Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia nervosa is a common eating disorder affecting several functions of the body. Although our knowledge of the underlying mechanism has increased, therapeutic options are still limited. This Special Issue discusses several aspects of anorexia nervosa and covers a broad range of topics from the bench to the bedside

Advances in Eating Disorders

Eating disorders (ED) are a group of mental disorders characterized by an altered food intake and the presence of inappropriate behaviors and thoughts about weight and shape. All EDs lead to physical and psychosocial functioning impairments in the patients which, in turn, may contribute to the persistence of the disease. The severity of EDs has been highlighted by their chronicity, medical complications, comorbidity, and high rates of mortality. Therefore, to address this important health issue, the current Special Issue collected 21 articles (i.e., three reviews and 18 research articles) focusing on the most recent and relevant scientific findings regarding advances in ED, such as genetic and epigenetic factors, biomarkers, comorbidity, clinical phenotypes, neurocognition, treatment predictors, and treatment models and therapeutic targets. Altogether, we believe that the articles contained in this Special Issue have largely achieved the initial objective of providing increased knowledge about the pathogenesis, the risk factors, the maintenance factors, and the most appropriate treatments tools for ED

The Clinical Utility of Food Addiction and Eating Addiction

This book is a collection of manuscripts on breast reconstruction, the topic of a Special Issue of Medicina Journal. The book begins with a review of the literature on the most recent reconstructive strategies using biological dermal matrices and moves toward the management of pain and infections. Some aspects of regenerative surgery are also clarified and an analysis focuses on social disparities in access to breast reconstruction. The final part of this book is dedicated to nipple–areola reconstruction, the last surgical step of breast reconstruction

Predicting Psychopathological Onset: Early Signs of Neuropsychiatric Diseases

The aim of this Special Issue is to collect valuable contributions from scientists worldwide working on the role that biological, behavioral, and cognitive markers can have in predicting the onset of neuropsychiatric disorders. We were able to collect 13 original articles and two reviews on this topic. The results published in this Special Issue could provide significant support in pre-clinical phases for the identification of vulnerability factors, to better understand the course of the illness, and to predict its outcome, as well as aiding clinicians in the therapeutic decision-making process

Do informal caregivers of people with dementia mirror the cognitive deficits of their demented patients?:A pilot study

Recent research suggests that informal caregivers of people with dementia (ICs) experience more cognitive deficits than noncaregivers. The reason for this is not yet clear. Objective: to test the hypothesis that ICs ‘mirror' the cognitive deficits of the demented people they care for. Participants and methods: 105 adult ICs were asked to complete three neuropsychological tests: letter fluency, category fluency, and the logical memory test from the WMS-III. The ICs were grouped according to the diagnosis of their demented patients. One-sample ttests were conducted to investigate if the standardized mean scores (t-scores) of the ICs were different from normative data. A Bonferroni correction was used to correct for multiple comparisons. Results: 82 ICs cared for people with Alzheimer's dementia and 23 ICs cared for people with vascular dementia. Mean letter fluency score of the ICs of people with Alzheimer's dementia was significantly lower than the normative mean letter fluency score, p = .002. The other tests yielded no significant results. Conclusion: our data shows that ICs of Alzheimer patients have cognitive deficits on the letter fluency test. This test primarily measures executive functioning and it has been found to be sensitive to mild cognitive impairment in recent research. Our data tentatively suggests that ICs who care for Alzheimer patients also show signs of cognitive impairment but that it is too early to tell if this is cause for concern or not

Phenomenology, etiology, and the religious counterpart of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

This thesis reviewed the current state of research, including methodology, on the phenomenology and etiology of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), in addition to investigating predictors of its religious counterpart - scrupulosity. This thesis is organized into two theoretical chapters, two psychometric chapters, one empirical chapter, and one summary chapter. The first theoretical chapter introduced OCD as a diagnostic entity, and analyzed symptom structure and conceptualization of the disorder’s heterogeneous symptoms. Chapter three, and first psychometric chapter, critically reviewed commonly used assessment methods of OCD in adults. The second theoretical chapter discussed the cognitive account of OCD’s etiology, including three cognitive-behavioral models, and proposed a synthesis with the neurobiological etiological account of OCD. In the fifth chapter of this thesis, and second psychometric chapter, measures of obsessive beliefs and appraisals were reviewed. The sixth chapter of this thesis, the empirical chapter, examined the relationships between religion, obsessive-compulsive beliefs, and scrupulosity. Self-report questionnaires were used to measure strength of religious faith, maladaptive beliefs, and the tendency to blur thoughts and actions. Significant evidence of predictors and mediating effects in relation to scrupulosity and obsessive beliefs was found and discussed. This is the first study, to my knowledge, that demonstrated significant empirical support for applying cognitive-behavioral theory of obsessions to scrupulosity. The chapter concluded with a consideration of limitations, recommendations for future research, and implications for treatment. Finally, the last chapter provided a general summary of the thesis, including implications for OCD’s conceptualization, measurement, and clinical practice