-
Genes Jun 2024Recent research has highlighted associations between sleep and microbial taxa and pathways. However, the causal effect of these associations remains unknown. To...
Recent research has highlighted associations between sleep and microbial taxa and pathways. However, the causal effect of these associations remains unknown. To investigate this, we performed a bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis using summary statistics of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) from 412 gut microbiome traits (N = 7738) and GWAS studies from seven sleep-associated traits (N = 345,552 to 386,577). We employed multiple MR methods to assess causality, with Inverse Variance Weighted (IVW) as the primary method, alongside a Bonferroni correction (( < 2.4 × 10) to determine significant causal associations. We further applied Cochran's Q statistical analysis, MR-Egger intercept, and Mendelian randomization pleiotropy residual sum and outlier (MR-PRESSO) for heterogeneity and pleiotropy assessment. IVW estimates revealed 79 potential causal effects of microbial taxa and pathways on sleep-related traits and 45 inverse causal relationships, with over half related to pathways, emphasizing their significance. The results revealed two significant causal associations: genetically determined relative abundance of pentose phosphate decreased sleep duration ( = 9.00 × 10), and genetically determined increase in fatty acid level increased the ease of getting up in the morning ( = 8.06 × 10). Sensitivity analyses, including heterogeneity and pleiotropy tests, as well as a leave-one-out analysis of single nucleotide polymorphisms, confirmed the robustness of these relationships. This study explores the potential causal relationships between sleep and microbial taxa and pathways, offering novel insights into their complex interplay.
Topics: Humans; Mendelian Randomization Analysis; Gastrointestinal Microbiome; Genome-Wide Association Study; Sleep; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; Causality
PubMed: 38927705
DOI: 10.3390/genes15060769 -
BMJ Open Jun 2024Evidence-based psychological treatments for people with personality disorder usually involve attending group-based sessions over many months. Low-intensity psychological...
Clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of Structured Psychological Support for people with probable personality disorder in mental health services in England: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial.
INTRODUCTION
Evidence-based psychological treatments for people with personality disorder usually involve attending group-based sessions over many months. Low-intensity psychological interventions of less than 6 months duration have been developed, but their clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness are unclear.
METHODS AND ANALYSIS
This is a multicentre, randomised, parallel-group, researcher-masked, superiority trial. Study participants will be aged 18 and over, have probable personality disorder and be treated by mental health staff in seven centres in England. We will exclude people who are: unwilling or unable to provide written informed consent, have a coexisting organic or psychotic mental disorder, or are already receiving psychological treatment for personality disorder or on a waiting list for such treatment. In the intervention group, participants will be offered up to 10 individual sessions of Structured Psychological Support. In the control group, participants will be offered treatment as usual plus a single session of personalised crisis planning. The primary outcome is social functioning measured over 12 months using total score on the Work and Social Adjustment Scale (WSAS). Secondary outcomes include mental health, suicidal behaviour, health-related quality of life, patient-rated global improvement and satisfaction, and resource use and costs. The primary analysis will compare WSAS scores across the 12-month period using a general linear mixed model adjusting for baseline scores, allocation group and study centre on an intention-to-treat basis. In a parallel process evaluation, we will analyse qualitative data from interviews with study participants, clinical staff and researchers to examine mechanisms of impact and contextual factors.
ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION
The study complies with the Helsinki Declaration II and is approved by the London-Bromley Research Ethics Committee (IRAS ID 315951). Study findings will be published in an open access peer-reviewed journal; and disseminated at national and international conferences.
TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER
ISRCTN13918289.
Topics: Humans; Cost-Benefit Analysis; England; Mental Health Services; Personality Disorders; Quality of Life; Treatment Outcome; Multicenter Studies as Topic; Adult; Psychosocial Intervention
PubMed: 38925701
DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2024-086593 -
Asian Journal of Psychiatry Jun 2024Treatment discontinuation within Early Intervention Services (EIS) for psychosis poses a significant challenge to achieving better outcomes in the early stages of...
BACKGROUND
Treatment discontinuation within Early Intervention Services (EIS) for psychosis poses a significant challenge to achieving better outcomes in the early stages of psychotic disorders. Prevalence and predictors of early disengagement from EIS located in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) remain poorly investigated. We aimed to examine the rates and predictors of disengagement from the Ribeirão Preto Early Intervention Program for Psychosis (Ribeirão Preto-EIP) in Brazil.
METHODS
We conducted a retrospective cohort study using data from patients referred to the Ribeirão Preto-EIP between January 01, 2015, and December 31, 2018. Exclusion criteria were individuals with a single consultation, a diagnosis other than a psychotic disorder, and documented cases of death.
RESULTS
Our sample comprised 234 patients, with an overall median follow-up time of 14.2 months. Early treatment disengagement was observed in 26.5 % (n=62), with a median time to disengagement of 5.25 months. Univariable analysis identified non-white skin color (HR=2.10, 95 %CI 1.26-3.49), positive THC screening (HR=2.22, 95 %CI 1.23-4.01), and substance-induced psychosis (HR=2.15, 95 %CI 1.10-4.21) as significant predictors. In multivariable analysis, only non-white skin color remained a significant predictor of early disengagement (HR=1.87, 95 %CI 1.08-3.27).
CONCLUSIONS
The observed rates of early disengagement in our sample are similar to those reported in wealthy countries, but higher than previously reported for LMICs. Non-white skin color predicted early disengagement in our sample, probably due to social disadvantages. Our data highlights the need for enhanced research elucidating the specific features of EIS in LMICs.
PubMed: 38924943
DOI: 10.1016/j.ajp.2024.104119 -
Schizophrenia Research Jun 2024Neurocognitive impairment is a core feature of schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs), and the relationship between cognition and symptoms in SSDs has been widely...
BACKGROUND
Neurocognitive impairment is a core feature of schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs), and the relationship between cognition and symptoms in SSDs has been widely researched. Negative symptoms are related to a wide range of cognitive impairments; however, the aspects of negative symptoms that underpin this relationship have yet to be specified.
STUDY DESIGN
We used iterative Constrained Principal Component Analysis (iCPCA) to explore the relationship between 18 cognitive measures (including processing speed, attention, working, spatial and verbal memory and executive functions) and 46 symptoms in schizophrenia at the individual item level while minimizing the risk of Type I errors. ICPCA was conducted on a sample of SSD patients in the early stages of psychiatric treatment (n = 121) to determine the components of cognition overlapping with symptoms measured by the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) and the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS).
RESULTS
We found that a verbal memory component was associated with items from SANS and SAPS related to impoverished and disorganized emotional communication, language, and thought. In contrast, a working memory component was associated with SANS items related to motor system impoverishment.
CONCLUSIONS
The iCPCA allowed us to explore the associations between individual items, optimized to understand the overlap between symptoms and cognition. The specific symptoms linked to verbal and working memory impairments imply distinct brain networks, which further investigation may lead to our deeper understanding of the illness and the development of treatment methods.
PubMed: 38924940
DOI: 10.1016/j.schres.2024.06.010 -
Schizophrenia Research Jun 2024Discourse abnormalities are a prominent feature in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, including poor lexical diversity, and have been found to differentiate patients from...
Discourse abnormalities are a prominent feature in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, including poor lexical diversity, and have been found to differentiate patients from healthy subjects. However, discourse processing in individuals with high schizotypal personality traits is less understood and is often overshadowed by research on clinical psychotic symptoms. In the present study, we examined schizotypal traits at a non-clinical threshold and their association with lexical diversity and discourse coherence using two automated Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools - Type-Token-Ratio (TTR) measures from the Tool for the Automatic Analysis of Lexical Diversity (TAALED) and discourse coherence using sentence-level average cosign similarity with FastText to assess sentence similarity. 276 college students completed the full assessment including the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire- Brief Revised (SPQ-BR) and recorded a speech sample describing a detailed painting. Results revealed that high schizotypal traits, specifically positive traits, were associated with lower lexical diversity and higher sentence similarity. Our findings suggest that even when clinically significant symptoms are not present, discourse abnormalities are present in healthy populations with high ST. The stronger association with positive traits suggests that theories of perseveration and top-down processing may warrant further investigation in schizophrenia-spectrum disorders.
PubMed: 38924936
DOI: 10.1016/j.schres.2024.06.024 -
Skin Research and Technology : Official... Jun 2024To identify major contributors, current research status, and to forecast research trends and future development prospects on acupuncture and moxibustion therapy for...
OBJECTIVE
To identify major contributors, current research status, and to forecast research trends and future development prospects on acupuncture and moxibustion therapy for herpes zoster (HZ) and postherpetic neuralgia (PHN).
METHODS
A systematic search was conducted on the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Weipu, WanFang databases, and the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC), PubMed, and Scopus databases. The search strategy included relevant terms for HZ, PHN, acupuncture, and moxibustion. The reference type was limited to articles or reviews, with a publication date from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2023. Data analysis was performed using CiteSpace software, focusing on author, institution, source, and keyword distributions, and temporal trends.
RESULTS
A total of 1612 publications were identified from both Chinese and English databases. The analysis revealed a rising trend in publication numbers in the English database, with a significant increase observed in 2020. In the Chinese database, publication activity exhibited two peaks in 2019 and 2023. Guohua Lin and Jingchun Zeng were the most prolific authors in the Chinese and English databases, respectively. The Chengdu University of TCM and Zhejiang Chinese Medicine University were the most active institutions. The keyword analysis revealed "herpes zoster" as the most frequent keyword in the Chinese database, while "postherpetic neuralgia," "acupuncture," and "management" were prominent in the English database. The study also identified several therapeutic approaches, including fire needle therapy and electroacupuncture, which have shown efficacy in treating HZ and PHN. Animal studies provided insights into the mechanisms of these therapies, suggesting potential modulation of neuroinflammatory markers and intracellular signaling pathways.
CONCLUSION
The bibliometric analysis underscores the growing interest in acupuncture and moxibustion therapy for HZ and PHN. It highlights the contributions of key authors and institutions while pinpointing potential areas for future research. The study advocates for the necessity of large-scale, multi-center clinical trials and further basic mechanical research to optimize these therapies. Moreover, it also emphasizes the importance of international collaboration to strengthen the evidence base and expand the global impact of this traditional treatment modality.
Topics: Bibliometrics; Humans; Acupuncture Therapy; Moxibustion; Neuralgia, Postherpetic; Herpes Zoster
PubMed: 38924142
DOI: 10.1111/srt.13815 -
Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences Jun 2024Schizophrenia (SZ) is a brain disorder characterized by psychotic symptoms and cognitive dysfunction. Recently, irregularities in sharp-wave ripples (SPW-Rs) have been...
AIMS
Schizophrenia (SZ) is a brain disorder characterized by psychotic symptoms and cognitive dysfunction. Recently, irregularities in sharp-wave ripples (SPW-Rs) have been reported in SZ. As SPW-Rs play a critical role in memory, their irregularities can cause psychotic symptoms and cognitive dysfunction in patients with SZ. In this study, we investigated the SPW-Rs in human SZ.
METHODS
We measured whole-brain activity using magnetoencephalography (MEG) in patients with SZ (n = 20) and sex- and age-matched healthy participants (n = 20) during open-eye rest. We identified SPW-Rs and analyzed their occurrence and time-frequency traits. Furthermore, we developed a novel multivariate analysis method, termed "ripple-gedMEG" to extract the global features of SPW-Rs. We also examined the association between SPW-Rs and brain state transitions. The outcomes of these analyses were modeled to predict the positive and negative syndrome scale (PANSS) scores of SZ.
RESULTS
We found that SPW-Rs in the SZ (1) occurred more frequently, (2) the delay of the coupling phase (3) appeared in different brain areas, (4) consisted of a less organized spatiotemporal pattern, and (5) were less involved in brain state transitions. Finally, some of the neural features associated with the SPW-Rs were found to be PANSS-positive, a pathological indicator of SZ. These results suggest that widespread but disorganized SPW-Rs underlies the symptoms of SZ.
CONCLUSION
We identified irregularities in SPW-Rs in SZ and confirmed that their alternations were strongly associated with SZ neuropathology. These results suggest a new direction for human SZ research.
PubMed: 38923051
DOI: 10.1111/pcn.13702 -
Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica Jun 2024Anticipating diagnostic change from major depressive (MDD) to bipolar disorder (BD) can support better prognosis and treatment, especially of depression but is...
BACKGROUND
Anticipating diagnostic change from major depressive (MDD) to bipolar disorder (BD) can support better prognosis and treatment, especially of depression but is challenging and reported research results are inconsistent. We therefore assessed clinical characteristics associated with diagnostic change from MDD to BD with antidepressant treatments.
METHODS
We compared characteristics of 3212 initially MDD patients who became (hypo)manic during antidepressant treatment to those with stable MDD diagnoses as well as with cases of stable, spontaneous BD, using standard bivariate and multivariate statistics.
RESULTS
Among MDD patients, 6.69% [CI: 5.85-7.61] changed to BD, mostly type II (BD2, 76.7%). BD-converters had higher rates of familial mood disorders (74.1% vs. 57.1%) or BD (33.7% vs. 21.0%) and 2.8-years younger onset than stable MDD patients. They also had more prior depressive recurrences/year, years-of-illness, mood-stabilizer treatment, divorces, fewer children, more suicide attempts and drug-abuse, and higher intake cyclothymia, YMRS and MDQ scores. Predictors independently associated with diagnostic conversion were: more familial BD, depressions/year, unemployment, cyclothymic temperament, suicidal ideation or acts, and fewer children. BD-converters vs. spontaneous BD cases had significantly more suicide attempts, BD2 diagnoses, and affected relatives. Converting to vs. spontaneous BD1 was associated with more ADHD, more suicidal ideation or behavior, MDI course, and younger onset; converting to vs. spontaneous BD2 had more episodes/year, unemployment, ADHD, substance abuse, suicidal ideation or attempts, and more relatives with BD.
CONCLUSIONS
Few (6.69%) initially MDD subjects converted to BD, most (76.7%) to BD2. Independent predictive associations with diagnostic change included: familial BD, more depressions/year, unemployment, cyclothymic temperament, suicidal behavior and fewer children. Notably, several characteristics were stronger among those changing to BD during antidepressant treatment vs. others with spontaneous BD.
PubMed: 38922810
DOI: 10.1111/acps.13721 -
Behavioral Sciences (Basel, Switzerland) Jun 2024Improving social functioning deficits-a core characteristic of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders-is often listed by patients as a key recovery goal. Evidence suggests...
Improving social functioning deficits-a core characteristic of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders-is often listed by patients as a key recovery goal. Evidence suggests that social deficits also extend to people with schizotypy, a group at heightened risk for psychotic and other psychopathological disorders. One challenge of social functioning research in schizotypy is understanding whether social deficits arise from receiving less pleasure from social activities or from participating less in high-pleasure activities. However, limited information exists on what constitutes highly pleasurable, common social activities. In this study, 357 college students rated the frequency and enjoyment of 38 social activities. Our aims were to categorize activities based on their frequency and enjoyment, and whether these correlated with validated social functioning and schizotypy measures. We found that social activities could be characterized based on their frequency and enjoyment and created a frequency-enjoyment matrix that could be useful for future studies. Activities were correlated with social functioning, generally reaching a small effect size level, with increasing frequency and enjoyment showing associations with greater social functioning. Further, negative and disorganized-but not positive-traits were associated with less engagement and pleasure. Although follow-up studies in community samples are needed, our findings have the potential to help researchers and clinicians better understand which activities participants are more likely to engage in and derive pleasure from. The findings may also illustrate the extent to which social deficits may be due to less engagement or less pleasure from social activities, as well as which aspects of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders are associated with these facets of social functioning.
PubMed: 38920806
DOI: 10.3390/bs14060474 -
Frontiers in Psychology 2024Metacognitive Training (MCT) is widely used and effective in reducing positive symptoms in psychosis. Physical exercise, such as Water Aerobics (WA), improves general...
Efficacy of the combination of water aerobics and metacognitive training on psychological and physical health variables and their relationship with SP1 and SP4 biomarkers in people with psychosis: a study protocol.
BACKGROUND
Metacognitive Training (MCT) is widely used and effective in reducing positive symptoms in psychosis. Physical exercise, such as Water Aerobics (WA), improves general health, quality of life and symptoms as a low impact activity that allows social interactions. Preliminary results suggest a relationship between dopamine and psychotic symptoms, through SP transcription factors, SP1 and SP4 biomarkers. The aims of the project are to evaluate the efficacy of a combined intervention (WA and MCT) for psychosis to improve psychotic symptoms, physical health, and transcription levels of SP biomarkers.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
This is a unicentric randomized controlled trial of three parallel intervention groups: MCT, WA and combined intervention. The estimated sample will be 48 patients with a psychotic spectrum disorder diagnosis. The assessment will be performed at baseline and at 2-months' follow-up. Instruments used in the assessment will include clinical, cognitive, metacognitive, social cognitive and psychosocial variables.
DISCUSSION
This will be the first study investigating the impact of the combination of MCT and WA in psychosis. Moreover, it will be the first study analyzing changes in the transcriptional biomarkers SP1 and SP4 after interventions. The results of this study may have clinical implications contributing to the improvement of treatment selection.
CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION
https://clinicaltrials.gov/, identifier: NCT05455593.
PubMed: 38919799
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1360004