The clinical-familial correlates and naturalistic outcome of panic-disorder-agoraphobia with and without lifetime bipolar II comorbidity

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Much of the literature on panic disorder (PD)-bipolar disorder (BP) cormorbidity concerns BP-I. This literature emphasizes the difficulties encountered in pharmacologic treatment and outcome when such comorbidity is present. The present report explores these issues with respect to BP-II.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The sample comprised 326 outpatients (aged 34.5 ± 11.5 years old; 222 females) with Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 3rd edn, revised (DSM-III-R) PD-agoraphobia; among them 52 subjects (16%) were affected by lifetime comorbidity with BP-II. Patients were evaluated by means of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID), the Panic-Agoraphobia Interview, and the Longitudinal Interview Follow-up Examination (Life-Up) and treated according to routine clinical practice at the University of Pisa, Italy, for a period of 3 years. Clinical and course features were compared between subjects with and without BP-II. All patients received the clinicians' choice of antidepressants and, in the case of the subsample with BP-II, mood stabilizers (for example, valproate, lithium) were among the mainstays of treatment.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In comparison to patients without bipolar comorbidity, those with BP-II showed a significantly greater frequency of social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, alcohol-related disorders, and separation anxiety during childhood and adolescence. Regarding family history, a significantly greater frequency of PD and mood disorders was present among the BP-II. No significant differences were observed in the long-term course of PD or agoraphobic symptoms under pharmacological treatment or the likelihood of spontaneous pharmacological treatment interruptions.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Although the severity and outcome of panic-agoraphobic symptomatology appear to be similar in patients with and without lifetime bipolar comorbidity, the higher number of concomitant disorders in our PD patients with BP-II does indicate a greater complexity of the clinical picture in this naturalistic study. That such complexity does not seem to translate into poorer response and outcome in those with comorbid soft bipolarity probably reflects the fact that we had brought BP-II under control with mood stabilizers. We discuss the implications of our findings as further evidence for the existence of a distinct anxious-bipolar diathesis.</p

THE DEVELOPMENT OF TEMPERAMENT EVALUATION OF MEMPHIS, PISA, PARIS, AND SAN DIEGO-AUTO-QUESTIONNAIRE FOR ADOLESCENTS (A-TEMPS-A) IN A SERBIAN SAMPLE

Background: Previous studies suggest that temperament features of adolescents may be good predictors of the development of future psychopathology in this population. The aim of the study was to adapt the content and validate the psychometric properties of the Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris, and San Diego - Auto questionnaire in a sample of Serbian adolescents. Subjects and methods: The sample included 2113 adolescents, 56% girls and 44% boys, average age 16.73±0.47, attending 48 Serbian secondary schools. The base for the development of this scale included Serbian standardised versions as well as the TEMPSI, Interview version. Results: The final scale is comprised of 36 items, with six factors (depressive, cyclothymic, hyperthymic, irritable, and anxiouscognitive/ somatic) explaining 39.9% of the total variance, the internal consistency coefficient α=0.77, and the average test–retest coefficient (rho=0.84). The correlations among the temperaments ranged from weak to moderate, with the highest positive correlations between the depressive, cyclothymic and anxious scales. The highest values were detected on hyperthymic and the lowest on depressive temperament. Significantly higher scores of depressive, cyclothymic and anxious temperaments were detected in girls, whereas boys had higher scores on the hyperthymic scale. Conclusions: The scale has shown good psychometric properties, which encourages its further use in adolescent population. The results show certain specific features of this population, such as higher scores on all temperament types than the ones in student and adult population and a tendency of socially desirable answers

Credit scores, lending, and psychosocial disability

Credit scores have become a near-universal financial passport for Americans to meet common personal needs including employment, loans, insurance, and home and car purchases or leases. At the same time, Elizabeth Warren and others have documented the horrific economic, emotional, and health consequences of low creditworthiness for score-bearers and their families. Individuals with psychosocial disabilities (previously called mental disabilities or mental illnesses) can make disastrously poor financial decisions during the active phases of their conditions; during inactive phases they are as capable as others of making sound or poor financial decisions. Yet, in computing credit scores and selling credit reports, national and transnational credit-reporting agencies (like Equifax) do not account for the implications of psychosocial disability. Worse, evidence shows that businesses rely on these reports to predatorily target borrowers with psychosocial disabilities—and especially those who are also women and racial minorities—in deciding terms of lending, employment, and housing. In theory but not in practice, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fair Housing Act each prohibit discriminatory financial decisions arising from disability status, while also requiring reasonable accommodations to equalize opportunities for disabled persons. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (which the United States has signed) further mandates enabling the financial decision making of these individuals, but does not provide guidance on achieving this obligation. Further, despite the crucial and direct implications this situation also raises for vast numbers of Americans without psychosocial disabilities who likewise make poor credit decisions, it has not undergone legal analysis. We engage this significant gap by suggesting schemes drawn from historical and comparative contexts that could enable the creditworthiness of persons with psychosocial disabilities, and then critiquing the costs and benefits of each. In doing so, we proffer the first analysis of this issue in the legal literature and seek to stimulate future dialogue among academics and policymakers. The Article concludes with thoughts on the implications of its analyses for the broader issue of credit scoring.http://www.bu.edu/bulawreviewam2016Centre for Human Right

The utility of the REM latency test in psychiatric diagnosis: A study of 81 depressed outpatients

To examine the utility of the REM (rapid eye movement) latency test in identifying outpatient primary depressions, 81 consecutive referrals to a sleep disorders center were evaluated in a phenomenologic, sleep polygraphic, and psychometric study. Modified Feighner (St. Louis) diagnoses were definite primary depression (n=19), probable primary depression (n=30), depression chronologically secondary to preexisting psychiatric disorders (n=19), and nonaffective psychiatric disorder (n=13). There were 18 nonpsychiatric controls. REM latency less than 70 minutes on 2 consecutive nights detected 62% of primary depressions, discriminating them from the other diagnostic groups with 88% specificity. There were no false positives among controls. These data provided a 90% confidence for the diagnosis of primary depression in this outpatient sample. Requiring 2 consecutive nights of shortened REM latency appears to improve significantly the specificity of a test previously considered to have high sensitivity but relatively low specificity for depressive disorders.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/23905/1/0000148.pd

REM density in the differential diagnosis of psychiatric from medical-neurologic disorders: A replication

The discriminatory power of rapid eye movement (REM) density in 61 outpatients with medical, neurologic, and psychiatric disorders and 8 noncase controls was assessed. REM density was significantly lower in a group of patients with medical-neurologic disease as compared with psychiatric and control subjects without evidence for such disease. Furthermore, low scores discriminated depressions occurring in the context of somatic disease when compared with those in the absence of such disease. The differences between groups were not accounted for by age or sex. The cutoff REM density score of 12.56, based on the 99% lower confidence limit of the noncase controls, provided the highest sensitivity (0.82) without loss of specificity (0.80). It was concluded that REM density may have merit as a general measure of diffuse central nervous system pathology, whether primary or secondary to widespread systemic disease. The findings of Kupfer's group are upheld and extended to a broader medical and neuropsychiatric population than in the original Pittsburgh study.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/24174/1/0000433.pd

How possible is the development of an operational psychometric method to assess the presence of the 5-HTTLPR s allele? Equivocal preliminary findings

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>The s allele of the 5-hydroxytryptamine transporter-linked promoter region (5-HTTLPR) polymorphism of the serotonin transporter gene has been found to be associated with neuroticism-related traits, affective temperaments and response to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) treatment. The aim of the current study was to develop a psychometric tool that could at least partially substitute for laboratory testing and could predict the presence of the s allele.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study included 138 women of Caucasian origin, mean 32.20 ± 1.02 years old. All subjects completed the Hungarian standardised version of the Temperament Evaluation of the Memphis, Pisa, Paris, and San Diego Autoquestionnaire (TEMPS-A) instrument and were genotyped for 5-HTTLPR using PCR. The statistical analysis included the calculation of the Index of Discrimination (D), Discriminant Function Analysis, creation of scales on the basis of the above and then item analysis and calculation of sensitivity and specificity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Four indices were eventually developed, but their psychometric properties were relatively poor and their joint application did not improve the outcome.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We could not create a scale that predicts the 5-HTTLPR genotype with sufficient sensitivity and specificity, therefore we could not substitute a psychometric scale for laboratory genetic testing in predicting genotype, and also possibly affective disorder characterisation and treatment.</p

Genome wide association study identifies variants in NBEA associated with migraine in bipolar disorder

Methods We performed a genome-wide association analysis contrasting 460 bipolar migraneurs with 914 bipolar patients without migraine from the Bipolar Genome Study (BiGS).Results We identified one genome-wide significant association between migraine in bipolar disorder patients and rs1160720, an intronic single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the NBEA gene (P=2.97×10-8, OR: 1.82, 95% CI: 1.47-2.25), although this was not replicated in a smaller sample of 289 migraine cases. Limitations Our study is based on self-reported migraine.Background Migraine is a common comorbidity among individuals with bipolar disorder, but the underlying mechanisms for this co-occurrence are poorly understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the genetic background of bipolar patients with and without migraine.Conclusions NBEA encodes neurobeachin, a scaffolding protein primarily expressed in the brain and involved in trafficking of vesicles containing neurotransmitter receptors. This locus has not previously been implicated in migraine per se. We found no evidence of association in data from the GWAS migraine meta-analysis consortium (n=118,710 participants) suggesting that the association might be specific to migraine co-morbid with bipolar disorder