Current opinion in psychiatry
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Curr Opin Psychiatry · Mar 2012
ReviewNew developments in the understanding and management of persistent pain.
It is proposed that central rather than peripheral factors may be important in pain chronicity. We review recent empirical findings on these processes and discuss implications for treatment and prevention. ⋯ We propose that chronic pain is characterized by learning-related and memory-related plastic changes of the central nervous system with concomitant maladaptive changes in body perception. These alterations require new treatments that focus on the alteration of central pain memories and maladaptive body perception.
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Curr Opin Psychiatry · Mar 2012
ReviewEmotion regulation and mental health: recent findings, current challenges, and future directions.
In recent years, deficits in emotion regulation have been studied as a putative maintaining factor and promising treatment target in a broad range of mental disorders. This article aims to provide an integrative review of the latest theoretical and empirical developments in this rapidly growing field of research. ⋯ Despite some yet to be resolved challenges, the concept of emotion regulation has a broad and significant heuristic value for research in mental health.
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It is a well established fact that many serious mental illnesses, in particular psychoses such as schizophrenia, may have a significant hormonal aetiological component. This study aims to discuss the oestrogen protection hypothesis of schizophrenia in particular, with an emphasis on findings from the recent literature in support of this theory. ⋯ Schizophrenia and related psychoses are pervasive and debilitating conditions, for which currently available treatments are often only partially effective and entail a high risk of serious side effects. Thus, new therapeutic strategies are needed, and the literature reviewed here suggests that hormones such as oestrogen could be a viable option. It is hoped that, with further research and larger trials, the oestrogen hypothesis can be translated into effective clinical practice.