uncertain whether the risk factors differ between men and women. In addition, the study of bone density in men is neglected more often than that in women. This study aims to examine specific risk factors of low BMD in different sexes. Men (n=80) and women (n=115) with schizophrenia, similar in demographic and clinical characteristics, were enrolled in three centers. Clinical and laboratory variables (including blood levels of prolactin, sex and thyroid hormones, cortisol, calcium, and alkaline phosphatase) were collected. BMD was measured using a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometer. Men had lower BMD than women. Predictors for BMD in men included hyperprolactinemia (B=-0.821, P=0.009), body weight (B=0.024, P=0.046), and Global Assessment of Functioning score (B=0.027, P=0.043); in women, BMD was associated with menopause (B=-1.070, Pweight (B=0.027, P=0.003), and positive symptoms (B=0.094, Ploss in patients with schizophrenia. Physicians should pay particular attention to bone density in men with hyperprolactinemia and postmenopausal women. Further prospective studies in other populations are warranted to confirm these findings.

  15. Impact of the priority follow-up system on quality of life in Chinese schizophrenia patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xiang, Yu-Tao; Leung, Chi-Ming; Tang, Wai-Kwong; Ungvari, Gabor Sandor

    2008-02-01

    Priority follow up (PFU) is a particular aspect of mental health care in Hong Kong whereby psychiatric patients with a history of violence or suspected proclivity to violence are identified and their management is closely monitored. The aim of the present study was to determine the impact of a PFU system on quality of life (QOL) in schizophrenia patients. Two hundred and sixty-seven clinically stable outpatients with schizophrenia were randomly selected and interviewed in Hong Kong using standardized assessment instruments that covered their clinical condition and QOL. Patients with PFU status constituted 8.2% of the sample. PFU patients were more likely to be men, have a history of violence, and were poorer in the physical, psychological, social and environmental QOL domains than their non-PFU counterparts even after controlling for the effects of potential confounding variables. More effective measures should be taken to improve QOL in PFU schizophrenia patients who are prone to violent behavior.

  16. Quality of life in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia: A literature review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miranda-Castillo Claudia

    2009-09-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background A couple of decades ago, hospitals or psychiatric institutions were in charge of caring for patients with schizophrenia; however, nowadays this role is performed by one or more patient's relatives. Evidence shows that informal caregivers experience negative changes in their quality of life (QOL. The aim of this study is to review the main factors associated with the QOL of caregivers of people with schizophrenia. Methods A search through databases from journals published last decade between 1998 and 2008 was performed. In accordance with the inclusion criteria, titles and abstracts of citations obtained from the search were examined independently by two authors and irrelevant articles discarded. The full text of those studies considered relevant by either reviewer were obtained and assessed independently. Where differences of opinion rose they were resolved by discussion. Out of the 258 references, 37 were included in the review. Studies which assessed factors associated with caregivers of people with schizophrenia's quality of life were included and the information summarized. Results Evidence suggest that physical, emotional and economic distress affect negatively caregiver's QOL as a result of a number of unfulfilled needs such as, restoration of patient functioning in family and social roles, economic burden, lack of spare time, among other factors. Conclusion Decreased QOL may be associated with caregivers' burden, lack of social support, course of the disease and family relationships problems. In addition, in developing countries, QOL is affected by caregivers' economic burden. High quality research is needed in order to identify factors associated with QOL over time and testing the efficacy of interventions aiming to improve QOL in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia.

  17. [Lipid spectrum changes and ECG in patients with paranoid schizophrenia in the course of therapy with atypical antipsychotics].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smirnova, L P; Parshukova, D A; Borodyuk, Yu N; Kornetova, E G; Tkacheva, G D; Seregin, A A; Burdovitsina, T G; Semke, A V

    2015-01-01

    To study correlations between parameters of lipid metabolism and ECG in patients with schizophrenia in light of therapy with atypical antipsychotics. We examined 42 patients with paranoid schizophrenia. All patients received atypical neuroleptics - seroquel, zyprexa, and rispolept. A group of controls included 25 healthy people. There was a significant increase (p=0.0002) in body mass (in average by 1.5 kg) in 88% patients. A significant increase in the concentration of serum triglycerides was identified as well. The concentration of VLDL in the patients with schizophrenia was 2 times higher compared to controls. After treatment, VLDL concentration increased even more considerably An increase in atherogenic index (AI) was up to 3.1 in patients with schizophrenia compared to 2.2 in controls. After treatment, Al increased up to 4 that demonstrated the high risk of development of atherosclerosis. A significant increase in QT interval in the ECG and heart rate (p=0.03) was revealed only in patients receiving rispolept. In patients receiving zyprexa and seroquel only heart rate was increased. The antipsychotics studied increase the risk of development of cardiovascular pathology.

  18. Socio-environmental factors associated with diabetes mellitus among patients hospitalized with schizophrenia in Japan.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sado, Junya; Kitamura, Tetsuhisa; Noma, Norio; Saito, Makiko; Azuma, Hitoshi; Azuma, Tsukasa; Sobue, Tomotaka; Kitamura, Yuri

    2016-11-01

    This study aimed to examine epidemiologically socio-environmental factors associated with diabetes mellitus among patients hospitalized with schizophrenia in Japan. This was a cross-sectional study from a single psychiatric hospital. Study patients were adults aged ≥20 years who were hospitalized with schizophrenia one or more times between January 2013 and December 2014. From electronic medical records or health insurance claims, we extracted schizophrenia patients with an F2 code according to ICD-10, and assessed the association of various factors with diabetes mellitus among these patients in a multivariable analysis. During the 2-year period, there were 1899 patients hospitalized with a psychiatric disorder one or more times. Of them, a total of 770 adults with schizophrenia (285 men and 485 women) were eligible for our analysis. The standardized prevalence ratio of diabetes mellitus was 2.0 [95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.6-2.5] among men and 3.0 (95 % CI 2.5-3.6) among women in this hospital. There were no socio-environmental factors associated with diabetes mellitus among men. Among women, factors such as a 730-day hospitalization [adjusted odds ratio (OR) 3.82: 95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.52-9.64], and a medical protection/compulsory/discrimination hospitalization (adjusted OR 0.60, 95 % CI 0.36-0.99) were associated with diabetes mellitus. Compared with women living alone, those who were unmarried and lived together with someone had a significantly lower adjusted OR (0.41, 95 % CI 0.21-0.81). Socio-environmental factors such as length of hospitalization, type of hospitalization, and marital status and living arrangement were associated with diabetes mellitus among hospitalized women with schizophrenia.

  19. Decoding emotion of the other differs among schizophrenia patients and schizoaffective patients: A pilot study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tadmor, Hagar; Levin, Maya; Dadon, Tzameret; Meiman, Meital E; Ajameeh, Alaa; Mazzawi, Hosam; Rigbi, Amihai; Kremer, Ilana; Golani, Idit; Shamir, Alon

    2016-09-01

    The deficit in ability to attribute mental states such as thoughts, beliefs, and intentions of another person is a key component in the functional impairment of social cognition in schizophrenia. In the current study, we compared the ability of persons with first episode schizophrenia (FE-SZ) and individuals with schizophrenia displaying symptomatic remission (SZ-CR) to decode the mental state of others with healthy individuals and schizoaffective patients. In addition, we analyzed the effect of dopamine-related genes polymorphism on the ability to decode the mental state of another, and searched for different genetic signatures. Our results show that overall, individuals with schizophrenia performed worse in the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" (eyes) test, a simple well-defined task to infer the mental state of others than healthy individuals. Within the schizophrenia group, schizoaffective scored significantly higher than FE-SZ, SZ-CR, and healthy individuals. No difference was observed in performance between FE-SZ and SZ-CR subjects. Interestingly, FE-SZ and SZ-CR, but not schizoaffective individuals, performed worse in decoding negative and neutral emotional valance than the healthy control group. At the genetic level, we observed a significant effect of the DAT genotype, but not D4R genotype, on the eyes test performance. Our data suggest that understanding the mental state of another person is a trait marker of the illness, and might serve as an intermediate phenotype in the diagnostic process of schizophrenia disorders, and raise the possibility that DA-related DAT gene might have a role in decoding the mental state of another person.

  20. Cerebral perfusion changes in schizophrenia patients evaluated with Tc-99 HMPAO

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sehweil, A.; El-Hilu, S.; Jahan, S.; Higazi, E.; Salhat, M.; Al-Mohannadi, S.; Abdel-Dayem, H.M.

    1989-01-01

    Tc-99m HMPAO has been used to image cerebral perfusion changes in 20 chronic schizophrenia patients (19 men and 1 woman), with an average age of 29 years (range, 22-48 years). All were receiving neuroleptic drugs. Twelve had received electroconvulsive therapy. All patients had abnormal studies (except one, which was normal) and poor response to treatment. Ventricular dilation and cerebral atrophy were seen in 11 patients. Seventy-seven focal lesions were detected. Forty-two lesions showed increased HMPAO retention: 26 in the basal ganglia in 14 patients (12, bilateral, two unilateral), 10 along the sylvian fissure in the parietotemporal region, three in the frontal region, and one in each of the temporal, parietal, and occipital regions. Thirty-five focal lesions showed decreased perfusion: 10 parietal, eight frontal, seven temporal, six cerebellar, and four occipital. This study demonstrates the potential value of Tc-99m HMPAO in the study of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders

  1. Supplementation of Antipsychotic Treatment with the Amino Acid Sarcosine Influences Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Parameters in Left Frontal White Matter in Patients with Schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dominik Strzelecki

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Dysfunction of the glutamatergic system, the main stimulating system in the brain, has a major role in pathogenesis of schizophrenia. The frontal white matter (WM is partially composed of axons from glutamatergic pyramidal neurons and glia with glutamatergic receptors. The natural amino acid sarcosine, a component of a normal diet, inhibits the glycine type 1 transporter, increasing the glycine level. Thus, it modulates glutamatergic transmission through the glutamatergic ionotropic NMDA (N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor, which requires glycine as a co-agonist. To evaluate the concentrations of brain metabolites (NAA, N-acetylaspartate; Glx, complex of glutamate, glutamine, and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA; mI, myo-inositol; Cr, creatine; Cho, choline in the left frontal WM, Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1H-NMR spectroscopy was used. Twenty-five patients randomly chosen from a group of fifty with stable schizophrenia (DSM-IV-TR and dominant negative symptoms, who were receiving antipsychotic therapy, were administered 2 g of sarcosine daily for six months. The remaining 25 patients received placebo. Assignment was double blinded. 1H-NMR spectroscopy (1.5 T was performed twice: before and after the intervention. NAA, Glx and mI were evaluated as Cr and Cho ratios. All patients were also assessed twice with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS. Results were compared between groups and in two time points in each group. The sarcosine group demonstrated a significant decrease in WM Glx/Cr and Glx/Cho ratios compared to controls after six months of therapy. In the experimental group, the final NAA/Cr ratio significantly increased and Glx/Cr ratio significantly decreased compared to baseline values. Improvement in the PANSS scores was significant only in the sarcosine group. In patients with schizophrenia, sarcosine augmentation can reverse the negative effect of glutamatergic system overstimulation, with a simultaneous beneficial increase

  2. Olfactory identification deficit and its relationship with hedonic traits in patients with first-episode schizophrenia and individuals with schizotypy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zou, Lai-Quan; Zhou, Han-Yu; Lui, Simon S Y; Wang, Yi; Wang, Ya; Gan, Jun; Zhu, Xiong-Zhao; Cheung, Eric F C; Chan, Raymond C K

    2018-04-20

    Olfactory identification impairments have been consistently found in schizophrenia patients. However, few previous studies have investigated this in first-episode patients. There are also inconsistent findings regarding olfactory identification ability in psychometrically-defined schizotypy individuals. In this study, we directly compared the olfactory identification ability of first-episode schizophrenia patients with schizotypy individuals. The relationship between olfactory identification impairments and hedonic traits was also examined. Thirty-five first-episode schizophrenia patients, 40 schizotypy individuals as defined by the Chapman's Anhedonia Scales and 40 demographically matched controls were recruited. The University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test was administered. Hedonic capacity was assessed using the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS). The results showed that both the schizophrenia and schizotypy groups showed poorer olfactory identification ability than controls, and the impairment was significantly correlated with reduced pleasure experiences. Our findings support olfactory identification impairment as a trait marker for schizophrenia. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  3. Three dysconnectivity patterns in treatment-resistant schizophrenia patients and their unaffected siblings

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jicai Wang

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Among individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, approximately 20%–33% are recognized as treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS patients. These TRS patients suffer more severely from the disease but struggle to benefit from existing antipsychotic treatments. A few recent studies suggested that schizophrenia may be caused by impaired synaptic plasticity that manifests as functional dysconnectivity in the brain, however, few of those studies focused on the functional connectivity changes in the brains of TRS groups. In this study, we compared the whole brain connectivity variations in TRS patients, their unaffected siblings, and healthy controls. Connectivity network features between and within the 116 automated anatomical labeling (AAL brain regions were calculated and compared using maps created with three contrasts: patient vs. control, patient vs. sibling, and sibling vs. control. To evaluate the predictive power of the selected features, we performed a multivariate classification approach. We also evaluated the influence of six important clinical measures (e.g. age, education level on the connectivity features. This study identified abnormal significant connectivity changes of three patterns in TRS patients and their unaffected siblings: 1 69 patient-specific connectivity (PCN; 2 102 shared connectivity (SCN; and 3 457 unshared connectivity (UCN. While the first two patterns were widely reported by previous non-TRS specific studies, we were among the first to report widespread significant connectivity differences between TRS patient groups and their healthy sibling groups. Observations of this study may provide new insights for the understanding of the neurophysiological mechanisms of TRS.

  4. Hypertension risk and clinical care in patients with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia; a systematic review and meta-analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ayerbe, Luis; Forgnone, Ivo; Addo, Juliet; Siguero, Ana; Gelati, Stefano; Ayis, Salma

    2018-01-01

    A higher cardiovascular morbidity and mortality has been observed in patients with bipolar disorder (BPD) or schizophrenia, partly due to an increased risk of hypertension (HTN), or a less effective care of it. This systematic review and meta-analysis, presents a critical appraisal and summary of the studies addressing the risk of HTN, or the differences in its care, for those with schizophrenia or BPD. Prospective studies were searched in PubMed, Embase, PsycINFO, Scopus, and the Web of Science, from database inception to June 2017. A meta-analysis was undertaken to obtain pooled estimates of the risk of HTN. Five studies reporting the risk of HTN, and five studies presenting differences in its clinical care, were identified. An increased risk of HTN was observed for BPD patients, with an overall Incidence Rate Ratio 1.27(1.15-1.40). The pooled Incidence Rate Ratio of HTN for those with schizophrenia was 0.94 (0.75 - 1.14). A poorer care of HTN (lower rates of screening, prescription, and adherence) was reported in four studies of schizophrenia, and two of BPD patients, compared to people without these conditions. reduced number of studies on risk and care of HTN on patients with BPD or schizophrenia. Limited evidence suggests that patients with BPD have a higher risk of HTN. Patients with schizophrenia and BPD receive poor care of HTN. Understanding the risk of HTN, and the differences in its care, is essential for clinicians to reduce the cardiovascular morbidity and overall mortality of these patients. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  5. Associations of oxidative stress status parameters with traditional cardiovascular disease risk factors in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vidović, Bojana; Stefanović, Aleksandra; Milovanović, Srđan; Ðorđević, Brižita; Kotur-Stevuljević, Jelena; Ivanišević, Jasmina; Miljković, Milica; Spasić, Slavica

    2014-04-01

    The purpose of this study was to assess oxidative stress status parameters and their possible associations with traditional cardiovascular risk factors in patients with schizophrenia, as well as their potential for patient-control discrimination. Fasting glucose, lipid profile and oxidative stress status parameters were assessed in 30 schizophrenic patients with atypical antipsychotic therapy and 60 control subjects. Malondialdehyde (MDA), pro-oxidant/antioxidant balance (PAB) and total anti-oxidant status (TAS) were significantly higher whereas total sulfhydryl (SH) groups were significantly lower in schizophrenic patients vs. control group. Higher serum PAB values showed an independent association with schizophrenia. The addition of PAB to conventional risk factors improved discrimination between healthy control subjects and patients. Increased oxidative stress and changed lipid profile parameters are associated in schizophrenic patients and may indicate risk for atherosclerosis. The serum PAB level may reflect the levels of oxidative stress in schizophrenia and improve discrimination of patients from controls.

  6. An association between autumn birth and clozapine treatment in patients with schizophrenia: a population-based analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sørensen, Holger J; Foldager, Leslie; Røge, Rasmus; Pristed, Sofie Gry; Andreasen, Jesper T; Nielsen, Jimmi

    2014-08-01

    Numerous studies on seasonality of birth and schizophrenia risk have been published but it is uncertain whether, among those with schizophrenia, refractory illness exhibits any predilection for birth month. We hypothesized and examined whether a season of birth effect was present in patients with schizophrenia with a history of clozapine treatment. Using record linkage with Danish registers, we examined patients with schizophrenia born between 1950 and 1970, and between 1995 and 2009 and Cox regression analysis was used to examine season of birth in relation to history of clozapine treatment. In a study population corresponding to 60,062 person-years from 5328 individuals with schizophrenia of which 1223 (23%) received at least one clozapine prescription, birth in the autumn (September-November) was associated with clozapine treatment (HR = 1.24; 95% CI 1.07-1.46) when compared with birth in the spring (March-May). Although replication studies are needed, this is the first evidence from a nationwide study suggesting a possible season-associated risk of clozapine treatment in schizophrenia. The reasons for this relationship remain to be further investigated but might be partially explained by early exposures such as winter flu season and low vitamin D levels.

  7. N-acetylaspartylglutamate (NAAG) and N-acetylaspartate (NAA) in patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jessen, Frank; Fingerhut, Natascha; Sprinkart, Alois M; Kühn, Kai-Uwe; Petrovsky, Nadine; Maier, Wolfgang; Schild, Hans-H; Block, Wolfgang; Wagner, Michael; Träber, Frank

    2013-01-01

    BACKGROUND : Imbalance of glutamatergic neurotransmission has been proposed as a key mechanism underlying symptoms of schizophrenia. The neuropetide N-acetylaspartylglutamate (NAAG) modulates glutamate release. NAAG provides a component of the proton magnetic resonance spectrum (1H-MRS) in humans. The signal of NAAG, however, largely overlaps with its precursor and degrading product N-acetylaspartate (NAA) that by itself does not act in glutamatergic neurotransmission. We quantified NAAG and NAA separately from the 1H-MRS signal in 20 patients with schizophrenia and 20 healthy comparison subjects on a 3.0 Tesla MR scanner. The 1H-MRS voxels were positioned in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and in the left frontal lobe. Psychopathological symptoms and cognitive performance were assessed. In the ACC, the ratio NAAG/NAA was increased (P = .041) and NAAG was increased at a trend level (P = .066) in patients, while NAA was reduced (P = .030). NAA correlated with attention performance in patients (r = .64, P = .005) in the ACC. There was no group difference of NAAG, NAA, or NAAG/NAA in the frontal lobe but an inverse correlation of NAAG with negatives symptoms (Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale [PANSS] negative, r = -.58, P = .018) and with the total symptom score (PANSS total, r = -.50, P = .049). In addition, there was a positive correlation of frontal lobe NAAG (r = .53, P = .035) and NAAG/NAA (r = .54, P = .030) with episodic memory in patients. In this study, we present the first in vivo evidence for altered NAAG concentration in patients with schizophrenia.

  8. Relationship between Suicidality and Low Self-esteem in Patients with Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yoo, Taeyoung; Kim, Sung-Wan; Kim, Seon-Young; Lee, Ju-Yeon; Kang, Hee-Ju; Bae, Kyung-Yeol; Kim, Jae-Min; Shin, Il-Seon; Yoon, Jin-Sang

    2015-12-31

    Low self-esteem is associated with suicide risk in the general psychiatric population. The aim of this study was to examine associations between suicidality and self-esteem in patients with schizophrenia. Subjects meeting the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV) diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia were enrolled. Sociodemographic and clinical variables, including previous suicide attempt history, were assessed. Psychopathology, self-esteem, and self-perceived stigma were also measured using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (SES), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Beck Hopelessness Scale, and the Korean version of the Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness scale (K-ISMI). Of the total of 87 participants, 20 (23.0%) had attempted suicide. Patients with a history of suicide attempts had significantly higher scores on the BDI (p=0.036) and K-ISMI (p=0.009), and significantly lower scores on the SES (p=0.001). Analysis of covariance revealed that the SES scores were significantly lower in patients with a history of previous suicide attempts than in those with no history, after controlling for K-ISMI and BDI scores (p=0.039). Low self-esteem appears to represent a psychological dimension that is closely related to suicide risk. Therefore, clinical attention should be paid to the evaluation and enhancement of low self-esteem in schizophrenia patients with suicidality. A longitudinal prospective study is required to ascertain whether low self-esteem leads suicide attempts.

  9. Association between a genetic variant in the serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4 and suicidal behavior in patients with schizophrenia

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    Lindholm Carlström Eva

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamin; 5-HT system has a central role in the circuitry of cognition and emotions. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that genetic variation in the serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4; 5-HTT is associated with schizophrenia and suicidal behavior. In this study, we wanted to elucidate whether SLC6A4 variations is involved in attempted suicide among patients with schizophrenia in a Scandinavian case–control sample. Methods Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia from three Scandinavian samples were assessed for presence or absence of suicide attempts, based on record reviews and interview data. Seven SLC6A4 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs were genotyped in 837 schizophrenia patients and 1,473 control individuals. Association analyses and statistical evaluations were performed with the program UNPHASED (version 3.0.9. Results We observed an allele association between the SNP rs16965628, located in intron one of SLC6A4, and attempted suicide (adjusted p-value 0.01, among patients with schizophrenia. No association was found to a diagnosis of schizophrenia, when patients were compared to healthy control individuals. Conclusion The gene SLC6A4 appears to be involved in suicidal ideation among patients with schizophrenia. Independent replication is needed before more firm conclusions can be drawn.

  10. Some new approaches for prevention of schizophrenia spectrum disorders in patients exposed to exogenous stressors

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    Nataliya Dzeruzhinska

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available Background. Environment factors affect to the clinical phenotype of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Aim. To develop recommendations for the prevention schizophrenia spectrum disorders considering the influence of environmental factors on the clinical pathomorphosis of the disease. Methods. It was conducted the psychopathological and psychodiagnostic survey of 186 patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders with an assessment of clinical features and level of social functioning. It was identified factors that have the most significant pathological effects on the course of disorders on the basis of the received data: the using of a cannabinoid in a family history, mother`s infectious and somatic diseases during pregnancy, mother's using alcohol during pregnancy, consumption of alcohol in adolescent patients, fetal hypoxia or perinatal trauma of the patient at birth, problems with the group of primary support in the family of a child in childhood, maternal toxicosis, crisis relationships in the family, migration to different cultural environment. Results. Clinical pathomorphism of disorders of the spectrum of schizophrenia under the influence of environmental factors determines the features of psychotherapeutic interventions. In people with cannabinoids, it is important to eliminate the symptoms of anxiety through emotion-supportive measures, as well as to create a motivation to ask help in case of symptoms of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. In a group with perinatal complications, the emphasis should be put on cognitive methods in order to correct mental disorders and overcome hypochondria. Early measures to form a positive attitude towards themselves and the environment, supporting family relationships, overcoming depressive symptoms, and developing social activity are targets of psychotherapeutic interventions in people with schizophrenic spectrum disorders and psychological traumatic events. Conclusion. Minimization of environmental

  11. Out of touch with reality? Social perception in first-episode schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ebisch, Sjoerd J H; Salone, Anatolia; Ferri, Francesca; De Berardis, Domenico; Romani, Gian Luca; Ferro, Filippo M; Gallese, Vittorio

    2013-04-01

    Social dysfunction has been recognized as an elementary feature of schizophrenia, but it remains a crucial issue whether social deficits in schizophrenia concern the inter-subjective domain or primarily have their roots in disturbances of self-experience. Social perception comprises vicarious processes grounding an experiential inter-relationship with others as well as self-regulation processes allowing to maintain a coherent sense of self. The present study investigated whether the functional neural basis underlying these processes is altered in first-episode schizophrenia (FES). Twenty-four FES patients and 22 healthy control participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during a social perception task requiring them to watch videos depicting other individuals' inanimate and animate/social tactile stimulations, and a tactile localizer condition. Activation in ventral premotor cortex for observed bodily tactile stimulations was reduced in the FES group and negatively correlated with self-experience disturbances. Moreover, FES patients showed aberrant differential activation in posterior insula for first-person tactile experiences and observed affective tactile stimulations. These findings suggest that social perception in FES at a pre-reflective level is characterized by disturbances of self-experience, including impaired multisensory representations and self-other distinction. However, the results also show that social perception in FES involves more complex alterations of neural activation at multiple processing levels.

  12. Disturbed functional connectivity of cortical activation during semantic discrimination in patients with schizophrenia and subjects at genetic high-risk.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Xiaobo; Branch, Craig A; Nierenberg, Jay; Delisi, Lynn E

    2010-03-01

    Schizophrenia has a strong genetic component that is relevant to the understanding of the pathophysiology of the syndrome. Thus, recent investigations have shifted from studies of diagnosed patients with schizophrenia to examining their unaffected relatives. Previous studies found that during language processing, relatives thought to be at genetic high-risk for the disorder exhibit aberrant functional activation in regions of language processing, specifically in the left inferior frontal gyrus (Broca's area). However, functional connectivity among the regions involved in language pathways is not well understood. In this study, we examined the functional connectivity between a seed located in Broca's area and the remainder of the brain during a visual lexical decision task, in 20 schizophrenia patients, 21 subjects at genetic high risk for the disorder and 21 healthy controls. Both the high-risk subjects and patients showed significantly reduced activation correlations between seed and regions related to visual language processing. Compared to the high-risk subjects, the schizophrenia patients showed even fewer regions that were correlated with the seed regions. These results suggest that there is aberrant functional connectivity within cortical language circuitry in high-risk subjects and patients with schizophrenia. Broca's area, which is one of the important regions for language processing in healthy controls, had a significantly reduced role in the high-risk subjects and patients with schizophrenia. Our findings are consistent with the existence of an underlying biological disturbance that begins in genetically at risk individuals and progresses to a greater extent in those who eventually develop schizophrenia.

  13. Proteome analysis of schizophrenia patients Wernicke's area reveals an energy metabolism dysregulation

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    Marangoni Sérgio

    2009-04-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Schizophrenia is likely to be a consequence of DNA alterations that, together with environmental factors, will lead to protein expression differences and the ultimate establishment of the illness. The superior temporal gyrus is implicated in schizophrenia and executes functions such as the processing of speech, language skills and sound processing. Methods We performed an individual comparative proteome analysis using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis of 9 schizophrenia and 6 healthy control patients' left posterior superior temporal gyrus (Wernicke's area – BA22p identifying by mass spectrometry several protein expression alterations that could be related to the disease. Results Our analysis revealed 11 downregulated and 14 upregulated proteins, most of them related to energy metabolism. Whereas many of the identified proteins have been previously implicated in schizophrenia, such as fructose-bisphosphate aldolase C, creatine kinase and neuron-specific enolase, new putative disease markers were also identified such as dihydrolipoyl dehydrogenase, tropomyosin 3, breast cancer metastasis-suppressor 1, heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoproteins C1/C2 and phosphate carrier protein, mitochondrial precursor. Besides, the differential expression of peroxiredoxin 6 (PRDX6 and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP were confirmed by western blot in schizophrenia prefrontal cortex. Conclusion Our data supports a dysregulation of energy metabolism in schizophrenia as well as suggests new markers that may contribute to a better understanding of this complex disease.

  14. ANANKASTIK PERSONALITY DISORDER IN SCHIZOPHRENIA PARANOID PATIENT: A CASE REPORT

    OpenAIRE

    Damarnegara ..; A. A. Ngr. Andika

    2014-01-01

    Anankastik personality disorder is a health problem that can disturb the activities of person and can accompany a variety of other mental health problems. The patient in thiscase is a patient with an anankastik or obsessive compulsive personality disorder withthe axis I diagnoses is Paranoid Schizophrenia and was given haloperidol 2x5mg, buthave not done psychotherapy because the patient has not been cooperative. Theprognosis is dependent on patient compliance in taking medication and control...

  15. Event-related brain potentials to emotional images and gonadal steroid hormone levels in patients with schizophrenia and paired controls

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Julie eChampagne

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available Prominent disturbances in the experience, expression, and emotion recognition in patients with schizophrenia have been relatively well documented over the last few years. Furthermore, sex differences in behavior and brain activity, associated with the processing of various emotions, have been reported in the general population and in schizophrenia patients. Others proposed that sex differences should be rather attributed to testosterone, which may play a role in the etiology of schizophrenia. Also, it had been suggested that estradiol may play a protective role in schizophrenia. Surprisingly, few studies investigating this pathology have focused on both brain substrates and gonadal steroid hormone levels, in emotional processing. In the present study, we investigated electrocortical responses related to emotional valence and arousal as well as gonadal steroid hormone levels in patients with schizophrenia. Event-Related Potentials (ERP were recorded during exposition to emotional pictures in 18 patients with schizophrenia and in 24 control participants paired on intelligence, manual dominance and socioeconomic status. Given their previous sensitivity to emotional and attention processes, the P200, N200 and the P300 were selected for analysis. More precisely, emotional valence generally affects early components (N200, which reflect early process of selective attention, whereas emotional arousal and valence both influences the P300 component, which is related to memory context updating, and stimulus categorization. Results showed that, in the control group, the amplitude of the N200 was significantly more lateralized over the right hemisphere, while there was no such lateralization in patients with schizophrenia. In patients with schizophrenia, significantly smaller anterior P300 amplitude was observed to the unpleasant, compared to the pleasant. That anterior P300 reduction was also correlated with negative symptoms.

  16. The Schizophrenia Patient Outcomes Research Team (PORT): updated treatment recommendations 2009.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kreyenbuhl, Julie; Buchanan, Robert W; Dickerson, Faith B; Dixon, Lisa B

    2010-01-01

    The Schizophrenia Patient Outcomes Research Team (PORT) project has played a significant role in the development and dissemination of evidence-based practices for schizophrenia. In contrast to other clinical guidelines, the Schizophrenia PORT Treatment Recommendations, initially published in 1998 and first revised in 2003, are based primarily on empirical data. Over the last 5 years, research on psychopharmacologic and psychosocial treatments for schizophrenia has continued to evolve, warranting an update of the PORT recommendations. In consultation with expert advisors, 2 Evidence Review Groups (ERGs) identified 41 treatment areas for review and conducted electronic literature searches to identify all clinical studies published since the last PORT literature review. The ERGs also reviewed studies preceding 2002 in areas not covered by previous PORT reviews, including smoking cessation, substance abuse, and weight loss. The ERGs reviewed over 600 studies and synthesized the research evidence, producing recommendations for those treatments for which the evidence was sufficiently strong to merit recommendation status. For those treatments lacking empirical support, the ERGs produced parallel summary statements. An Expert Panel consisting of 39 schizophrenia researchers, clinicians, and consumers attended a conference in November 2008 in which consensus was reached on the state of the evidence for each of the treatment areas reviewed. The methods and outcomes of the update process are presented here and resulted in recommendations for 16 psychopharmacologic and 8 psychosocial treatments for schizophrenia. Another 13 psychopharmacologic and 4 psychosocial treatments had insufficient evidence to support a recommendation, representing significant unmet needs in important treatment domains.

  17. Basic visual dysfunction allows classification of patients with schizophrenia with exceptional accuracy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    González-Hernández, J A; Pita-Alcorta, C; Padrón, A; Finalé, A; Galán, L; Martínez, E; Díaz-Comas, L; Samper-González, J A; Lencer, R; Marot, M

    2014-10-01

    Basic visual dysfunctions are commonly reported in schizophrenia; however their value as diagnostic tools remains uncertain. This study reports a novel electrophysiological approach using checkerboard visual evoked potentials (VEP). Sources of spectral resolution VEP-components C1, P1 and N1 were estimated by LORETA, and the band-effects (BSE) on these estimated sources were explored in each subject. BSEs were Z-transformed for each component and relationships with clinical variables were assessed. Clinical effects were evaluated by ROC-curves and predictive values. Forty-eight patients with schizophrenia (SZ) and 55 healthy controls participated in the study. For each of the 48 patients, the three VEP components were localized to both dorsal and ventral brain areas and also deviated from a normal distribution. P1 and N1 deviations were independent of treatment, illness chronicity or gender. Results from LORETA also suggest that deficits in thalamus, posterior cingulum, precuneus, superior parietal and medial occipitotemporal areas were associated with symptom severity. While positive symptoms were more strongly related to sensory processing deficits (P1), negative symptoms were more strongly related to perceptual processing dysfunction (N1). Clinical validation revealed positive and negative predictive values for correctly classifying SZ of 100% and 77%, respectively. Classification in an additional independent sample of 30 SZ corroborated these results. In summary, this novel approach revealed basic visual dysfunctions in all patients with schizophrenia, suggesting these visual dysfunctions represent a promising candidate as a biomarker for schizophrenia. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  18. Profile of cognitive deficits and associations with depressive symptoms and intelligence in chronic early-onset schizophrenia patients

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jepsen, Jens Richardt Møllegaard; Fagerlund, Birgitte; Pagsberg, Anne Katrine

    2013-01-01

    , early-onset schizophrenia patients (mean age = 20.7 years) (N = 18) and healthy controls (N = 38). Schizophrenia diagnoses were established at the time of the patients' first clinical presentation during childhood or adolescence and were confirmed five years later. In the chronic phase of early...

  19. Assessment of sexual dysfunction and associated factors among patients with schizophrenia in Ethiopia, 2017.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fanta, Tolesa; Haile, Kibrom; Abebaw, Dessie; Assefa, Dawit; Hibdye, Getahun

    2018-05-29

    Sexual dysfunction is remarkably prevalent amongst psychiatric patients than general population. This might be due to either the nature of the illness itself or the unwanted effect of the medication they are taking for the illness which limits the capability of forming interpersonal and sexual relationships. This issue is rarely raised in developing countries, and the aim of this study was to assess magnitude and factors contributing to sexual dysfunction among patients with Schizophrenia. Hospital based cross sectional study was conducted at Amanuel Mental Specialized Hospital from January to June 2017. The sample required for this study was determined by using single population proportion formula and the final sample size was 423; and systematic random sampling was used to select participants. We used Change in Sexual Functioning Questionnaire to measure sexual dysfunction. The collected data was cleaned, interred in to Epi data and transferred to SPSS version 20 for farther analysis. The OR with 95% CI was used to measure association and P-value < 0.05 was used as statistically significant. A total of 422 patients with Schizophrenia were involved in the study. The prevalence of General Sexual dysfunction was 82.7%; and in male and female patients the prevalence was 84.5 and 78.6% respectively. Marital status (Unmarried, Divorced and widowed, history of relapse and poor quality of life were associated significantly to global sexual dysfunction. The magnitude of Sexual dysfunction was found to be high among patients with schizophrenia and it is associated with different factors like unmarried, divorced, widowed, relapse and poor quality of life. Treating physicians should be conscious to sexual dysfunction during evaluation and treatment of patients with Schizophrenia. Special attention should be given to single, divorced, widowed patients and patients with history of relapse to improve quality of life of this patients.

  20. Two subgroups of antipsychotic-naive, first-episode schizophrenia patients identified with a Gaussian mixture model on cognition and electrophysiology

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bak, N.; Ebdrup, B.H.; Oranje, B

    2017-01-01

    Deficits in information processing and cognition are among the most robust findings in schizophrenia patients. Previous efforts to translate group-level deficits into clinically relevant and individualized information have, however, been non-successful, which is possibly explained by biologically...... different disease subgroups. We applied machine learning algorithms on measures of electrophysiology and cognition to identify potential subgroups of schizophrenia. Next, we explored subgroup differences regarding treatment response. Sixty-six antipsychotic-naive first-episode schizophrenia patients...... be used to classify subgroups of schizophrenia patients. The two distinct subgroups, which we identified, were psychopathologically inseparable before treatment, yet their response to dopaminergic blockade was predicted with significant accuracy. This proof of principle encourages further endeavors...

  1. Prevalence and profile of cognitive deficits in a cohort of first-episode antipsychotic-naïve schizophrenia patients

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Maria Høj; Glenthøj, Birte Yding; Nielsen, Mette Ødegaard

    2014-01-01

    first-episode antipsychotic-naïve schizophrenia patients and 60 matched healthy controls have been examined at baseline. The study uses several instruments, including BACS (Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia) and CANTAB (Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery). Premorbid......Background and Aims: Cognitive deficits are considered a core feature of schizophrenia with prevalence estimates ranging from ca. 75-85 %. These deficits are present in the early phase of the illness; however in most first-episode schizophrenia studies the patients are receiving antipsychotic...... medication, which can affect the results on specific domains such as processing speed. As part of the PECANS project (Pan European Collaboration on Antipsychotic Naïve Schizophrenia) the aim of the present study is to establish the prevalence and profile of cognitive deficits in a cohort of first...

  2. Costs of treating patients with schizophrenia who have illness-related crisis events

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peng Xiaomei

    2008-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Relatively little is known about the relationship between psychosocial crises and treatment costs for persons with schizophrenia. This naturalistic prospective study assessed the association of recent crises with mental health treatment costs among persons receiving treatment for schizophrenia. Methods Data were drawn from a large multi-site, non-interventional study of schizophrenia patients in the United States, conducted between 1997 and 2003. Participants were treated at mental health treatment systems, including the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA hospitals, community mental health centers, community and state hospitals, and university health care service systems. Total costs over a 1-year period for mental health services and component costs (psychiatric hospitalizations, antipsychotic medications, other psychotropic medications, day treatment, emergency psychiatric services, psychosocial/rehabilitation group therapy, individual therapy, medication management, and case management were calculated for 1557 patients with complete medical information. Direct mental health treatment costs for patients who had experienced 1 or more of 5 recent crisis events were compared to propensity-matched samples of persons who had not experienced a crisis event. The 5 non-mutually exclusive crisis event subgroups were: suicide attempt in the past 4 weeks (n = 18, psychiatric hospitalization in the past 6 months (n = 240, arrest in the past 6 months (n = 56, violent behaviors in the past 4 weeks (n = 62, and diagnosis of a co-occurring substance use disorder (n = 413. Results Across all 5 categories of crisis events, patients who had a recent crisis had higher average annual mental health treatment costs than patients in propensity-score matched comparison samples. Average annual mental health treatment costs were significantly higher for persons who attempted suicide ($46,024, followed by persons with psychiatric hospitalization in

  3. [Types of Care for Adult Patients Diagnosed With Acute and Maintenance Phase Schizophrenia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bohórquez Peñaranda, Adriana; Gómez Restrepo, Carlos; Oviedo Lugo, Gabriel Fernando; de la Hoz Bradford, Ana María; Castro Díaz, Sergio Mario; García Valencia, Jenny; Jaramillo González, Luis Eduardo; Ávila-Guerra, Mauricio

    2014-01-01

    To assist the clinician in making decisions about the types of care available for adults with schizophrenia. To determine which are the modalities of treatment associated with better outcomes in adults with schizophrenia. A clinical practice guideline was elaborated under the parameters of the Methodological Guide of the Ministerio de Salud y Protección Social to identify, synthesize and evaluate the evidence and make recommendations about the treatment and follow-up of adult patients with schizophrenia. The evidence of NICE guide 82 was adopted and updated. The evidence was presented to the Guideline Developing Group and recommendations, employing the GRADE system, were produced. Patients who were in Assertive community treatment had a lower risk of new hospitalizations. For the intensive case management, the results favored this intervention in the outcomes: medium term readmissions, social functioning and satisfaction with services. The crisis resolution teams was associated with better outcomes on outcomes of readmissions, social functioning and service satisfaction in comparison with standard care. The use of different modalities of care leads to the need of a comprehensive approach to patients to reduce the overall disability associated with the disease. Evidence shows overall benefit for most outcomes studied without encountering hazards for health of patients. This evaluation is recommended to use the professional ways of providing health services that are community-based and have a multidisciplinary group. It is not recommended the modality "day hospital" during the acute phase of schizophrenia in adults. Copyright © 2014 Asociación Colombiana de Psiquiatría. Publicado por Elsevier España. All rights reserved.

  4. Spirituality, religiousness and coping in patients with schizophrenia: A cross sectional study in a tertiary care hospital.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Das, Soumitra; Punnoose, Varghese Panickasseril; Doval, Nimisha; Nair, Vijayakrishnan Yathindran

    2018-04-24

    Religion is a form of coping that helps individuals to deal with a wide variety of difficult life situations. But most of the research in this field has been in acute patients of schizophrenia. Also, most of the research on religion and schizophrenia has focused on religion and spirituality as coping mechanisms, and research evaluating the relationship between spirituality/religiousness and repertoire of other coping skills is sparse. Our objective was to evaluate the association between spirituality, religiousness and coping skills in patients with schizophrenia in remission. Hence, a total of 48 consecutive patients with schizophrenia were assessed on Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Personal and Social Performance Scale (PSP), WHO Quality of Life-Spirituality, Religiousness and Personal Belief scale (WHOQOL-SRPB) and Ways of Coping Checklist - Revised (WCC). Findings were described as patients who used more religiosity and spirituality as measured with WHO-SRPB domain score were better in their managing their stress as they used all the adaptive strategies like planful problem solving, positive reappraisal, distancing, self-controlling, seeking social support rather than maladaptive skills like confrontive coping and escape avoidance. A sound spiritual, religious, or personal belief system positively affects active and adaptive coping skills in patients with schizophrenia during remission, thus helping the individual to cope with illness related stressors. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  5. Acupuncture in the treatment of a female patient suffering from chronic schizophrenia and sleep disorders

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bosch, M.P.C.; Lim, S.; Yeo, S.; Lee, S.H.; Staudte, H.; Noort, M.W.M.L. van den

    2016-01-01

    Background. The use of acupuncture in the treatment of sleep disorders in patients with chronic schizophrenia is investigated. Case Presentation. We report the case of a 44-year-old female outpatient of German origin who had been suffering from long-term schizophrenia and sleep disorders. The

  6. PREDICTORS FORMATION OF SOCIAL MALADJUSTMENT IN PATIENTS WITH PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIA WITH CONCOMITANT SOMATIC-NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Valeriy Semionovici PIDKORYTOV

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available The investigation of the level of stress in patients with paranoid schizophrenia with concomitant somatic-neurological disorders and quality of life as predictors of the formation of their social exclusion. The influence of somatic-neurological pathology for paranoid schizophrenia at different levels of stress.

  7. A multicenter, randomized controlled trial of individualized occupational therapy for patients with schizophrenia in Japan.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shimada, Takeshi; Ohori, Manami; Inagaki, Yusuke; Shimooka, Yuko; Sugimura, Naoya; Ishihara, Ikuyo; Yoshida, Tomotaka; Kobayashi, Masayoshi

    2018-01-01

    The individualized occupational therapy (IOT) program is a psychosocial program that we developed to facilitate proactive participation in treatment and improve cognitive functioning and other outcomes for inpatients with acute schizophrenia. The program consists of motivational interviewing, self-monitoring, individualized visits, handicraft activities, individualized psychoeducation, and discharge planning. This multicenter, open-labeled, blinded-endpoint, randomized controlled trial evaluated the impact of adding IOT to a group OT (GOT) program as usual for outcomes in recently hospitalized patients with schizophrenia in Japanese psychiatric hospitals setting compared with GOT alone. Patients with schizophrenia were randomly assigned to the GOT+IOT group or the GOT alone group. Among 136 randomized patients, 129 were included in the intent-to-treat population: 66 in the GOT+IOT and 63 in the GOT alone groups. Outcomes were administered at baseline and discharge or 3 months following hospitalization including the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia Japanese version (BACS-J), the Schizophrenia Cognition Rating Scale Japanese version, the Social Functioning Scale Japanese version, the Global Assessment of Functioning scale, the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory Japanese version (IMI-J), the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8 (MMAS-8), the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), and the Japanese version of Client Satisfaction Questionnaire-8 (CSQ-8J). Results of linear mixed effects models indicated that the IOT+GOT showed significant improvements in verbal memory (p <0.01), working memory (p = 0.02), verbal fluency (p < 0.01), attention (p < 0.01), and composite score (p < 0.01) on the BACS-J; interest/enjoyment (p < 0.01), value/usefulness (p < 0.01), perceived choice (p < 0.01), and IMI-J total (p < 0.01) on the IMI-J; MMAS-8 score (p < 0.01) compared with the GOT alone. Patients in the GOT+IOT demonstrated significant improvements on the CSQ-8J

  8. Karolinska Scales of Personality, cognition and psychotic symptoms in patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nilsson, Björn Mikael; Holm, Gunnar; Ekselius, Lisa

    2016-01-01

    Studies on both personality dimensions and cognition in schizophrenia are scarce. The objective of the present study was to examine personality traits and the relation to cognitive function and psychotic symptoms in a sample of patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls. In total 23 patients with schizophrenia and 14 controls were assessed with the Karolinska Scales of Personality (KSP). A broad cognitive test programme was used, including the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales, the Finger-Tapping Test, the Trail Making Test, the Verbal Fluency Test, the Benton Visual Retention Test, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test . Compared with controls, the patients exhibited prominent elevations on KSP scales measuring anxiety proneness and neuroticism (P = 0.000005-0.0001), on the Detachment scale (P < 0.00009) and lower value on the Socialization scale (P < 0.0002). The patients also scored higher on the Inhibition of Aggression, Suspicion, Guilt and Irritability scales (P = 0.002-0.03) while the remaining five scales did not differ between patients and controls. KSP anxiety-related scales correlated with the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS) general psychopathology subscale. Cognitive test results were uniformly lower in the patient group and correlated with PANSS negative symptoms subscale. There was no association between KSP scale scores and PANSS positive or negative symptoms. The patients revealed a highly discriminative KSP test profile with elevated scores in neuroticism- and psychoticism-related scales as compared to controls. Results support previous findings utilizing other personality inventories in patients with schizophrenia. Cognitive test performance correlated inversely with negative symptoms.

  9. Exploring social cognition in schizophrenia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Revsbech, Rasmus; Mortensen, Erik Lykke; Frederiksen, Julie Elisabeth Nordgaard

    2017-01-01

    The aim of the study was to compare social cognition between groups of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and healthy controls and to replicate two previous studies using tests of social cognition that may be particularly sensitive to social cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. Thirty......-eight first-admitted patients with schizophrenia and 38 healthy controls solved 11 “imaginary conversation (i.e., theory of mind)” items, 10 “psychological understanding” items, and 10 “practical understanding” items. Statistical tests were made of unadjusted and adjusted group differences in models adjusting...... nonsignificant. When intelligence and global cognitive functioning is taken into account, schizophrenia patients and healthy controls perform similarly on social cognitive tests. © 2016 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg...

  10. Cognitive psychopathology in Schizophrenia: Comparing memory performances with Obsessive-compulsive disorder patients and normal subjects on the Wechsler Memory Scale-IV.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cammisuli, Davide Maria; Sportiello, Marco Timpano

    2016-06-01

    Memory system turns out to be one of the cognitive domains most severely impaired in schizophrenia. Within the theoretical framework of cognitive psychopathology, we compared the performance of schizophrenia patients on the Wechsler Memory Scale-IV with that in matched patients with Obsessive-compulsive disorder and that in healthy control subjects to establish the specific nature of memory deficits in schizophrenia. 30 schizophrenia patients, 30 obsessive-compulsive disorder patients and 40 healthy controls completed the Wechsler Memory Scale-IV. Schizophrenia symptom severity was assessed by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Performances on memory battery including Indexes and subtests scores were compared by a One-Way ANOVA (Scheffé post-hoc test). Spearman Rank correlations were performed between scores on PANSS subscales and symptoms and WMS-IV Indexes and subtests, respectively. Schizophrenia patients showed a memory profile characterized by mild difficulties in auditory memory and visual working memory and poor functioning of visual, immediate and delayed memory. As expected, schizophrenia patients scored lower than healthy controls on all WMS-IV measures. With regard to the WMS-IV Indexes, schizophrenia patients performed worse on Auditory Memory, Visual Memory, Immediate and Delayed Memory than Obsessive-compulsive disorder patients but not on Visual Working Memory. Such a pattern was made even clearer for specific tasks such as immediate and delayed recall and spatial recall and memory for visual details, as revealed by the lowest scores on Logical Memory (immediate and delayed conditions) and Designs (immediate condition) subtests, respectively. Significant negative correlations between Logical Memory I and II were found with PANSS Excitement symptom as well as between DE I and PANSS Tension symptom. Significant positive correlations between LM II and PANSS Blunted affect and Poor rapport symptoms as well as DE I and PANSS Blunted affect

  11. Safety evaluation of saffron stigma (Crocus sativus L. aqueous extract and crocin in patients with schizophrenia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bentolhoda Mousavi

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Objectives: Saffron is the stigma of Crocus sativus L., which has the potentials to play a role in the treatment of many diseases. Although many researches are now going on this precious spice, there are few data on saffron safety in human, especially in patients with chronic mental illnesses. This study aimed to evaluate the short-term safety and tolerability of both saffron and crocin (its major constituent in adult patients with schizophrenia. Materials and Methods: The capsules of saffron aqueous extract (SAE and crocin were used to evaluate short-term safety and tolerability in patients with schizophrenia. A double-blind, placebo-controlled study was performed on patients with schizophrenia. The patients were all male and were divided into three 22-patient groups. While receiving their normal treatment, they also received a 12 week treatment with SAE (15 mg twice daily, crocin (15 mg twice daily or placebo. Results: A total of 61 patients completed the trial; none of them reported a serious side effect. WBC count increased significantly in patients receiving saffron aqua extract (SAE, but it was within the normal range and had no clinical significance. Other hematologic components, markers of thyroid, liver and kidney or inflammation markers had no statistically significant difference among the groups. Conclusions: This study showed that SAE and crocin in doses of 15 mg twice daily were safely tolerated in patients with schizophrenia.

  12. [Computer-assisted therapy and video games in psychosocial rehabilitation for schizophrenia patients].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brun, G; Verdoux, H; Couhet, G; Quiles, C

    2018-02-28

    Video games and virtual reality have recently become used by clinicians for training or information media or as therapeutic tools. The purpose is to review the use of these technologies for therapy destined for schizophrenia patients. We conducted a review in October 2016 using Pubmed, Scopus and PsychInfo using the following Medical Subject Headings (MESH): "video games", "virtual reality" and "therapy, computer-assisted/methods", each associated with "schizophrenia". Papers were included in the review if: (a) they were published in an English, Spanish or French-language peer-reviewed journal, (b) the study enrolled patients with schizophrenia or schizo-affective disorder, (c) the patients used a therapeutic video game or therapeutic virtual reality device. Eighteen publications were included. The devices studied are mainly therapeutic software developed specifically for therapeutic care. They can be classified according to their therapeutic objectives. These targets corresponded to objectives of psychosocial rehabilitation: improvement of residual symptomatology, cognitive remediation, remediation of cognition and social skills, improvement of everyday life activities, support for occupational integration. Very different devices were proposed. Some researchers analysed programs developed specifically for patients with schizophrenia, while others were interested in the impact of commercial games. Most of the studies were recent, preliminary and European. The impact of these devices was globally positive, particularly concerning cognitive functions. Computer-assisted therapy, video games and virtual reality cannot replace usual care but could be used as adjunctive therapy. However, recommending their use seems premature because of the recent and preliminary character of most studies. Moreover, a link is still lacking between this field of research in psychiatry and other fields of research, particularly game studies. Finally, it might be interesting to analyse more

  13. Decoding emotion of the other differs among schizophrenia patients and schizoaffective patients: A pilot study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hagar Tadmor

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available The deficit in ability to attribute mental states such as thoughts, beliefs, and intentions of another person is a key component in the functional impairment of social cognition in schizophrenia. In the current study, we compared the ability of persons with first episode schizophrenia (FE-SZ and individuals with schizophrenia displaying symptomatic remission (SZ-CR to decode the mental state of others with healthy individuals and schizoaffective patients. In addition, we analyzed the effect of dopamine-related genes polymorphism on the ability to decode the mental state of another, and searched for different genetic signatures. Our results show that overall, individuals with schizophrenia performed worse in the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” (eyes test, a simple well-defined task to infer the mental state of others than healthy individuals. Within the schizophrenia group, schizoaffective scored significantly higher than FE-SZ, SZ-CR, and healthy individuals. No difference was observed in performance between FE-SZ and SZ-CR subjects. Interestingly, FE-SZ and SZ-CR, but not schizoaffective individuals, performed worse in decoding negative and neutral emotional valance than the healthy control group. At the genetic level, we observed a significant effect of the DAT genotype, but not D4R genotype, on the eyes test performance. Our data suggest that understanding the mental state of another person is a trait marker of the illness, and might serve as an intermediate phenotype in the diagnostic process of schizophrenia disorders, and raise the possibility that DA-related DAT gene might have a role in decoding the mental state of another person.

  14. Treatment patterns and clinical characteristics prior to initiating depot typical antipsychotics for nonadherent schizophrenia patients

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Montgomery William

    2009-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Nonadherence with antipsychotic medication is an important clinical and economic problem in the treatment of schizophrenia. This study identified treatment patterns and clinical characteristics that immediately precede the initiation of depot typical antipsychotics in the usual treatment of schizophrenia patients with a recent history of nonadherence with oral antipsychotic regimens. Methods Data were drawn from a large, multisite, 3-year prospective noninterventional observational study of persons treated for schizophrenia in the United States, which was conducted between 7/1997 and 9/2003. The analytical sample included patients who, in the 6 months prior to enrollment, were considered nonadherent with oral antipsychotics and were not treated with depot antipsychotics (N = 314. Patients who were subsequently initiated on typical depots during the 3-year follow-up were compared with patients who continued therapy with only oral antipsychotic agents. Group comparisons were made on patient baseline characteristics and precedent variables that were assessed 1 to 6 months prior to depot initiation. Patient assessments were made at predetermined intervals throughout the 3-year study using standard psychiatric measures, a patient-reported questionnaire, and medical record information. Results A small proportion of patients (12.4% who were recently nonadherent with oral antipsychotics were subsequently initiated on depot therapy during the 3-year study. Compared to patients treated with only oral antipsychotics, those subsequently initiated on a depot were significantly more likely to be hospitalized at depot initiation or the previous 30 days, to have recent involvement with the criminal justice system (arrests, recent illicit drug use, recent switching or augmentation of oral antipsychotics, and recent treatment with oral typical antipsychotics. Conclusion Despite prior nonadherence with oral antipsychotic medication, only a

  15. Altered Cerebral Blood Flow Covariance Network in Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Feng; Zhuo, Chuanjun; Yu, Chunshui

    2016-01-01

    Many studies have shown abnormal cerebral blood flow (CBF) in schizophrenia; however, it remains unclear how topological properties of CBF network are altered in this disorder. Here, arterial spin labeling (ASL) MRI was employed to measure resting-state CBF in 96 schizophrenia patients and 91 healthy controls. CBF covariance network of each group was constructed by calculating across-subject CBF covariance between 90 brain regions. Graph theory was used to compare intergroup differences in global and nodal topological measures of the network. Both schizophrenia patients and healthy controls had small-world topology in CBF covariance networks, implying an optimal balance between functional segregation and integration. Compared with healthy controls, schizophrenia patients showed reduced small-worldness, normalized clustering coefficient and local efficiency of the network, suggesting a shift toward randomized network topology in schizophrenia. Furthermore, schizophrenia patients exhibited altered nodal centrality in the perceptual-, affective-, language-, and spatial-related regions, indicating functional disturbance of these systems in schizophrenia. This study demonstrated for the first time that schizophrenia patients have disrupted topological properties in CBF covariance network, which provides a new perspective (efficiency of blood flow distribution between brain regions) for understanding neural mechanisms of schizophrenia.

  16. Auditory verbal hallucinations are related to cortical thinning in the left middle temporal gyrus of patients with schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cui, Y; Liu, B; Song, M; Lipnicki, D M; Li, J; Xie, S; Chen, Y; Li, P; Lu, L; Lv, L; Wang, H; Yan, H; Yan, J; Zhang, H; Zhang, D; Jiang, T

    2018-01-01

    Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) are one of the most common and severe symptoms of schizophrenia, but the neuroanatomical abnormalities underlying AVHs are not well understood. The present study aims to investigate whether AVHs are associated with cortical thinning. Participants were schizophrenia patients from four centers across China, 115 with AVHs and 93 without AVHs, as well as 261 healthy controls. All received 3 T T1-weighted brain scans, and whole brain vertex-wise cortical thickness was compared across groups. Correlations between AVH severity and cortical thickness were also determined. The left middle part of the middle temporal gyrus (MTG) was significantly thinner in schizophrenia patients with AVHs than in patients without AVHs and healthy controls. Inferences were made using a false discovery rate approach with a threshold at p < 0.05. Left MTG thickness did not differ between patients without AVHs and controls. These results were replicated by a meta-analysis showing them to be consistent across the four centers. Cortical thickness of the left MTG was also found to be inversely correlated with hallucination severity across all schizophrenia patients. The results of this multi-center study suggest that an abnormally thin left MTG could be involved in the pathogenesis of AVHs in schizophrenia.

  17. Schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kahn, René S; Sommer, Iris E; Murray, Robin M; Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas; Weinberger, Daniel R; Cannon, Tyrone D; O'Donovan, Michael; Correll, Christoph U; Kane, John M; van Os, Jim; Insel, Thomas R

    2015-11-12

    Schizophrenia is a chronic psychiatric disorder with a heterogeneous genetic and neurobiological background that influences early brain development, and is expressed as a combination of psychotic symptoms - such as hallucinations, delusions and disorganization - and motivational and cognitive dysfunctions. The mean lifetime prevalence of the disorder is just below 1%, but large regional differences in prevalence rates are evident owing to disparities in urbanicity and patterns of immigration. Although gross brain pathology is not a characteristic of schizophrenia, the disorder involves subtle pathological changes in specific neural cell populations and in cell-cell communication. Schizophrenia, as a cognitive and behavioural disorder, is ultimately about how the brain processes information. Indeed, neuroimaging studies have shown that information processing is functionally abnormal in patients with first-episode and chronic schizophrenia. Although pharmacological treatments for schizophrenia can relieve psychotic symptoms, such drugs generally do not lead to substantial improvements in social, cognitive and occupational functioning. Psychosocial interventions such as cognitive-behavioural therapy, cognitive remediation and supported education and employment have added treatment value, but are inconsistently applied. Given that schizophrenia starts many years before a diagnosis is typically made, the identification of individuals at risk and those in the early phases of the disorder, and the exploration of preventive approaches are crucial.

  18. En undersøgelse af livshistorier blandt patienter med skizofreni. (An examination of life stories among patients with schizophrenia)

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Holm, Tine; Bliksted, Vibeke Fuglsang; Thomsen, Dorthe Kirkegaard

    Lack of self-continuity is a defining feature in schizophrenia, which involves the experience that the past self is not meaningfully connected to the present self. Self-continuity may be established through the life story. In this study-in-progress we examine whether patients with schizophrenia...... have less coherent life stories compared to healthy controls. 30 patients and 30 matched controls describe and rate up to 10 life story chapters and 3 self-defining memories (SDMs). We expect that patients will have less chronologically organized chapters and that they will rate degree of self......-continuity and causal coherence lower for both SDMs and life story chapters....

  19. Once-monthly injection of paliperidone palmitate in patients with recently diagnosed and chronic schizophrenia: a post-hoc comparison of efficacy and safety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Si, Tianmei; Zhuo, Jianmin; Turkoz, Ibrahim; Mathews, Maju; Tan, Wilson; Feng, Yu

    2017-12-01

    The use of long-acting injectable antipsychotics in recently diagnosed schizophrenia remains less explored. We evaluated the efficacy and safety of paliperidone palmitate once-monthly (PP1M) treatment in adult patients with recently diagnosed vs. chronic schizophrenia. These post-hoc analyses included two multicenter studies. Study 1 (NCT01527305) enrolled recently diagnosed (≤5 years) and chronic (>5 years) patients; Study 2 (NCT01051531) enrolled recently diagnosed patients only. Recently diagnosed patients were further sub-grouped into ≤2 years or 2-5 years. The primary efficacy endpoint was the change from baseline in Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) total score. In Study 1, 41.5% patients had recent diagnosis (≤2 years: 56.8%; 2-5 years: 43.2%); 58.5% had chronic schizophrenia. In Study 2, 52.8% and 47.2% patients were grouped into ≤2 years and 2-5 years, respectively. PANSS total score showed significantly greater improvement in patients with recently diagnosed vs. chronic schizophrenia. Similar results were obtained for PANSS responder rate, improvements in PANSS, and CGI-S scores. PP1M was efficacious in both recently diagnosed and chronic schizophrenia, with the benefits being more pronounced in patients with recently diagnosed schizophrenia. This adds to growing evidence recommending long-acting antipsychotic interventions at early stages of schizophrenia.

  20. The metabolic syndrome and risk of coronary artery disease in patients with chronic schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder in a chronic mental institute

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ping-Tao Tseng

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available The prevalence rate of metabolic syndrome (MS and coronary artery disease (CAD has been found to be high in patients with chronic schizophrenia. Current evidence shows that CAD is underdiagnosed in this group. Our study evaluated the prevalence of MS and the risk of CAD in patients with chronic schizophrenia in a chronic care mental hospital in southern Taiwan. We included all patients with the diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. We collected all laboratory, physical examination, psychiatric interview, and chart review data. We also evaluated the risk of CAD in these patients using the Framingham point system. There was no significant age difference in the MS prevalence rate in these patients. The young patients with schizophrenia in our study tended to have a higher prevalence of MS than the general population. In addition, female patients had a higher prevalence rate of MS than males. Based on the Framingham point system, we found the 10-year risk of CAD to be higher among the patients with schizophrenia than in the general population. Our study highlights the importance of the high risk of MS in both younger and older patients with schizophrenia, without a significant relationship to the use of antipsychotics. More complete cohort studies are needed to confirm these findings. Psychiatrists may want to establish more specific and detailed clinical guidelines for patients with chronic schizophrenia with comorbid physical diseases, especially MS and CAD.