Electroconvulsive therapy in a 12-year-old boy with a severe depression

Electroconvulsive therapy (ect) is an uncommon treatment in children and adolescents. This could partially be explained by the fact that a large proportion of the (child and adolescent) psychiatrists have little knowledge on ect in youths. We describe a case of a 12-year-old boy with a severe depression refractory to pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy, in which ect treatment was successful, including six years follow-up. Additionally, this report represents the state of the art concerning the efficacy and safety of ect in youths.</p

Ketamine as an anesthetic, analgesic and anti-depressant

ACHTERGROND Therapieresistentie komt voor bij ongeveer 30% van de patiënten met een depressie. Er is dan ook grote behoefte aan nieuwe behandelmogelijkheden. Ketamine, oorspronkelijk ontwikkeld als anestheticum, wordt onderzocht en incidenteel reeds toegepast bij patiënten met een therapieresistente depressieve stoornis. DOEL Kritische beschouwing over het huidige gebruik van ketamine als antidepressivum. METHODE Literatuuronderzoek. RESULTATEN Een kortdurend antidepressief effect van ketamine is aangetoond. Veel minder is bekend over het in stand houden van dit effect, de potentiële risico’s van herhaalde toediening, en de effectiefste toedieningsmethoden en behandelschema’s. CONCLUSIE Aanvullend onderzoek naar ketamine als antidepressivum blijft noodzakelijk. Eventuele (offlabel-) behandeling dient in de tussentijd alleen onder voorbehoud van zorgvuldige patiëntselectie en strikte monitoring te worden toegepast.BACKGROUND Treatment-resistance occurs in about 30% of patients with depression. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify new treatment strategies. Ketamine, originally developed as an anesthetic, is studied and applied as treatment for patients with treatment-resistant depression. AIM A critical review of the current use of ketamine as an antidepressant. METHOD Literature study. RESULTS Ketamine is a proven effective acute antidepressant. However, limited information is available about maintenance of effect of ketamine, potential risks of repeated administration, and different routes of administration and treatment schedules. CONCLUSION Additional research on ketamine as an antidepressant is needed. Meanwhile, (off-label) treatment should only be applied after careful patient selection and under close monitoring.</p

Search for composite and exotic fermions at LEP 2

A search for unstable heavy fermions with the DELPHI detector at LEP is reported. Sequential and non-canonical leptons, as well as excited leptons and quarks, are considered. The data analysed correspond to an integrated luminosity of about 48 pb^{-1} at an e^+e^- centre-of-mass energy of 183 GeV and about 20 pb^{-1} equally shared between the centre-of-mass energies of 172 GeV and 161 GeV. The search for pair-produced new leptons establishes 95% confidence level mass limits in the region between 70 GeV/c^2 and 90 GeV/c^2, depending on the channel. The search for singly produced excited leptons and quarks establishes upper limits on the ratio of the coupling of the excited fermio

Search for lightest neutralino and stau pair production in light gravitino scenarios with stau NLSP

Promptly decaying lightest neutralinos and long-lived staus are searched for in the context of light gravitino scenarios. It is assumed that the stau is the next to lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP) and that the lightest neutralino is the next to NLSP (NNLSP). Data collected with the Delphi detector at centre-of-mass energies from 161 to 183 \GeV are analysed. No evidence of the production of these particles is found. Hence, lower mass limits for both kinds of particles are set at 95% C.L.. The mass of gaugino-like neutralinos is found to be greater than 71.5 GeV/c^2. In the search for long-lived stau, masses less than 70.0 to 77.5 \GeVcc are excluded for gravitino masses from 10 to 150 \eVcc . Combining this search with the searches for stable heavy leptons and Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model staus a lower limit of 68.5 \GeVcc may be set for the stau mas

Measurement of inclusive π0\pi^{0} production in hadronic Z0Z^{0} decays

An analysis is presented of inclusive \pi^0 production in Z^0 decays measured with the DELPHI detector. At low energies, \pi^0 decays are reconstructed by \linebreak using pairs of converted photons and combinations of converted photons and photons reconstructed in the barrel electromagnetic calorimeter (HPC). At high energies (up to x_p = 2 \cdot p_{\pi}/\sqrt{s} = 0.75) the excellent granularity of the HPC is exploited to search for two-photon substructures in single showers. The inclusive differential cross section is measured as a function of energy for {q\overline q} and {b \bar b} events. The number of \pi^0's per hadronic Z^0 event is N(\pi^0)/ Z_{had}^0 = 9.2 \pm 0.2 \mbox{(stat)} \pm 1.0 \mbox{(syst)} and for {b \bar b}~events the number of \pi^0's is {\mathrm N(\pi^0)/ b \overline b} = 10.1 \pm 0.4 \mbox{(stat)} \pm 1.1 \mbox{(syst)} . The ratio of the number of \pi^0's in b \overline b events to hadronic Z^0 events is less affected by the systematic errors and is found to be 1.09 \pm 0.05 \pm 0.01. The measured \pi^0 cross sections are compared with the predictions of different parton shower models. For hadronic events, the peak position in the \mathrm \xi_p = \ln(1/x_p) distribution is \xi_p^{\star} = 3.90^{+0.24}_{-0.14}. The average number of \pi^0's from the decay of primary \mathrm B hadrons is found to be {\mathrm N} (B \rightarrow \pi^0 \, X)/\mbox{B hadron} = 2.78 \pm 0.15 \mbox{(stat)} \pm 0.60 \mbox{(syst)}