Neuropsychobiology
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In this study, electrophysiological correlates of belief-laden reasoning were investigated. As subjects, trained participants were required to draw a logical conclusion after being exposed to 4 conditional arguments: the inhibitory content of modus tollens (ICMT), facilitatory content of modus tollens (FCMT), inhibitory content of denial of the antecedent (ICDA) and facilitatory content of denial of the antecedent (FCDA). Event-related potentials were employed to record the processing of minor premises. ⋯ A greater anterior cingulate cortex activity observed in the 800- to 1,600-ms time window in ICMT could reflect a detection of the conflict between empirical beliefs and logical rules. However, the components elicited by ICDA and FCDA were not significantly different. The results indicate that logical training influenced MT and DA forms of belief-laden reasoning in different ways and different strategies were likely adopted in the inference processes.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Comparison of risperidone orodispersible tablet and intramuscular haloperidol in the treatment of acute psychotic agitation: a randomized open, prospective study.
Psychotic agitation of psychiatric patients is a common manifestation that needs emergent management. Traditionally, parenteral or intramuscular injection of antipsychotics was conducted for treatment of psychotic agitation. Considering that the rapidly absorbed form of risperidone (risperidone orodispersible tablet) could be used for the agitated patient, comparison of oral risperidone and intramuscular haloperidol was performed in emergency treatment of psychotic agitation in this study. ⋯ For the emergency treatment of psychotic agitation, risperidone orodispersible tablet was as effective and tolerable as intramuscular administration of haloperidol. Therefore, we might choose oral medication instead of intramuscular injection for treatment of patients with acute psychotic agitation.
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Despite being amphetamine derivatives, MDMA and its analogues show a number of clinical pharmacological differences with respect to both amphetamine (AMP) and methylamphetamine (METH). We aimed here at reporting and analysing information relating to the socio-demographics and clinical circumstances of the AMP-type stimulant-related deaths for the whole of the UK. ⋯ With respect to AMP/METH, ecstasy was here more typically identified in victims who were young, healthy, and less likely to be known as drug users. AMP/METH high mortality rates may be explained by users' high levels of physical co-morbidity; excess ecstasy-related fatality rates in young users may be a reason for concern. Although the coroners' response rate was of 90-95%, study limitations include both reporting inconsistency over time and lack of routine information on drug intake levels prior to death.
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The results of studies examining the response to experimental pain during the menstrual cycle are conflicting because of differences in the definitions of the menstrual period, outcome measures and types of experimental pain stimulation. So far, there have been only a few studies correlating experimental pain with the levels of gonadal hormones over the menstrual cycle. Therefore, we assessed the responses to multiple experimental pain stimuli during the menstrual cycle and computed their correlations with the salivary concentrations of the gonadal hormones estrogen and testosterone. ⋯ The pain thresholds for all the physical stressors increased after menstruation. The acrophases were located in the follicular (cold pain threshold) or in the luteal phase (pressure and electrical pain thresholds). The results of our correlation analyses indicate only minimal influences of the physiological levels of gonadal hormones on pain sensitivity in women.
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Preclinical studies have shown that brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) may be involved in antidepressant action, and the BDNF gene has been suggested to be involved in the pharmacological treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD). In this study, the relationship between BDNF Val66Met polymorphism (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Database ID: rs6265) and severity of depression, efficacy of fluoxetine and its side effects was tested in Chinese patients with MDD. ⋯ These results indicate that there was a lack of association between severity of depression and BDNF Val66Met polymorphism in Chinese patients with MDD. The BDNF Val66Met polymorphism may play a major role in the efficacy and side effects of SSRI (fluoxetine) in Chinese patients with MDD.