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

Although dissociative phenomena are often transient features of mental states, existing measures of dissociation are designed to measure enduring traits. A new present-state self-report measure, sensitive to changes in dissociative states, was therefore developed and psychometrically validated. Fifty-six items were formulated to measure state features, and sorted according to seven subscales: derealization, depersonalization, identity confusion, identity alteration, conversion, amnesia and hypermnesia. The State Scale of Dissociation (SSD) was administered with other psychiatric scales (DES, BDI, BAI, SCI-PANSS) to 130 participants with DSM-IV major depressive disorder schizophrenia, alcohol withdrawal, dissociative disorders and controls. In these sample populations, the SSD was demonstrated as a valid and reliable measure of changes in and the severity of dissociative states. Discriminant validity, content, concurrent, predictive, internal criterion-related, internal construct and convergent validities, and internal consistency and split-half reliability were confirmed statistically. Clinical observations of dissociative states, and their comorbidity with symptoms of depression and psychotic illness, were confirmed empirically. The SSD, an acceptable, valid and reliable scale measuring state features of dissociation at the time of completion, was obtained. This is a prerequisite for further investigation of correlations between changes in dissociative states and concurrent physiological parameters.
 ...
PMID:Psychometric validation of the State Scale of Dissociation (SSD). 1200 98

Schizophrenic patients suffer from positive (delusions, hallucinations) and negative signs (social withdrawal) as well as emotional disturbance that included quantitative (blunted affect) and qualitative impairments (discordance of emotional level). Ketamine, a phencyclidine derivative, is a non competitive N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) glutamate receptor antagonist. In healthy subjects its administration induces some positive symptoms (perceptual distortions.), negative symptoms (emotional deficit, apathy, social withdrawal) and cognitive changes (memory impairments and perseverations) that resemble some aspects of the symptoms of schizophrenia. A double blind cross over, placebo controlled was performed in 12 normal subjects with 2 sessions separated by one week of wash-out to determine ketamine-induced effects on behavioral and emotional responses. During each session, subjects received either ketamine or placebo (saline) infusion. A subanesthetic dose of ketamine (0,5 mg/kg) was administered by constant perfusion over 60 min. Behavioral and cognitive responses were assessed using positive and negative symptoms scales (BPRS, items from SAPS and SANS), vigilance and mood visual analog scale, subjective feelings using the Addiction Research Center Inventory (ARCI) and the Profile of Mood States (POMS). Using Philippot's method, emotions were elicited by films segments which induce a diversity of predictable emotions (fear, anger, sadness, joy, disgust and neutral state) and emotional responses were assessed by the Differential Emotions Scale (DES Izard). Low dose of ketamine induced significant effects on 7-items BPRS score (positive and negative items) and significant effects on positive and negative symptoms from SANS and SAPS. This was associated with emotional blunting of visually-induced responses that resemble aspects of schizophrenic emotional impairments. Ketamine impaired ARCI subscales (benzedrine subscale, pentobarbital-chlorpromazine subscale and LSD subscale). The recent findings of ketamine's pharmacology and imaging studies allow to draw several hypothesis related to neurotransmitter systems (glutamate, dopamine, serotonin interactions) and cerebral areas (particularly prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, hippocampus) underlying some of these ketamine-induced effects.
 ...
PMID:[Effects of a subanaesthetic dose of ketamine on emotional and behavioral state in healthy subjects]. 1290 92

A diminished ability to experience emotion could be a key characteristic of the negative symptomatology in schizophrenia. We examined the frequency of basic emotions in everyday life as well as emotion control in various groups of chronic schizophrenic patients. Self-report questionnaires (Differential Emotions Scale [DES], Emotion Control Questionnaire [ECQ]) were provided to healthy controls and three groups of schizophrenia patients (n=88), i.e., affectively flat patients, anhedonic patients, and patients not suffering from affective negative symptoms. Patients with affective negative symptoms experienced the positive emotions interest and joy less frequently than healthy subjects or patients without affective negative symptoms. All schizophrenia patients felt fear more often and tended to feel disgust more frequently than healthy subjects. The frequency of guilt and anger experiences increased with the chronicity of the disease. Anhedonic patients manifested more emotion inhibition than healthy controls and exhibited an affectivity pattern consistent with Meehl's model of anhedonia.
 ...
PMID:The experience of basic emotions in schizophrenia with and without affective negative symptoms. 1292 8

Dissociative disorder is well-known in adulthood but in many cases it begins in childhood where it is usually not taken into consideration, rarely diagnosed, and often mistaken with borderline disorders. In childhood dissociation is well-defined: in a dimensional way by the presence of the dissociation symptoms over 2 SD and in a categorial view by the presence of primary symptoms. We made a psychiatric assessment on a child aged 11 years and 7 months, who said he heard "voices in his head". The assessment included: Children Dissociative Checklist (CDC), Adolescent Dissociative Experience Scale (A-DES), Children Depression Inventory (CDI), Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children-Revised (WISC-R), Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Children Behaviour Check-list (CBCL), (Scale Disturbi Attenzione Genitori, parent attention deficit scale, SDAG), Parent Conners Questionnaire, free conversation, a drawing, a neurological examination, an EEG-Holter and a semistructured psychiatric interview: K-SADS PL 1.0. SDQ, CDI and CBCL showed pathological scores in every area. K-SADS PL 1.0 excluded schizophrenia and showed: attention deficit, disthymic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, oppositive-defiant disorder and conduct disorder with rage episodes, like borderline disorder. I.Q. was 76, SDAG (total 46) and Conners (mean points 1.81) showed a high score, simulating Attention Deficit with Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The presence of primary symptoms, like dissociative amnesia and very high scores in CDC (23, mean score for MPD) and in A-DES (85, mean 4.2) are useful for diagnoses. Dissociative disorder also exists in childhood, but it should be differentiated from ADHD and borderline disorder.
 ...
PMID:Dissociative disorder in children. A case study. 1545 42

In this present study, we aim to investigate the possibility of a link between psychotic disorders and traumatic experiences in a group of female patients diagnosed with psychotic disorders by comparing childhood trauma exposure with a group of non-psychotic psychiatric disorder attending the same pschiatric clinic. Secondary purpose of this study is to examine the clinical correlates of trauma exposure, dissociative phenomena and psychiatric symptomatology between these two group of patients. Two psychiatric sample groups, those with psychotic disorders-mostly schizophrenic-(n = 54), and those with a non-psychotic severe psychiatric disorders (n = 24), were recruited. Data were collected for demographic, psychiatric and trauma histories and psychiatric symptomatology for all patients. In this study, high prevalance rates of childhood traumatic experiences and dissociative phenomena were found in both groups. Total scores of childhood trauma questionnaire in favor of the non-psychotic group were found to be close to significance (p = 0.052). DES scores of non-psychotic group were also higher although not statistically significant. 54.2 % of nonpsychotic cases had DES scores >20 on the other hand, that percentage of psychotic cases were found to be as 38.9 %. Furthermore, psychiatric patients who have suffered childhood traumatic experiences are far more likely to try to kill themselves than psychiatric patients who have not experienced such abuse. The high rates of childhood traumatic events in our present samples of both schizophrenia-spectrum patients and nonpsychotic patients confirm the need for clinicans to take trauma histories routinely.
 ...
PMID:Clinical correlates of childhood trauma and dissociative phenomena in patients with severe psychiatric disorders. 2494 6

Objective: Schizophrenia is a common psychiatric disease and is characterized by changes in several brain metabolites detectable by magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a general method of management for most severe psychiatric conditions that may play a role in changing the brain metabolites. This study examined the effectiveness of adjuvant ECT with oral medication compared to that of oral second generation antipsychotic medication alone on brain metabolites in patients with chronic schizophrenia. Method : This study was conducted on 20 patients with chronic schizophrenia who were admitted to a hospital; of them, 10 underwent ECT as an adjuvant therapy with oral medication at least 8 times, and 10 patients were given a second- generation antipsychotic therapy drug (risperidone and olanzapine) without ECT for at least 4 weeks. MRS was used to assess brain metabolites, including N-acetyl aspartate (NAA), choline (Cho), creatine (Cr), myoinositol (MI), and Glx (glutamate [Glu] and glutamine [Gln]), in the left prefrontal cortex, left thalamus, left hippocampus, and left occipital cortex. Differences between the 2 groups were not significant, except for method of treatment. Results: The NAA/Cr ratio in the left prefrontal cortex was significantly higher in ECT-treated patients (P = 0.035). In addition, the Cho/Cr ratios in the left prefrontal cortex and left thalamus were statisticaly lower in the ECT-treated patients than those treated with oral antipsychotic drugs alone (P = 0.019). No statistically significant changes were observed between the 2 groups in other sites of the brain. In addition, no statistically significant differences were detected between the 2 groups in SAPS and DES scores. Conclusion: Compared to oral antipsychotic drug treatment, ECT had improving effects on at least 2 metabolites in the brains of patients with schizophrenia. Therefore, ECT may have a neuroprotective effect in these patients.
 ...
PMID:Effect of Adjuvant Electroconvulsive Therapy Compared to Antipsychotic Medication Alone on the Brain Metabolites of Patients with Chronic Schizophrenia: A Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Study. 3031 5