| 1. |
- Bauer, Michael, et al.
(författare)
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Association between solar insolation and a history of suicide attempts in bipolar I disorder.
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of psychiatric research. - : Elsevier BV. - 1879-1379 .- 0022-3956. ; 113, s. 1-9
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In many international studies, rates of completed suicide and suicide attempts have a seasonal pattern that peaks in spring or summer. This exploratory study investigated the association between solar insolation and a history of suicide attempt in patients with bipolar I disorder. Solar insolation is the amount of electromagnetic energy from the Sun striking a surface area on Earth. Data were collected previously from 5536 patients with bipolar I disorder at 50 collection sites in 32 countries at a wide range of latitudes in both hemispheres. Suicide related data were available for 3365 patients from 310 onset locations in 51 countries. 1047 (31.1%) had a history of suicide attempt. There was a significant inverse association between a history of suicide attempt and the ratio of mean winter solar insolation/mean summer solar insolation. This ratio is smallest near the poles where the winter insolation is very small compared to the summer insolation. This ratio is largest near the equator where there is relatively little variation in the insolation over the year. Other variables in the model that were positively associated with suicide attempt were being female, a history of alcohol or substance abuse, and being in a younger birth cohort. Living in a country with a state-sponsored religion decreased the association. (All estimated coefficients p<0.01). In summary, living in locations with large changes in solar insolation between winter and summer may be associated with increased suicide attempts in patients with bipolar disorder. Further investigation of the impacts of solar insolation on the course of bipolar disorder is needed.
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| 2. |
- de Erausquin, Gabriel A, et al.
(författare)
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Chronic neuropsychiatric sequelae of SARS-CoV-2: Protocol and methods from the Alzheimer's Association Global Consortium.
- 2022
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Ingår i: Alzheimer's & dementia (New York, N. Y.). - : Wiley. - 2352-8737. ; 8:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has caused >3.5 million deaths worldwide and affected >160 million people. At least twice as many have been infected but remained asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic. COVID-19 includes central nervous system manifestations mediated by inflammation and cerebrovascular, anoxic, and/or viral neurotoxicity mechanisms. More than one third of patients with COVID-19 develop neurologic problems during the acute phase of the illness, including loss of sense of smell or taste, seizures, and stroke. Damage or functional changes to the brain may result in chronic sequelae. The risk of incident cognitive and neuropsychiatric complications appears independent from the severity of the original pulmonary illness. It behooves the scientific and medical community to attempt to understand the molecular and/or systemic factors linking COVID-19 to neurologic illness, both short and long term.This article describes what is known so far in terms of links among COVID-19, the brain, neurological symptoms, and Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias. We focus on risk factors and possible molecular, inflammatory, and viral mechanisms underlying neurological injury. We also provide a comprehensive description of the Alzheimer's Association Consortium on Chronic Neuropsychiatric Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (CNS SC2) harmonized methodology to address these questions using a worldwide network of researchers and institutions.Successful harmonization of designs and methods was achieved through a consensus process initially fragmented by specific interest groups (epidemiology, clinical assessments, cognitive evaluation, biomarkers, and neuroimaging). Conclusions from subcommittees were presented to the whole group and discussed extensively. Presently data collection is ongoing at 19 sites in 12 countries representing Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe.The Alzheimer's Association Global Consortium harmonized methodology is proposed as a model to study long-term neurocognitive sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection.The following review describes what is known so far in terms of molecular and epidemiological links among COVID-19, the brain, neurological symptoms, and AD and related dementias (ADRD)The primary objective of this large-scale collaboration is to clarify the pathogenesis of ADRD and to advance our understanding of the impact of a neurotropic virus on the long-term risk of cognitive decline and other CNS sequelae. No available evidence supports the notion that cognitive impairment after SARS-CoV-2 infection is a form of dementia (ADRD or otherwise). The longitudinal methodologies espoused by the consortium are intended to provide data to answer this question as clearly as possible controlling for possible confounders. Our specific hypothesis is that SARS-CoV-2 triggers ADRD-like pathology following the extended olfactory cortical network (EOCN) in older individuals with specific genetic susceptibility.The proposed harmonization strategies and flexible study designs offer the possibility to include large samples of under-represented racial and ethnic groups, creating a rich set of harmonized cohorts for future studies of the pathophysiology, determinants, long-term consequences, and trends in cognitive aging, ADRD, and vascular disease.We provide a framework for current and future studies to be carried out within the Consortium. and offers a "green paper" to the research community with a very broad, global base of support, on tools suitable for low- and middle-income countries aimed to compare and combine future longitudinal data on the topic.The Consortium proposes a combination of design and statistical methods as a means of approaching causal inference of the COVID-19 neuropsychiatric sequelae. We expect that deep phenotyping of neuropsychiatric sequelae may provide a series of candidate syndromes with phenomenological and biological characterization that can be further explored. By generating high-quality harmonized data across sites we aim to capture both descriptive and, where possible, causal associations.
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| 3. |
- Preece, David A., et al.
(författare)
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Alexithymia and emotion regulation
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Affective Disorders. - : Elsevier. - 0165-0327 .- 1573-2517. ; 324, s. 232-238
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BackgroundAlexithymia is a key transdiagnostic risk factor for emotion-based psychopathologies. Conceptual models specify that this is because alexithymia impairs emotion regulation. However, the extent of these putative emotion regulation impairments remains underexplored. Our aim in this study was to begin to address this gap by examining whether people with high, average, or low levels of alexithymia differ in the types of emotion regulation strategies they typically use.MethodGeneral community adults from the United States (N = 501) completed a battery of alexithymia and emotion regulation measures. Participants were grouped into high, average, and low alexithymia quantiles.ResultsAfter controlling for demographics and current levels of distress, the high, average, and low alexithymia groups differed in their use of cognitive and behavioral emotion regulation strategies. Compared to the other groups, the high alexithymia group reported lesser use of generally adaptive regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal, approaching problems, and seeking social support) and greater use of generally maladaptive regulation strategies (expressive suppression, behavioral withdrawal, ignoring).LimitationsOur data were cross-sectional and from self-report questionnaires. Future work in other cultural groups would be beneficial.ConclusionsOur results support the view that alexithymia is associated with impaired emotion regulation. In particular, people with high alexithymia seem to exhibit a less adaptive profile of emotion regulation strategies. Direct targeting of these emotion regulation patterns in psychotherapy may therefore be a useful pathway for the treatment of emotional disorder symptoms in people with high alexithymia.
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| 4. |
- Preece, David A., et al.
(författare)
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The Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire-Short Form (PAQ-S) : A 6-item measure of alexithymia
- 2023
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Ingår i: Journal of Affective Disorders. - : Elsevier. - 0165-0327 .- 1573-2517. ; 325, s. 493-501
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Alexithymia is a trait characterized by difficulties identifying feelings, difficulties describing feelings, and externally orientated thinking. It is widely regarded as an important transdiagnostic risk factor for a range of psychopathologies, including depressive and anxiety disorders. Whilst several well-validated psychometric measures of alexithymia exist, these are relatively lengthy, thus limiting their utility in time-pressured settings. In this paper, we address this gap by introducing and validating a brief 6-item version of the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire, called the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire-Short Form (PAQ-S). METHOD: Across two studies with adult samples (Study 1 N = 508 United States community; Study 2 = 378 Australian college students), we examined the psychometric properties of the PAQ-S in terms of its factor structure, reliability, and concurrent/criterion validity. RESULTS: In exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, all PAQ-S items loaded well on a single general alexithymia factor. The PAQ-S total score had high reliability, and correlated as expected with the long-form of the PAQ, as well as other established markers of alexithymia, emotion regulation, and affective disorder symptoms. LIMITATIONS: Our samples were general community or college student samples from two Western countries; future validation work in clinical samples and more diverse cultural groups is thus needed. CONCLUSIONS: The PAQ-S retains the psychometric strengths of the PAQ. As such, the PAQ-S can be used as a quick, robust measure of overall alexithymia levels. The introduction of the PAQ-S hence enables valid assessments of alexithymia in a more diverse range of settings and research designs.
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