Dear colleagues,
It is my great pleasure to introduce to you the eighth issue of 2019.
Tang and colleagues review the psychopharmacology and neuroscience-based nomenclature (NbN) for herbal medicine for psychiatric disorders. Literature research revealed that terminology and concepts in herbal medicine are generally not familiar to psychiatrists. The authors suggest that applying the NbN would facilitate the understanding of the use of herbal medicine in psychiatry.
Tsou et al. investigated the DRD2 and ANKK1 genes and their association with late-onset heroin dependence (HD) in men. An association between HD and several DRD2/ANKK1 polymorphisms has been observed, which was most notable in the late-onset HD subgroup. The polymorphisms however did not associate with specific personality traits in HD patients and controls.
Turner and colleagues assessed the pharmacological treatment of patients with paraphilic disorders and risk of sexual offending. Although pharmacological agents can be seen as an intrusion into a patients’ sexual self-determination, results indicate that ethical and clinical standards are being met in the majority of cases. However, further promotion of current WFSBP treatment guidelines would help to standardise practice across North American and European countries.
Maier et al. examined excessive bodybuilding as pathology. No task-related differences between the bodybuilders vs. healthy controls in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) have been found, but a significantly higher activation in bodybuilders in the primary somatosensory cortex (PSC) and left hemispheric supplementary motor area (SMA) while watching body pictures as compared to the control group.
Kopf and colleagues investigated neural correlates of response inhibition in patients with bipolar disorder during acute vs. remitted phase. Increased impulsivity as indexed by higher stop signal reaction time for patients in their depressed phase has been found, while remitted patients did not differ from controls in any measure. Depressed patients did not show any significant differences in brain activation, while the remitted group displayed significantly decreased activation in bilateral prefrontal cortex during successful inhibition.
Kalsi and associates assessed the neurophysiological correlate of emotional regulation in cognitive and motor deficits in Tourette’s syndrome (TS). Children with TS have been found to process emotions, especially anger, differently from healthy controls. The authors also suggest that its regulation seems to have an important role in the cognitive and motor deficits in TS.
Rumbold-Bruehl and associates report that lower heart rate variability at baseline is associated with more consecutive intrusive memories in an experimental distressing film paradigm. Higher baseline low-frequency/high-frequency (LF/HF) ratio predicts intrusive memories in healthy women after watching a distressing film and suggests that woman with lower baseline HF and higher LF/HF ratio recover at a slower rate by showing a delayed decrease in intrusive memories. The results suggest that lower baseline heart rate variability before a trauma might be a vulnerability factor for subsequent intrusive memories.
Yours sincerely,
Dan Rujescu, MD
Chief Editor