The latest medical research on Psychiatry

The research magnet gathers the latest research from around the web, based on your specialty area. Below you will find a sample of some of the most recent articles from reputable medical journals about psychiatry gathered by our medical AI research bot.

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Association of neurotransmitter pathway polygenic risk with specific symptom profiles in psychosis.

Molecular Psychiatry

A primary goal of psychiatry is to better understand the pathways that link genetic risk to psychiatric symptoms. Here, we tested association of di...

Correlates of suicidal behaviors and genetic risk among United States veterans with schizophrenia or bipolar I disorder.

Molecular Psychiatry

Persons diagnosed with schizophrenia (SCZ) or bipolar I disorder (BPI) are at high risk for self-injurious behavior, suicidal ideation, and suicida...

Association of semaglutide with reduced incidence and relapse of cannabis use disorder in real-world populations: a retrospective cohort study.

Molecular Psychiatry

Cannabis is the most frequently used illicit drug in the United States with more than 45 million users of whom one-third suffer from a cannabis use...

Structure-activity relationships of serotonergic 5-MeO-DMT derivatives: insights into psychoactive and thermoregulatory properties.

Molecular Psychiatry

Recent studies have sparked renewed interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelics for treating depression and other mental health condition...

Early-life prefrontal cortex inhibition and early-life stress lead to long-lasting behavioral, transcriptional, and physiological impairments.

Molecular Psychiatry

Early-life stress has been linked to multiple neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric deficits. Our previous studies have linked maternal presence/...

Developing an individualized treatment rule for Veterans with major depressive disorder using electronic health records.

Molecular Psychiatry

Efforts to develop an individualized treatment rule (ITR) to optimize major depressive disorder (MDD) treatment with antidepressant medication (ADM...

Lifespan development of thalamic nuclei and characterizing thalamic nuclei abnormalities in schizophrenia using normative modeling.

Neuropsychopharmacology

Thalamic abnormalities have been repeatedly implicated in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and other neurodevelopmental disorders. Uncovering t...

Brain-based graph-theoretical predictive modeling to map the trajectory of anhedonia, impulsivity, and hypomania from the human functional connectome.

Neuropsychopharmacology

Clinical assessments often fail to discriminate between unipolar and bipolar depression and identify individuals who will develop future (hypo)mani...

Clinical decision support for bipolar depression using large language models.

Neuropsychopharmacology

Management of depressive episodes in bipolar disorder remains challenging for clinicians despite the availability of treatment guidelines. In other...

Painful physical symptoms and antidepressant treatment outcome in depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Molecular Psychiatry

Painful physical symptoms (PPS) are highly prevalent in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Presence of PPS in depressed patients are potentially associated with poorer antidepressant treatment outcome. We aimed to evaluate the association of baseline pain levels and antidepressant treatment outcomes.

We searched PubMed, Embase and Cochrane Library databases from inception through February 2023 based on a pre-registered protocol (PROSPERO: CRD42022381349). We included original studies that reported pretreatment pain measures in antidepressant treatment responder/remitter and non-responder/non-remitter among patients with MDD. Data extraction and quality assessment were performed following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses by two reviewers independently. The primary outcome was the difference of the pretreatment pain levels between antidepressant treatment responder/remitter and non-responder/non-remitter. Random-effects meta-analysis was used to calculate effect sizes (Hedge's g) and subgroup and meta-regression analyses were used to explore sources of heterogeneity.

A total of 20 studies were included. Six studies reported significantly higher baseline pain severity levels in MDD treatment non-responders (Hedge's g = 0.32; 95% CI, 0.13-0.51; P = 0.0008). Six studies reported the presence of PPS (measured using a pain severity scale) was significantly associated with poor treatment response (OR = 1.46; 95% CI, 1.04-2.04; P = 0.028). Five studies reported significant higher baseline pain interference levels in non-responders (Hedge's g = 0.46; 95% CI, 0.32-0.61; P < 0.0001). Four studies found significantly higher baseline pain severity levels in non-remitters (Hedge's g = 0.27; 95% CI, 0.14-0.40; P < 0.0001). Eight studies reported the presence of PPS significantly associated with treatment non-remission (OR = 1.70; 95% CI, 1.24-2.32; P = 0.0009).

This study suggests that PPS are negatively associated with the antidepressant treatment outcome in patients with MDD. It is possible that better management in pain conditions when treating depression can benefit the therapeutic effects of antidepressant medication in depressed patients.

Adolescent Psychedelic Use and Psychotic or Manic Symptoms.

JAMA Psychiatry

While psychedelic-assisted therapy has shown promise in the treatment of certain psychiatric disorders, little is known about the potential risk of psychotic or manic symptoms following naturalistic psychedelic use, especially among adolescents.

To investigate associations between naturalistic psychedelic use and self-reported psychotic or manic symptoms in adolescents using a genetically informative design.

This study included a large sample of adolescent twins (assessed at age 15, 18, and 24 years) born between July 1992 and December 2005 from the Swedish Twin Registry and cross-sectionally evaluated the associations between past psychedelic use and psychotic or manic symptoms at age 15 years. Individuals were included if they answered questions related to past use of psychedelics. Data were analyzed from October 2022 to November 2023.

Primary outcome measures were self-reported psychotic and manic symptoms at age 15 years. Lifetime use of psychedelics and other drugs was also assessed at the same time point.

Among the 16 255 participants included in the analyses, 8889 were female and 7366 were male. Among them, 541 participants reported past use of psychedelics, most of whom (535 of 541 [99%]) also reported past use of other drugs (ie, cannabis, stimulants, sedatives, opioids, inhalants, or performance enhancers). When adjusting for substance-specific and substance-aggregated drug use, psychedelic use was associated with reduced psychotic symptoms in both linear regression analyses (β, -0.79; 95% CI, -1.18 to -0.41 and β, -0.39; 95% CI, -0.50 to -0.27, respectively) and co-twin control analyses (β, -0.89; 95% CI, -1.61 to -0.16 and β, -0.24; 95% CI, -0.48 to -0.01, respectively). In relation to manic symptoms, likewise adjusting for substance-specific and substance-aggregated drug use, statistically significant interactions were found between psychedelic use and genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia (β, 0.17; 95% CI, 0.01 to 0.32 and β, 0.17; 95% CI, 0.02 to 0.32, respectively) or bipolar I disorder (β, 0.20; 95% CI, 0.04 to 0.36 and β, 0.17; 95% CI, 0.01 to 0.33, respectively).

The findings in this study suggest that, after adjusting for other drug use, naturalistic use of psychedelic may be associated with lower rates of psychotic symptoms among adolescents. At the same time, the association between psychedelic use and manic symptoms seems to be associated with genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia or bipolar I disorder. These findings should be considered in light of the study's limitations and should therefore be interpreted with caution.

Bright Light Therapy as Add-On to Inpatient Treatment in Youth With Moderate to Severe Depression: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

JAMA Psychiatry

Major depressive disorder is one of the most common mental disorders among adolescents, entailing severe, long-term psychosocial impairment and a high risk of chronicity. In view of the large number of patients requiring treatment, along with insufficient treatment responses with small effect sizes, innovative adjunctive treatment strategies are urgently needed.

To investigate whether the effect of adolescent psychiatric inpatient treatment as usual for major depressive disorder can be enhanced by simultaneous use of morning bright light therapy.

This was a double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized parallel-group trial with enrollment between March 2018 and November 2020 and follow-up completed in May 2021. The study took place among inpatients at 4 university hospitals for child and adolescent psychiatry across Germany. Of 248 eligible youth aged 12 to 18 years fulfilling ICD-10 criteria for major depressive disorder, 227 were randomized to bright light therapy (n = 116) or placebo red light (n = 111); 151 participants completed the study.

Up to 20 sessions of either morning bright light therapy with an intensity of 10 000 lux or placebo red light (100 lux) in addition to multimodal inpatient treatment as usual over 4 weeks.

The primary outcome was the change in Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) score from baseline to posttreatment in the intention-to-treat sample.

Among the 224 patients included in the intention-to-treat analyses (192 girls and 32 boys; mean [SD] age, 15.5 [1.4] years), the mean (SD) BDI-II score at baseline was 37.3 (8.7). BDI-II scores were significantly reduced after 4 weeks (postassessment) by a mean of -7.5 (95% CI, -9.0 to -6.0; Hedges g = 0.71). Bright light therapy had no impact on this change (no significant group × time effect). Loss to follow-up was 31% (n = 69) at 16 weeks and 49% (n = 110) at 28 weeks. There were 10 serious adverse events throughout the whole trial, which were not considered related to study treatment.

The findings in this study did not indicate superiority of bright light therapy over placebo red light therapy in a large sample of adolescent inpatients with moderate or severe major depressive disorder. Both groups benefited equally from treatment as usual, showing relevant symptom reduction.

German Clinical Trials Register: DRKS00013188.