ASSOCIATION BETWEEN AFFECTIVE DISORDERS AND THE USAGE OF LOW AND MEDIUM DOSES OF CORTICOSTEROIDS

It is well known that high doses of corticosteroids can induce psychiatric disorders, especially the maniacal states. However there are only a few studies that investigate the effects of low and medium doses of such drugs used for a long period of time on the patient’s mental health. The aim of the study was to investigate the prevalence and severity of affective disorders among the patients using up to 40 mg of corticosteroids (prednisone or equivalent). 54 patients during the corticosteroid therapy and 51 healthy controls were assessed with the use of the following questionnaires: Hypomania Checklist 16 (HCL-16), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and authors’ questionnaire. The results were analysed using SPSS Statistics version 12.5. The results indicated statistically significant differences in the prevalence of hypomania and depression between controls and study group. There were no evident correlations between either the dose or the length of the therapy and the severity of affective disorders. The study has shown that the usage of corticosteroids doses below 40 mg does have an effect on the prevalence of affective disorders. The occurrence of hypomania and depression was more common among the study group. To assess correlations further studies are needed

THE PREVALENCE OF SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER AMONG THE BLIND AND PATIENTS WITH SERIOUS VISUAL IMPAIRMENT

Background: Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is an interesting disorder in which depression should occur at a particular time of a year, each year and it should disappear at a specific time of the year. While the prevalence of SAD among generally healthy individuals is well known, the information about the prevalence of this disorder among the blind and visually impaired patients is very limited. The aim of the study was to investigate the prevalence of SAD among the blind and people with serious visual impairment in polish population. Subjects and methods: 250 blind or seriously visually impaired individuals and 258 healthy controls were assessed with the usage of Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ). In research group survey was conducted with the Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) technique. In control group the questionnaire was distributed via Internet. The results were analysed with the usage statistical package - Statistica 13.1. Results: The results revealed that among people suffering from SAD there is statistically significant difference in SPAQ scores between completely blind and seriously visually impaired people. The study shows that is the control group age is negatively correlated with score in SPAQ score, while in the study group age is positively correlated with SPAQ score. The data show that there is a difference in occurrence of SAD between men and women. Conclusion: The study has shown a significant difference in occurrence of SAD between study and control groups. What is more the analysis has indicated major difference in the occurrence of SAD between men and women from the study group. Taking into consideration the fact that this is the second analysis of this type in Europe further investigations are needed

ASSOCIATION BETWEEN DEPRESSION AND HEMODIALYSIS IN PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC KIDNEY DISEASE

Depression is the most common and serious psychiatric disorder that affects patients with chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease, and, has a significant impact on their quality of life. The aim of this study was to investigate and compare prevalence rates of depression among hemodialyzed patients, and non-dialyzed patients with a glomerular filtration rate <30 ml/min/1.73m2 receiving conservative treatment or following kidney transplantation. A total of 50 hemodialyzed and 50 non-dialyzed patients with stage 4/5 of CKD was assessed using the following questionnaires: Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A), Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D), The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), The Acceptance of Illness Scale (AIS), and The Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R). The use of steroids and immunosuppressant drugs was also investigated. Symptoms of depression and anxiety were present in both groups, however the proportion of persons with mild or severe depression was higher among dialyzed patients. The AIS, LOT-R and SWLS scores were very similar in both the groups. The patients using steroids and/or immunosuppressant drugs were more prone to develop mild or severe depression according to the HAM-D scores. The results indicated a high prevalence of depression and anxiety among patients with CKD. Furthermore, the fraction of patients with depression is greater among hemodialyzed patients. This indicates the importance of monitoring the mental state of the patients as well as the necessity of providing timely psychological care for patients with CKD

THE PREVALENCE OF SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER AMONG THE BLIND AND PATIENTS WITH SERIOUS VISUAL IMPAIRMENT

Background: Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is an interesting disorder in which depression should occur at a particular time of a year, each year and it should disappear at a specific time of the year. While the prevalence of SAD among generally healthy individuals is well known, the information about the prevalence of this disorder among the blind and visually impaired patients is very limited. The aim of the study was to investigate the prevalence of SAD among the blind and people with serious visual impairment in polish population. Subjects and methods: 250 blind or seriously visually impaired individuals and 258 healthy controls were assessed with the usage of Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire (SPAQ). In research group survey was conducted with the Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) technique. In control group the questionnaire was distributed via Internet. The results were analysed with the usage statistical package - Statistica 13.1. Results: The results revealed that among people suffering from SAD there is statistically significant difference in SPAQ scores between completely blind and seriously visually impaired people. The study shows that is the control group age is negatively correlated with score in SPAQ score, while in the study group age is positively correlated with SPAQ score. The data show that there is a difference in occurrence of SAD between men and women. Conclusion: The study has shown a significant difference in occurrence of SAD between study and control groups. What is more the analysis has indicated major difference in the occurrence of SAD between men and women from the study group. Taking into consideration the fact that this is the second analysis of this type in Europe further investigations are needed

P2Y12 antagonist ticagrelor inhibits the release of procoagulant extracellular vesicles from activated platelets

Background: Activated platelets release platelet extracellular vesicles (PEVs). Adenosine diphosphate(ADP) receptors P2Y1 and P2Y12 both play a role in platelet activation, The present hypothesis hereinis that the inhibition of these receptors may affect the release of PEVs.Methods: Platelet-rich plasma from 10 healthy subjects was incubated with saline, P2Y1 antagonistMRS2179 (100 μM), P2Y12 antagonist ticagrelor (1 μM), and a combination of both antagonists.Platelets were activated by ADP (10 μM) under stirring conditions at 37°C. Platelet reactivity wasassessed by impedance aggregometry. Concentrations of PEVs– (positive for CD61 but negative forP-selectin and phosphatidylserine) and PEVs+ (positive for all) were determined by a state-of-the-artflow cytometer. Procoagulant activity of PEVs was measured by a fibrin generation test.Results: ADP-induced aggregation (57 ± 13 area under curve {AUC] units) was inhibited 73%by the P2Y1 antagonist, 86% by the P2Y12 antagonist, and 95% when combined (p &lt; 0.001 for all).The release of PEVs– (2.9 E ± 0.8 × 108/mL) was inhibited 48% in the presence of both antagonists(p = 0.015), whereas antagonists alone were ineffective. The release of PEVs+ (2.4 ± 1.6 × 107/mL)was unaffected by the P2Y1 antagonist, but was 62% inhibited by the P2Y12 antagonist (p = 0.035),and 72% by both antagonists (p = 0.022). PEVs promoted coagulation in presence of tissue factor.Conclusions: Inhibition of P2Y1 and P2Y12 receptors reduces platelet aggregation and affects therelease of distinct subpopulations of PEVs. Ticagrelor decreases the release of procoagulant PEVs fromactivated platelets, which may contribute to the observed clinical benefits in patients treated with ticagrelor

Novel vocalizations are understood across cultures

Linguistic communication requires speakers to mutually agree on the meanings of words, but how does such a system first get off the ground? One solution is to rely on iconic gestures: visual signs whose form directly resembles or otherwise cues their meaning without any previously established correspondence. However, it is debated whether vocalizations could have played a similar role. We report the first extensive cross-cultural study investigating whether people from diverse linguistic backgrounds can understand novel vocalizations for a range of meanings. In two comprehension experiments, we tested whether vocalizations produced by English speakers could be understood by listeners from 28 languages from 12 language families. Listeners from each language were more accurate than chance at guessing the intended referent of the vocalizations for each of the meanings tested. Our findings challenge the often-cited idea that vocalizations have limited potential for iconic representation, demonstrating that in the absence of words people can use vocalizations to communicate a variety of meanings.Peer reviewe

Using artificial intelligence to explore sound symbolic expressions of gender in American English

This study investigates the extent to which gender can be inferred from the phonemes that make up given names and words in American English. Two extreme gradient boosted algorithms were constructed to classify words according to gender, one using a list of the most common given names (N∼1,000) in North America and the other using the Glasgow Norms (N∼5,500), a corpus consisting of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs which have each been assigned a psycholinguistic score of how they are associated with male or female behaviour. Both models report significant findings, but the model constructed using given names achieves a greater accuracy despite being trained on a smaller dataset suggesting that gender is expressed more robustly in given names than in other word classes. Feature importance was examined to determine which features were contributing to the decision-making process. Feature importance scores revealed a general pattern across both models, but also show that not all word classes express gender the same way. Finally, the models were reconstructed and tested on the opposite dataset to determine whether they were useful in classifying opposite samples. The results showed that the models were not as accurate when classifying opposite samples, suggesting that they are more suited to classifying words of the same class