Mechanisms Underlying the Comorbidity of Schizophrenia and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

The mortality rate of patients with schizophrenia is high, and life expectancy is shorter by 10 to 20 years. Metabolic abnormalities including type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are among the main reasons. The prevalence of T2DM in patients with schizophrenia may be epidemiologically frequent because antipsychotics induce weight gain as a side effect and the cognitive dysfunction of patients with schizophrenia relates to a disordered lifestyle, poor diet, and low socioeconomic status. Apart from these common risk factors and risk factors unique to schizophrenia, accumulating evidence suggests the existence of common susceptibility genes between schizophrenia and T2DM. Functional proteins translated from common genetic susceptibility genes are known to regulate neuronal development in the brain and insulin in the pancreas through several common cascades. In this review, we discuss common susceptibility genes, functional cascades, and the relationship between schizophrenia and T2DM. Many genetic and epidemiological studies have reliably associated the comorbidity of schizophrenia and T2DM, and it is probably safe to think that common cascades and mechanisms suspected from common genes' functions are related to the onset of both schizophrenia and T2DM. On the other hand, even when genetic analyses are performed on a relatively large number of comorbid patients, the results are sometimes inconsistent, and susceptibility genes may carry only a low or moderate risk. We anticipate future directions in this field

災害支援活動に関する文献レビュー

Nurses engaged in disaster support activities（DSA）were most likely adversely affected physically, mentally, and socially. This literature review was aimed to clarify nurses’ physical, mental, and social experiences during the engagement in DSA. The physical impact experienced by nurses included physical problems due to unattainable or poor environment for resting. The psychological impact included the mental burden experienced during interactive experiences of nurses with the victims having emotional effects. The social impact focused on the ensuing dilemma of prioritizing their job completion requirements and their familial obligations. In particular, increased stress heightened the effects of the DSA when victims were family members of nurses living in the disaster area and were engaged in DSA. Furthermore, nurses who were posted in disaster areas and engaged in disaster activities experienced incessant memories of the disaster thereby promoting consistent fear of remembering the adverse effects of disasters that required supportive activities

Anti-N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor Encephalitis in Psychiatry

Anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) encephalitis is a recently-discovered autoimmune disorder in which antibodies target NMDAR in the brain. The number of reported cases of anti-NMDAR encephalitis has increased rapidly. Anti-NMDAR encephalitis can be mistakenly diagnosed as psychiatric disorders because many patients present with prominent psychiatric symptoms and visit psychiatric institutions first. Thus, psychiatrists should cultivate a better understanding of anti-NMDAR encephalitis. In this review, we present the mechanisms, epidemiology, symptoms and clinical course, diagnostic tests, treatment and outcomes of patients with anti-NMDAR encephalitis. Furthermore, we discuss the diversity of clinical spectra of anti-NMDAR encephalitis, and demonstrate a differential diagnosis of psychiatric disease from the perspective of psychiatry

The Frizzled 3 gene is associated with methamphetamine psychosis in the Japanese population

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Utility of the UCSD Performance-based Skills Assessment-Brief Japanese version: discriminative ability and relation to neurocognition

The UCSD Performance-based Skills Assessment Brief (the UPSA-B) has been widely used for evaluating functional capacity in patients with schizophrenia. The utility of the battery in a wide range of cultural contexts has been of concern among developers. The current study investigated the validity of the Japanese version of the UPSA-B as a measure of functional capacity and as a co-primary for neurocognion. Sixty-four Japanese patients with schizophrenia and 83 healthy adults entered the study. The Japanese version of the UPSA-B (UPSA-B Japanese version) and the MATRICS Cognitive Consensus Battery Japanese version (MCCB Japanese version) were administered. Normal controls performed significantly better than patients, with large effect sizes for the Total and the subscale scores of the UPSA-B. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve analysis revealed that the optimal cut-off point for the UPSA-B Total score was estimated at around 80. The UPSA-B Total score was significantly correlated with the MCCB Composite score and several domain scores, indicating the relationship between this co-primary measure and overall cognitive functioning in Japanese patients with schizophrenia. The results obtained here suggest that the UPSA-B Japanese version is an effective tool for evaluating disturbances of daily-living skills linked to cognitive functioning in schizophrenia, providing an identifiable cut-off point and relationships to neurocognition. Further research is warranted to evaluate the psychometrical properties and response to treatment of the Japanese version of the UPSA-B