Estime de soi et troubles psychiatriques à l'adolescence.

peer reviewedSelf-esteem refers to the individual's perception of his and her competence, value, and worthiness of respect. The early years are critical in forming a base of self-esteem; it develops as a result of positive or negative experiences during childhood. Self-esteem has been identified as an important parameter of adolescent development. This suggest the importance of considering self-esteem in adolescence. This study examined the different data on self-esteem of well adolescents and psychiatric adolescents. The results are discusse

Quetiapine augmentation of SRIs in treatment refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder: a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled study [ISRCTN83050762]

BACKGROUND: Although serotonin reuptake inhibitors are effective in the treatment of OCD, many patients fail to respond to these agents. Growing evidence from open-label and placebo-controlled trials suggests a role for augmentation of SRIs with atypical antipsychotics in OCD. Quetiapine is generally well tolerated and previous open-label data has produced mixed results in OCD and additional controlled data is needed. METHODS: We undertook a double-blind, randomised, parallel-group, flexible-dose, placebo-controlled study of quetiapine augmentation in subjects who had responded inadequately to open-label treatment with an SRI for 12 weeks. Following informed consent and screening, forty-two subjects were randomised to either placebo or quetiapine for six weeks. RESULTS: There was significant improvement from baseline to endpoint on the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale in both the quetiapine and placebo groups (quetiapine, n = 20, p < 0.0001; placebo, n = 21, p = 0.001) with 40% (n = 8) of quetiapine and 47.6% (n = 10) of placebo treated subjects being classified as responders. Quetiapine did not demonstrate a significant benefit over placebo at the end of the six-week treatment period (p = .636). Similarly quetiapine failed to separate from placebo in the subgroup of subjects (n = 10) with co-morbid tics. Quetiapine was generally well tolerated. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, quetiapine augmentation was no more effective than placebo augmentation of SRIs. A number of limitations in study design make comparisons with previous studies in this area difficult and probably contributed to our negative findings. Future work in this important clinical area should address these limitations

Change of dopamine receptor mRNA expression in lymphocyte of schizophrenic patients

BACKGROUND: Though the dysfunction of central dopaminergic system has been proposed, the etiology or pathogenesis of schizophrenia is still uncertain partly due to limited accessibility to dopamine receptor. The purpose of this study was to define whether or not the easily accessible dopamine receptors of peripheral lymphocytes can be the peripheral markers of schizophrenia. RESULTS: 44 drug-medicated schizophrenics for more than 3 years, 28 drug-free schizophrenics for more than 3 months, 15 drug-naïve schizophrenic patients, and 31 healthy persons were enrolled. Sequential reverse transcription and quantitative polymerase chain reaction of the mRNA were used to investigate the expression of D3 and D5 dopamine receptors in peripheral lymphocytes. The gene expression of dopamine receptors was compared in each group. After taking antipsychotics in drug-free and drug-naïve patients, the dopamine receptors of peripheral lymphocytes were sequentially studied 2nd week and 8th week after medication. In drug-free schizophrenics, D3 dopamine receptor mRNA expression of peripheral lymphocytes significantly increased compared to that of controls and drug-medicated schizophrenics, and D5 dopamine receptor mRNA expression increased compared to that of drug-medicated schizophrenics. After taking antipsychotics, mRNA of dopamine receptors peaked at 2(nd) week, after which it decreases but the level was above baseline one at 8(th) week. Drug-free and drug-naïve patients were divided into two groups according to dopamine receptor expression before medications, and the group of patients with increased dopamine receptor expression had more severe psychiatric symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: These results reveal that the molecular biologically-determined dopamine receptors of peripheral lymphocytes are reactive, and that increased expression of dopamine receptor in peripheral lymphocyte has possible clinical significance for subgrouping of schizophrenis

Étude des facteurs influençant la rétention des protozoaires au cours des différentes étapes de production d'eau alimentaire. Échelles industrielle et pilote

National audienceCryptosporidium, protozoa naturally found in the superficial waters is responsible for severe digestive disorders among human and animal. Retaining efficiently these parasites in the water supply treatments is a major concern for public safety. This study is divided in two parts: • Evaluating the contamination level of superficial waters in the west of France. • Assessing the efficiency of the parasites retention during the clarification process to evaluate the influence of the clarification and filtration conditions both • - In real context on 3 plants. • - On a pilot. The results on the field show the influence of the rainfall on the contamination levels. The results on the 3 plants show ratio of parasites retention in the filtered waters higher then 99%. The best results on the pilot (concentration in oocystes of Cryptosporidium decreasing by 2.6 logarithmic units) where obtained by using ferric chloride as coagulant and sand of 1.2 mm diameter for filtration. The retention is slightly better a cationic polyamine as coagulant additives. The washing and the maturation of filters are critical steps in the Cryptosporidium retention in the water treatments

Association between schizophrenia and homozygosity at the dopamine D3 receptor gene.

Disturbances in dopamine neurotransmission have been postulated to underlie schizophrenia. We report data from two independent studies of a BalI polymorphism in the dopamine D3 receptor gene in patients with schizophrenia. In both studies, more patients than controls were homozygous (p = 0.005, p = 0.008). When pooled data were analysed, this difference was highly significant (p = 0.0001) with a relative risk of schizophrenia in homozygotes of 2.61 (95% confidence intervals 1.60-4.26)