1,721,052 research outputs found
Editorial: What is computational psychopathology, and why do we need it?
No full text: Computational Psychopathology is an emerging discipline, which is based around the theoretical and mechanistic focus of explanatory psychopathology and computational psychiatry, and reflects the general move in psychiatric research away from whole disorders to component symptoms or transdiagnostic processes. In this Editorial, we present a brief summary of these disciplines and how they combine together to form a 'Computational Psychopathology', and present a brief possible taxonomy. We highlight the papers that form part of this Special Issue, along with their place in our putative taxonomy. We conclude this Editorial by highlighting the benefits of a Computational Psychopathology for research into mental health
Minilaparoscopic cholecystectomy versus conventional laparoscopic cholecystectomy. An endless debate
Full text linkBackground: Our systematic review and meta-analysis examine the impact of minilaparoscopic cholecystectomy (MLC) versus conventional laparoscopic cholecystectomy (CLC). Some authors previously compared these surgical approaches without reaching any clear conclusion, since then, further trials have been performed, but an update was needed. Materials and Methods: PubMed, EMBASE, and the CENTRAL were systematically searched for randomized controlled trials comparing MLC versus CLC up to August 2019. The outcome measures used for comparison were operative time (OT), overall morbidity, intra- and postoperative complications, conversion and reintervention rate, length of hospital stay (LOS), postoperative pain (POP), and cosmetic results. A meta-analysis of relevant studies was performed using RevMan 5.3. Results: Fifteen studies, including 863 patients, were considered eligible to collect data and entered the meta-analysis. A total of 415 patients in the MLC group versus 448 in the CLC group were compared. No statistical difference as for overall morbidity, intra- and postoperative complications, conversion and reintervention rate, LOS, and cosmetic results were retrieved among the groups. CLC results faster and MLC shows to be the least painful. Conclusions: According to the available high-level evidence, both surgical approaches resulted substantially equivalent to perform LC, with some advantages of CLC as for OT and of MLC concerning POP. As a consequence, we can conclude that either procedure is superior or inferior to the other one; actually, we are not able to suggest the adoption of any of the two on a routine basis
Is placebo useful in the treatment of major depression in clinical practice?
Full text linkBackground: For many years, placebo has been defined by its inert content and use in clinical trials. In recent years, several studies have demonstrated its effect in the treatment of major depression. The aim of this paper is to present the conclusions of recent meta-analyses of the placebo effect in major depression, to explain the mechanism by which placebo exerts its effect, and to discuss whether placebo can be used in the treatment of patients with major depression in clinical practice. Recent meta-analyses have demonstrated that the placebo effect is estimated to account for 67% of the treatment effect in patients receiving antidepressants, and furthermore that placebo is as effective as antidepressants in patients with mild to moderate major depression (reporting a Hamilton Depression Rating Scale score lower than 25), whereas placebo is less effective than antidepressants in severely depressed patients. However, several limitations make the translation of these conclusions into clinical practice impracticable. Clinicians should learn from the "placebo lesson" to maximize the nonspecific effects of treatment when they prescribe an antidepressant, particularly in less severely depressed patients, who show a higher placebo response in randomized controlled trials. This strategy can increase the antidepressant effect and may reduce nonadherence with treatment. © 2013 Marchesi et al, publisher and licensee Dove Medical Press Ltd
The TAS-20 more likely measures negative affects rather than alexithymia itself in patients with major depression, panic disorder, eating disorders and substance use disorders
No full textBackground This study evaluates whether the difference in Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 item (TAS-20) between patients with major depression (MD), panic disorder (PD), eating disorders (ED), and substance use disorders (SUD) and healthy controls persisted after controlling for the severity of anxiety and depression. Methods Thirty-eight patients with MD, 58 with PD, 52 with ED, and 30 with SUD and 78 healthy controls (C) completed the TAS-20, the Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety (Ham-A), the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (Ham-D). Results The differences in TAS-20 scores observed between patient groups, regardless of the type of their disorders, and controls disappeared after controlling for the effect of anxiety and depression severity. In contrast, the differences in severity of anxiety and depression between patients and controls were still present, after excluding the effect of alexithymic levels. Conclusions Our data suggest that alexithymic levels, as measured by the TAS-20, are modulated by the severity of symptoms, supporting the view that alexithymia can represent a state phenomenon in patients with MD, PD, ED and SUD, because the TAS-20 seems overly sensitive to a general distress syndrome, and it is more likely to measure negative affects rather than alexithymia itself. © 2014 Elsevier Inc
Basic Symptoms in Schizophrenia: A comparison between self-report questionnaires and clinical interviews
No full text
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Anhedonia and sensitivity to punishment in schizophrenia, depression and opiate use disorder
Full text linkBackground: From a behavioural perspective anhedonia is defined as diminished interest in the engagement of pleasurable activities. Despite its presence across a range of psychiatric disorders, the cognitive processes that give rise to anhedonia remain unclear. Methods: Here we examine whether anhedonia is associated with learning from positive and negative outcomes in patients diagnosed with major depression, schizophrenia and opiate use disorder alongside a healthy control group. Responses in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test – a task associated with healthy prefrontal cortex function – were fitted to the Attentional Learning Model (ALM) which separates learning from positive and negative feedback. Results: Learning from punishment, but not from reward, was negatively associated with anhedonia beyond other socio-demographic, cognitive and clinical variables. This impairment in punishment sensitivity was also associated with faster responses following negative feedback, independently of the degree of surprise. Limitations: Future studies should test the longitudinal association between punishment sensitivity and anhedonia also in other clinical populations controlling for the effect of specific medications. Conclusions: Together the results reveal that anhedonic subjects, because of their negative expectations, are less sensitive to negative feedbacks; this might lead them to persist in actions leading to negative outcomes
Effect of age on the response to serotonergic and noradrenergic antidepressants: A systematic review, meta-regression and individual participant data pooled analysis
No full textIt is known that the serotonin and norepinephrine systems change with age. Consequently, response to antidepressants having different effects on these two systems may vary between patients of different ages. We systematically searched Embase/Medline/PsychINFO until December 2024 for randomised controlled trials (RCT) in patients with unipolar major depressive disorder comparing response rates to serotonergic versus noradrenergic antidepressants (PROSPERO pre-registration #CRD42020145386). Our primary outcome was to assess the effect of age on response rates to serotonergic versus noradrenergic antidepressants in unipolar depression. We then performed a pooled analysis of individual participant data (IPD). Seventy-four RCTs with a total of 8981 participants (4488 with serotonergic and 4493 with noradrenergic antidepressants) were included in the meta-analysis. We found no differences in the response rates to the two antidepressants, although the improvement in depressive symptoms was greater in the noradrenergic arm (subset of n = 31 studies, z = −2.61; p = 0.009); younger age was associated with a greater response to serotonergic than noradrenergic agents both in terms of response rates (estimate = −0.011; p-value = 0.041) and symptom improvement (estimate = −0.016; p-value<0.0001), even after controlling for year of publication, study design, baseline severity, type of noradrenergic medication, inpatients, and dropout rates. The effect of age on antidepressant response was also confirmed in the IPD pooled analysis (n = 339), in which responders to serotonergic antidepressants were significantly younger than non-responders (p-value = 0.028) and than responders to noradrenergic antidepressants (p-value = 0.034). Our study highlights the importance of age when considering the efficacy of serotonergic versus noradrenergic antidepressants as part of a precision psychiatry-oriented approach
- …
