Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0036341 (schizophrenia)
 60,220 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Alpha rhythm is classically described as a bilateral posterior rhythm of substantially constant frequency in the range of 8-13 Hz which is enhanced by mental relaxation and blocked by attention. Since the full expression of alpha rhythm has been shown to occur coincident with puberty, it is possible that the establishment of alpha rhythm is subject to neuroendocrine influences which govern psychosexual maturation. There is ample evidence to indicate that the pineal gland is implicated in cerebral maturation and psychosexual development. Nocturnal plasma melatonin levels have been shown to decline progressively throughout childhood reaching a nadir at puberty. Since administration of melatonin has been reported to block alpha rhythm, it is proposed that the progressive decline in melatonin secretion during childhood facilitates the maturation of the alpha rhythm. Consequently, the presence of alpha rhythm could be used as a neurophysiological marker for the activity of the pineal gland and disorders associated with absent or delayed maturation of the alpha rhythm such as autism, dyslexia, personality disorders, epilepsy, Tourette's syndrome, and schizophrenia might be related to disturbances of pineal melatonin functions in early life. Moreover, since the EEG patterns associated with cerebral immaturity (i.e., slowing, absence of alpha activity) are more pronounced in the left hemisphere, this hypothesis implies differential influence of the pineal gland on hemispheric maturation potentially accounting for the vulnerability of the left hemisphere to cerebral insults.
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PMID:Alpha rhythm and the pineal gland. 130 57

It appears certain that the causes of self-destructive dermatoses are many and complex. The disorder spans diagnostic categories and varies from unconscious picking at the skin to severe self-destructive actions. Although not limited to any one diagnosis, skin disorders appear to be more prevalent in depression. This association may involve activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis commonly found in depression. Two specific types of commonly occurring dermatoses-neurotic excoriations and dermatitis artefacta-are reviewed in this article. The major distinction of these disorders centers on whether the patient can admit to self-mutilation. Because of the difficulties in dermatitis artefacta with insight and body-image, it has been compared with anorexia nervosa. Often, dermatitis artefacta coexists with anorexia nervosa. In both disorders, neurotic excoriations and dermatitis artefacta, the personality style tends to be introverted with emotional immaturity. These patients have difficulty when they are under stress; the problem is compounded because of poor communication skills. Pharmacotherapy is of limited usefulness, and psychotherapy is often times hindered by strong resistance to exploring long-standing emotional issues. Once an alliance is established with the therapist, however, these issues may be examined. Prognosis is variable but does seem to directly correlate with the duration of the illness. Young individuals may experience alleviation of symptoms after one session of psychotherapy, whereas older patients may never have resolution. Dermatologic abuse involving psychosis has many presentations; one of the most common involves infestation. Organic causes must always be excluded as part of the differential diagnosis. In schizophrenia, this presentation has one of the highest incidences of suicide.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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PMID:Self-destructive dermatoses. 389 93

A survey of medical examinations has been made on occupational maladjustment syndrome (O.M.A.S.). We have examined and treated on 358 patients with O.M.A.S. during the past 10-15 years at two clinics; one was a company's clinic (this company has 15,000 employees) and the other was the clinic at the Dept. of Mental Health, Osaka Prefectural Institute of Public Health during the past 15 years. Discussions have been made on 150 patients whom we directly treated. Our 358 subjects having O.M.A.S. do not include those with secondary O.M.A. resulting from psychosis, depression, neurosis and physical impairment. From that reason, our subjects are categorized in a narrow sense, in a category which may be called as "adjustment disorder." The results are summarized as follows. 1. The patients with O.M.A.S. were found almost in males and most commonly found among patients in the twenties. 2. The average rate of patients with O.M.A.S. among all the patients who visited two clinics, was 4.1% at our clinic and 16.7% at the company's clinic. 3. At our clinic, the number of patients with O.M.A.S. was followed by the number of those with neurosis, schizophrenia and manic-depressive psychotic zone. This trend was also the same at the company's clinic. 4. As the cause of O.M.A.S., we found the following occupational factors; firstly, transposition by selective promotion, secondly, complication of job-quality, and thirdly, promotion to middle management position. As to personal factors, i.e. as to characteristic individual personality we found mostly rigid and serious trait, next immaturity and egotism, and timidity and nervousness. 5. The relation between the occupational and individual factors was examined from the psychodynamic point of view. From the result, O.M.A.S. was classified into 5 groups which consisted of the core group, dropout group, special job maladjustment group, transient reaction group and others. 6. In conclusion of the above mentioned data, the authors emphasize that it is important to explain and advise by the therapists not only for patients and their families, but also for their colleagues or superiors in their working place.
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PMID:[Studies on the occupational maladjustment syndrome. With reference to the survey of examinations, etiological factors and treatment]. 715 89

Primitive reflexes, also known as higher cerebral, developmental or release reflexes, are present in foetal and infant life, and are found in certain organic brain diseases. They are normally regarded as non-localising signs of cerebral immaturity or dysfunction which are uncommon in the normal population. The main aims of this study were to find out whether recent reports of an association between primitive reflexes and severity of cognitive impairment in dementia and between primitive reflexes and tardive dyskinesia in schizophrenia could be replicated in a younger population of schizophrenic patients. Forty-eight schizophrenic patients (mean age 51 years) were assessed for primitive reflexes, involuntary movements and cognitive function, and 58% exhibited at least one primitive reflex and 23% at least two. No association was found between primitive reflexes and cognitive impairment or between primitive reflexes and tardive dyskinesia. These results fail to support the hypothesis that the presence of primitive reflexes in some schizophrenic patients indicates a vulnerability to tardive dyskinesia and intellectual decline with advancing age, but long-term prospective studies would be required to test this hypothesis adequately. Nevertheless, these findings support the notion of neurodevelopmental or neurodegenerative brain disease in at least a proportion of patients with schizophrenia.
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PMID:Primitive (developmental) reflexes, tardive dyskinesia and intellectual impairment in schizophrenia. 754 44

Subclinical abnormality of neutrophil populations of patients suffering from schizophrenia and medicated with antipsychotic drugs was evaluated using cellular immaturity as a criterion. Neutrophil maturity of patients and controls was compared by determining mean nuclear lobularity in peripheral blood smears. White blood cell and neutrophil counts were made. Subjects were patients medicated with chlorpromazine (n = 17) or clozapine (n = 48). Controls (n = 58) were healthy, non-medicated clinical and academic staff. Determination of mean lobe number involved assessment of 300 neutrophils per individual. For subject and control groups, means and medians of mean lobe numbers and mean white cell and neutrophil counts were determined. Means for each group were compared using the Mann-Whitney U-test; variances using F ratios. Means of lobe numbers of both patient populations were significantly different (p < 0.0001) compared to controls. Two-thirds of patients had mean lobe numbers outside the control range. Dose-response (mean lobe number) plots were significant for patients medicated with both chlorpromazine and clozapine. White cell and neutrophil counts in patients and controls did not differ significantly. For six patients, mean lobe numbers were obtained before and after medication commenced and all showed lowering of mean lobe number. The mean lobe number of the one patient who subsequently suffered from agranulocytosis was at the low end of the patient range. Thus, patients medicated with antipsychotic drugs typically have immature neutrophils, but normal white cell and neutrophil numbers. This effect is probably drug-induced. Mean lobe number may predict patients at risk from agranulocytosis.
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PMID:Antipsychotic drugs result in the formation of immature neutrophil leucocytes in schizophrenic patients. 1156 27

Quantification (meta-analysis) of the neuroscience evidence on schizophrenia shows very modest average differences between patient and control distributions across a great variety of measures and literatures. The strongest findings involve cognitive and psychophysiological measures. Several possible explanations for this situation are reviewed including technical immaturity, methodological variability, dimensional and multiple illness models and the nature of cognitive measurement. An argument is developed that biological subtypes and endophenotypes within the broad diagnostic category of schizophrenia underpin the meta-analytic evidence. Considerations in the use of this evidence to identify illness variants are described and four candidate subtypes are proposed. Schizophrenia is a disease that will resist biological definition until its variants are isolated and extracted from the generic patient population.
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PMID:Meta-analysis and the science of schizophrenia: variant evidence or evidence of variants? 1534 Oct 34

In this work on the phenomenon of filicide, structured on the basis of the examination of hundreds of cases from 1880 to 2010, the five causes were taken into account: the altruistic filicide, the high psychotic component, that of the unwanted child, accidental filicide, and the spouse revenge filicide. Following the observation of Resnick's (1969) 530 psycho-biographiesss, a more structured typing was developed which on the basis of their motive and/or psychopathology divides mother infanticide into 20 categories: the first 10 imply full imputability, stessor events, for piety, immaturity of the mother, hyperactivity of the child, the son of the blame, Medea syndrome, disturbance dependent, narcissistic, or histrionic personality, unwanted child, depression, behavioral disorders involved in the recruitment of drugs. The remaining 10 are those where there may be impairment of traceability for postpartum psychosis (Brief psychotic disorder), Fundus hysterical plus precipitating factors, major depression, schizophrenia, twilight state, psychotic disorder due to a general medical condition, epilepsy, oligophrenia, multiple sclerosis and multiple personality, which however appears to be quite rare. An examination of the causes of death concludes the work.
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PMID:[Some Italian research on the phenomenon of filicide]. 2302 18

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are severe neuropsychiatric disorders, affecting about 1% of the population. Identifying endophenotypes in the brains of neuropsychiatric patients is now considered the way to understand the underlying mechanisms and to improve therapeutic outcomes. However, the endophenotypes and brain mechanisms of the disorders remain unknown. We have previously reported that alpha-CaMKII heterozygous knockout mice show abnormal behaviors related to neuropsychiatric disorders. In these mutant mice, almost all neurons in the hippocampal dentate gyrus stay at a pseudo-immature state, which we refer to as "immature dentate gyrus (iDG)." So far, the iDG phenotype and similar behavioral abnormalities have been found in Schnurri-2 knockout, SNAP-25 mutant, and forebrain-specific calcineurin knockout mice. In addition, we found that both chronic fluoxetine treatment and pilocarpine-induced seizures can reverse the maturation state of the mature neurons, resulting in the iDG phenotype in wild-type mice. Such an iDG-like phenomenon was observed in the post-mortem brains from patients with schizophrenia/bipolar disorder. Recent studies suggest that cortex and amygdala of schizophrenia patients are also at a pseudo-immature state. Based on the findings, we proposed that immaturity of certain types of cells in the brain is a potential endophenotype of neuropsychiatric disorders.
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PMID:[Immaturity of brain as an endophenotype of neuropsychiatric disorders]. 2507 76

Motor dysfunction is consistently reported but understudied in schizophrenia. It has been hypothesized that this abnormality may reflect a neuro-developmental disorder underlying this illness. The main goal of this study was to analyze movement patterns used by participants with schizophrenia and healthy controls during overarm throwing performance, using a markerless motion capture system. Thirteen schizophrenia patients and 16 healthy control patients performed the overarm throwing task in a markerless motion capture system. Participants were also examined for the presence of motor neurological soft signs (mNSS) using the Brief Motor Scale. Schizophrenia patients demonstrated a less developed movement pattern with low individualization of components compared to healthy controls. The schizophrenia group also displayed a higher incidence of mNSS. The presence of a less mature movement pattern can be an indicator of neuro-immaturity and a marker for atypical neurological development in schizophrenia. Our findings support the understanding of motor dysfunction as an intrinsic part of the disorder of schizophrenia.
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PMID:Kinematic parameters of throwing performance in patients with schizophrenia using a markerless motion capture system. 2536 43

Alcoholism, which is defined as the recurring harmful use of alcohol despite its negative consequences, has a lifetime prevalence of 17.8%. Previous studies have shown that chronic alcohol consumption disrupts various brain functions and behaviours. However, the precise mechanisms that underlie alcoholism are currently unclear. Recently, we discovered "pseudo-immature" brain cell states of the dentate gyrus and prefrontal cortex (PFC) in mouse models of psychotic disorders and epileptic seizure. Similar pseudo-immaturity has been observed in patients with psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Patients with alcoholism occasionally exhibit similar psychological symptoms, implying shared molecular and cellular mechanisms between these diseases. Here, we performed a meta-analysis to compare microarray data from the hippocampi/PFCs of the patients with alcoholism to data from these regions in developing human brains and mouse developmental data for specific cell types. We identified immature-like gene expression patterns in post-mortem hippocampi/PFCs of alcoholic patients and the dominant contributions of fast-spiking (FS) neurons to their pseudo-immaturity. These results suggested that FS neuron dysfunction and the subsequent imbalance between excitation and inhibition can be associated with pseudo-immaturity in alcoholism. These immaturities in the hippocampi/PFCs and the underlying mechanisms may explain the psychotic symptom generation and pathophysiology of alcoholism.
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PMID:Transcriptomic immaturity of the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex in patients with alcoholism. 2829 46


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