Dear colleagues,
It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the seventh issue of 2012.
In our first article Steiner et al. provide a review on the immune and glutamate hypotheses of schizophrenia and major depression. They concluded that further research is needed to verify that an impaired immune system and disturbances of glutamatergic transmission are involved in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia and major depression.
Goldberg and colleagues explored the familial vulnerability of intellectual impairments in early-onset and adult-onset schizophrenia spectrum disorders patients. Their findings provide evidence for a suggested existence of an illness subgroup within a continuum of psychopathology characterized by high familial loading associated with early-onset schizophrenia spectrum disorders.
Horacek et al. evaluated the influence of latent toxoplasmosis on brain morphology in patients with schizophrenia. Their results showed that latent toxoplasmosis reduces gray matter density in schizophrenic patients, but not in controls.
Baldwin and colleagues sought to provide an international survey on the prescribing practice of psychiatrists in the treatment of patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). According to the survey, patients with GAD had frequently been treated with benzodiazepines before the referral to a psychiatrist. Moreover, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) were preferred first-line treatment while SNRIs and pregabalin were preferred second-line treatments.
Riederer et al. investigated gray matter changes associated with medication overuse headache (MOH) by focussing on the pain and reward systems. They concluded that their findings are consistent with a dysfunction of antinociceptive systems in MOH and that the dysfunction of the reward system may be a neurobiological basis for dependence in a subgroup of MOH patients.
Demiralay and colleagues assessed the differential effects to cholecystokinin (CCK) receptor agonist CCK-4 induced panic by dexamethasone and hydrocortisone. Their findings suggest that the CCK-4 induced stress hormone release seems to be susceptible to cortisol-feedback inhibition while dexamethasone did not affect the CCK-4 induced adrenocorticotropin release.
Molendijk et al. examined gender specific associations of serum levels of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in anxiety. They concluded that due to the lower levels of BDNF in female patients, BDNF might play a role in the pathophysiology of anxiety in women.
Ettinger and colleagues explored the brain structure and psychometric schizotypy in healthy individuals. Their findings show that psychometric schizotypy in healthy individuals may be associated with volume reductions in cortical areas known to be altered in schizophrenia, thereby providing neurobiological evidence of a continuum between schizotypy and schizophrenia.
Gilks et al. present a short report on a functional investigation of a schizophrenia genome-wide association study (GWAS) signal at the cell division cycle 42 (CDC42) gene. The authors found evidence that rs2473307 is a functional variant at CDC42 that may increase the risk for schizophrenia by reducing the expression of CDC42.
Yours sincerely,
Siegfried Kasper, MD
Chief Editor