Psychiatry research
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Psychiatry research · Dec 2010
Emotional interference in obsessive-compulsive disorder: a neuropsychological study using optimized emotional Stroop test.
Contents related to threat and associated cognitive processes are proposed to be the central characteristic of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) according to 'threat-relatedness hypothesis'. However, evidence for attention bias toward emotionally salient stimuli using the emotional Stroop test is equivocal. This discrepancy could be due to methodological issues, mainly differences in the lexical characters of words. ⋯ There were no significant correlations between other illness-related variables (age at onset, illness duration, and medication dose) and Stroop test performance. Study findings suggest the presence of selective emotional bias for OCD relevant stimuli in these patients and this bias is potentially related to symptomatic status. These observations are in tune with the threat-relatedness hypothesis.
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Psychiatry research · Dec 2010
Randomized Controlled TrialThe acute and late CNS glutamine response to benzodiazepine challenge: a pilot pharmacokinetic study using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
Benzodiazepines (BZs), which are typically used as anxiolytics, act by modulating inhibitory signaling through gamma-aminobutyric acid A (GABA)(A) receptors. Functionally, the inhibitory effects of GABA may be counterbalanced by the excitatory effects of glutamate (Glu) as the two neurotransmitter systems are metabolically linked through their synthetic intermediate glutamine (Gln). The primary aim of this study was to determine whether the effects of different BZs on the GABA and Glu/Gln systems would vary according to the pharmacokinetics of the different drugs. ⋯ In post-hoc comparisons, the difference in the Gln to creatine (Cr) ratio was 0.04 for the BZs versus placebo at 1h and 0.01 at 10h following the administration of drug (t(11)=2.49, P=0.03 1 h; t(10)=0.65, P=0.53 10 h; no correction for multiple comparisons). An increase in Gln/Cr at 1 h post-BZ is consistent with a functionally synergistic relationship between Glu/Gln and GABA in the brain. It also suggests that MRS may have sufficient sensitivity to detect acute drug effects.
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Psychiatry research · Dec 2010
Association study of catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene Val158Met polymorphism with auditory P300 in Chinese Han patients with schizophrenia.
Several studies have reported associations between catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene Val158Met polymorphism and P300 event-related potentials in schizophrenic patients. But there has been no research to study the association between the P300 component and the Val158Met polymorphism in Chinese Han schizophrenia patients. Therefore, the present article was aimed at investigating the relationship of the Val158Met polymorphism with P300 in Chinese schizophrenic patients. ⋯ The latency of Val/Met carriers was significantly shorter than that of Val/Val carriers at Pz. The results did not suggest an association between the polymorphism in the COMT gene and susceptibility to schizophrenia in the Chinese Han population. However, the COMT Val158Met polymorphism might be a susceptibility variant for P300 abnormality in Chinese Han schizophrenia.