The relationship between Hippocampal asymmetry and working memory processing in combat-related PTSD: a monozygotic twin study

BACKGROUND: PTSD is associated with reduction in hippocampal volume and abnormalities in hippocampal function. Hippocampal asymmetry has received less attention, but potentially could indicate lateralised differences in vulnerability to trauma. The P300 event-related potential component reflects the immediate processing of significant environmental stimuli and has generators in several brain regions including the hippocampus. P300 amplitude is generally reduced in people with PTSD. METHODS: Our study examined hippocampal volume asymmetry and the relationship between hippocampal asymmetry and P300 amplitude in male monozygotic twins discordant for Vietnam combat exposure. Lateralised hippocampal volume and P300 data were obtained from 70 male participants, of whom 12 had PTSD. We were able to compare (1) combat veterans with current PTSD; (2) their non-combat-exposed co-twins; (3) combat veterans without current PTSD and (4) their non-combat-exposed co-twins. RESULTS: There were no significant differences between groups in hippocampal asymmetry. There were no group differences in performance of an auditory oddball target detection task or in P300 amplitude. There was a significant positive correlation between P300 amplitude and the magnitude of hippocampal asymmetry in participants with PTSD. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that greater hippocampal asymmetry in PTSD is associated with a need to allocate more attentional resources when processing significant environmental stimuli.Timothy Hall, Cherrie Galletly, C.R. Clark, Melinda Veltmeyer, Linda J. Metzger, Mark W. Gilbertson, Scott P. Orr, Roger K. Pitman and Alexander McFarlan

Improving the provision of services to young people from refugee backgrounds with comorbid mental health and substance use problems: addressing the barriers

South Australia (SA) has resettled 151,134 refugees in the last ten years (Department of Immigration and Border Protection, Settlement reporting facility, 2014). Northern metropolitan Adelaide, an area which experiences significant social disadvantage, has received a significant number of (predominantly young) refugees. Research indicates that refugee youth are at elevated risk of mental health (MH) and alcohol and other drug (AOD) problems. These factors, along with the low socio-economic status of northern Adelaide, the number of refugee youth residing there, and the added complexity of treating comorbid MH and AOD problems (comorbidity) prompted this research. We investigated the barriers and facilitators to culturally responsive comorbidity care for these youth and whether the MH and AOD services were equipped to provide such support.This mixed-methods study employed semi-structured interviews with refugee youth and service providers and an online survey with managers of services. Thirty participants (15 refugee youth, 15 service providers) took part in the semi-structured interviews and 56 (40 complete, 16 partially-complete) in the survey.Thematic analysis of the interview data revealed the most commonly reported barriers related to four broad areas: (1) organisational and structural, (2) access and engagement, (3) treatment and service delivery, and (4) training and resources. Survey data supported the barriers identified in the qualitative findings.This research highlights significant gaps in the response of MH and AOD services to refugee youth with comorbidity. Based on the findings, ways of overcoming the barriers are discussed, and are of particular relevance to policy makers, organisations and clinicians.Miriam Posselt, Karalyn McDonald, Nicholas Procter, Charlotte de Crespigny and Cherrie Galletl

An overview of cognitive remediation therapy for people with severe mental illness

Cognitive remediation refers to nonpharmacological methods of improving cognitive function in people with severe mental disorders. Cognitive remediation therapy (CRT) can be delivered via computerised programs, of varying length and complexity, or can be undertaken one-on-one by a trained clinician. There has been a considerable interest in cognitive remediation, driven by recognition that cognitive deficits are a major determinant of outcome in people with severe, chronic mental illnesses. CRT has been shown to be effective, especially if combined with vocational rehabilitation.Cherrie Galletly and Ashlee Rigb

Substance misuse in patients with acute mental illness

The document attached has been archived with permission from the editor of the Medical Journal of Australia. An external link to the publisher’s copy is included.Cherrie Ann Galletly, Darryl P Watso

Topological Structure of the QCD Vacuum Revealed by Overlap Fermions

Overlap fermions preserve a remnant of chiral symmetry on the lattice. They are a powerful tool to investigate the topological structure of the vacuum of Yang-Mills theory and full QCD. Recent results concerning the localization of topological charge and the localization and local chirality of the overlap eigenmodes are reported. The charge distribution is radically different, if a spectral cut-off for the Dirac eigenmodes is applied. The density q(x) is changing from the scale-a charge density (with full lattice resolution) to the ultraviolet filtered charge density. The scale-a density, computed on the Linux cluster of LRZ, has a singular, sign-coherent global structure of co-dimension 1 first described by the Kentucky group. We stress, however, the cluster properties of the UV filtered topological density resembling the instanton picture. The spectral cut-off can be mapped to a bosonic smearing procedure. The UV filtered field strength reveals a high degree of (anti)selfduality at "hot spots" of the action. The fermionic eigenmodes show a high degree of local chirality. The lowest modes are seen to be localized in low-dimensional space-time regions.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, accepted to appear in the Proceedings of "HLRB, KONWIHR and Linux-Cluster: Review, Results and Future Projects Workshop", Leibniz Rechenzentrum Munich, December 200

Do people with schizophrenia lack emotional intelligence?

Extent: 8 p.Social cognition is a domain of cognitive function that includes the ability to understand and manage social interactions. Emotional intelligence (EI) has been identified as a component of social cognition and is defined as the ability to identify, use, understand, and manage emotions. Neurocognitive impairments are known to be associated with poorer social function in people with schizophrenia, but less is known about the relationships between EI, neurocognition, and social function. The current study assessed EI using the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) in 20 people with schizophrenia and 20 controls. The schizophrenia group had significantly lower scores on all measures of EI and demonstrated poorer neurocognition and social functioning than controls. The difference between schizophrenia and control groups was greatest for the Understanding Emotions Branch of the MSCEIT. The neurocognition score and total EI score accounted for 18.3% of the variance in social function in the control group and 9.1% of the variance in social function in the schizophrenia group. Our results suggest that a total EI score is not a useful predictor of overall social function and it may be more clinically useful to develop an individual profile of social cognitive abilities, including EI, to form a remediation program.Sara Dawson, Lisa Kettler, Cassandra Burton and Cherrie Galletl

Genetic mechanisms of pollution resistance in a marine invertebrate

Pollution is a common stress in the marine environment and one of today's most powerful agents of selection, yet we have little understanding of how anthropogenic toxicants influence mechanisms of adaptation in marine populations. Due to their life history strategies, marine invertebrates are unable to avoid stress and must adapt to variable environments. We examined the genetic basis of pollution resistance across multiple environments using the marine invertebrate, Styela plicata. Gametes were crossed in a quantitative genetic breeding design to enable partitioning of additive genetic variance across a concentration gradient of a common marine pollutant, copper. Hatching success was scored as a measure of stress resistance in copper concentrations of 0, 75, 150, and 350 mu g/L. There was a significant genotype 3 environment interaction in hatching success across copper concentrations. Further analysis using factor analytic modeling confirmed a significant dimension of across-environment genetic variation where the genetic basis of resistance to stress in the first three environments differed from that in the environment of highest copper concentration. A second genetic dimension further differentiated between the genetic basis of resistance to low and high stress environments. These results suggest that marine organisms use different genetic mechanisms to adapt to different levels of pollution and that the level of genetic variation to adapt to intense pollution stresses may be limited

A quantitative comparison of different methods to detect cardiorespiratory coordination during night-time sleep

BACKGROUND: The univariate approaches used to analyze heart rate variability have recently been extended by several bivariate approaches with respect to cardiorespiratory coordination. Some approaches are explicitly based on mathematical models which investigate the synchronization between weakly coupled complex systems. Others use an heuristic approach, i.e. characteristic features of both time series, to develop appropriate bivariate methods. OBJECTIVE: In this study six different methods used to analyze cardiorespiratory coordination have been quantitatively compared with respect to their performance (no. of sequences with cardiorespiratory coordination, no. of heart beats coordinated with respiration). Five of these approaches have been suggested in the recent literature whereas one method originates from older studies. RESULTS: The methods were applied to the simultaneous recordings of an electrocardiogram and a respiratory trace of 20 healthy subjects during night-time sleep from 0:00 to 6:00. The best temporal resolution and the highest number of coordinated heart beats were obtained with the analysis of 'Phase Recurrences'. Apart from the oldest method, all methods showed similar qualitative results although the quantities varied between the different approaches. In contrast, the oldest method detected considerably fewer coordinated heart beats since it only used part of the maximum amount of information available in each recording. CONCLUSIONS: The method of 'Phase Recurrences' should be the method of choice for the detection of cardiorespiratory coordination since it offers the best temporal resolution and the highest number of coordinated sequences and heart beats. Excluding the oldest method, the results of the heuristic approaches may also be interpreted in terms of the mathematical models