Biological psychiatry
-
Biological psychiatry · Apr 2014
Capacity to delay reward differentiates obsessive-compulsive disorder and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.
Although the relationship between obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) has long been debated, clinical samples of OCD (without OCPD) and OCPD (without OCD) have never been systematically compared. We studied whether individuals with OCD, OCPD, or both conditions differ on symptomatology, functioning, and a measure of self-control: the capacity to delay reward. ⋯ OCD and OCPD are both impairing disorders marked by compulsive behaviors, but they can be differentiated by the presence of obsessions in OCD and by excessive capacity to delay reward in OCPD. That individuals with OCPD show less temporal discounting (suggestive of excessive self-control), whereas prior studies have shown that individuals with substance use disorders show greater discounting (suggestive of impulsivity), supports the premise that this component of self-control lies on a continuum in which both extremes (impulsivity and overcontrol) contribute to psychopathology.
-
Biological psychiatry · Apr 2014
The ultimate intra-/extra-dimensional attentional set-shifting task for mice.
Alterations in executive control and cognitive flexibility, such as attentional set-shifting abilities, are core features of several neuropsychiatric diseases. The most widely used neuropsychological tests for the evaluation of attentional set shifting in humans are the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery Intra-/Extra-Dimensional set-shift task (ID/ED). These tasks have proven clinical relevance and have been successfully adapted for monkeys. However, similar tasks currently available for rodents are limited, mainly because of their manual-based testing procedures. The current limitations of rodent attentional set-shifting tasks are hampering translational advances in psychiatric medicine. ⋯ We demonstrate that this novel ID/ED Operon task may be an effective preclinical tool for drug testing and large genetic screening relevant to the study of executive dysfunctions and cognitive symptoms of psychiatric disorders. These findings may help elucidate the biological validity of similar findings in humans.
-
Biological psychiatry · Apr 2014
ReviewAlzheimer's disease: new data highlight nonneuronal cell types and the necessity for presymptomatic prevention strategies.
Despite compelling genetic evidence indicating that cerebral amyloidosis can be, at least sometimes, the primary cause of Alzheimer's disease (AD), clinical trials for symptomatic AD with amyloid-reducing agents have succeeded at target engagement but failed to cause clinical benefit. In a landmark shift, the U. S. ⋯ The expectation is that clues to their outcomes will begin to emerge from these trials in approximately 2018. In the meantime, new strategies point to nonneuronal cells and to system pathology. A review of the current state of the art of AD science follows herein.
-
Biological psychiatry · Apr 2014
ReviewA focus on structural brain imaging in the Alzheimer's disease neuroimaging initiative.
In recent years, numerous laboratories and consortia have used neuroimaging to evaluate the risk for and progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative is a longitudinal, multicenter study that is evaluating a range of biomarkers for use in diagnosis of AD, prediction of patient outcomes, and clinical trials. ⋯ Our main goal was to review key articles offering insights into progression of AD and the relationships of structural MRI measures to cognition and to other biomarkers in AD. In Supplement 1, we also discuss genetic and environmental risk factors for AD and exciting new analysis tools for the efficient evaluation of large-scale structural MRI data sets such as the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative data.