The American journal of psychiatry
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The authors evaluated characteristics of patients whom clinicians accurately assessed as being at high or low risk for violence and patients for whom clinicians overestimated or underestimated the risk. ⋯ While clinicians can accurately classify the potential for violence in the majority of patients at admission, systematic errors characterize inaccurate assessments of the risk. Awareness of these patterns may help improve assessment of the risk of violence in clinical practice.
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Comparative Study
A case-controlled study of repetitive thoughts and behavior in adults with autistic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the types of repetitive thoughts and behavior demonstrated by adults with autistic disorder and compare them with those of age- and sex-matched adults with obsessive-compulsive disorder. ⋯ These results suggest that the repetitive thoughts and behavior characteristics of autism differ significantly from the obsessive-compulsive symptoms displayed by patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Future studies are warranted to assess the treatment response and neurobiological underpinnings of repetitive thoughts and behavior in patients with autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
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The specific brain regions involved in the normal emotional states of transient sadness or happiness are poorly understood. The authors therefore sought to determine if H2(15)O positron emission tomography (PET) might demonstrate changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) associated with transient sadness or happiness in healthy adult women. ⋯ Transient sadness and happiness in healthy volunteer women are accompanied by significant changes in regional brain activity in the limbic system, as well as other brain regions. Transient sadness and happiness affect different brain regions in divergent directions and are not merely opposite activity in identical brain regions. These findings have implications for understanding the neural substrates of both normal and pathological emotion.
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The purpose of this study was to examine the rate of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in adolescents with bipolar disorder and to explore the potential effects of comorbid attention deficit hyperactivity disorder on the phenomenology of adolescent bipolar disorder. ⋯ Although preliminary, these findings may have important implications regarding the potential relationship between bipolar disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.