European neuropsychopharmacology : the journal of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology
-
An emerging literature has started to document the neuronal changes associated with the placebo phenomenon. This has altered placebo from being considered a nuisance factor in clinical research to a target of scientific investigation per se. This paper reviews the neuroimaging literature on the placebo effect, and illustrates how imaging tools can improve current understanding of brain mechanisms underlying the placebo response. ⋯ In general, placebo responses seem mediated by "top-down" processes dependent on frontal cortical areas that generate and maintain cognitive expectancies. Dopaminergic reward pathways may underlie these expectancies. Placebo-induced clinical benefits also involve disorder-specific neuronal responses, yielding neurofunctional or neurochemical alterations similar to those produced by pharmacological treatments.
-
Eur Neuropsychopharmacol · Jul 2008
ReviewECNP consensus meeting. Bipolar depression. Nice, March 2007.
DSM-IV, specifically its text revision DSM-IV-TR, remains the preferred diagnostic system. When employed in general population samples, prevalence estimates of bipolar disorder are relatively consistent across studies in Europe and USA. In community studies, first onset of bipolar mood disorder is usually in the mid-teenage years and twenties, and the occurrence of a major depressive episode or hypomania is usually its first manifestation. ⋯ Longer periods of stabilisation are also desirable for up to 3 months: protocol compliance may then be difficult to achieve in practice and so will certainly make studies more difficult and expensive to conduct. The addition of a medicine to other agents during or after the resolution of a depressive or manic episode, and its subsequent investigation as monotherapy against placebo to prevent further relapse (as in the lamotrigine maintenance trials) is clinically informative. Assay sensitivity and patient acceptability are enhanced if the outcome in long-term studies is 'time to intervention for a new episode' for discontinuation designs.