Assessment on interoceptive awareness on alcohol use and gambling disorders reveals dissociable interoceptive abilities linked to external and internal dependencies: Practical use of Body Perception Questionnaire Very Short Form (BPQ-VSF) in clinical settings.

Interoception is one of the pivotal cognitive functions for mechanisms of our body awareness, and malfunction of the interoceptive network is thought to be associated with mental illness, including addiction. Within addictive disorders, substance-based and non-substance-based addictions are known to hold dissociable reward systems. However, little is known about how interoceptive awareness between these addiction sub-types would differ. Subjective interoceptive awareness was assessed among patients with alcohol use disorder (n = 50) who were subsequently hospitalized or remained out-patient and gambling addiction (n = 41) by the Body Awareness component of the Japanese version of the Body Perception Questionnaire (BPQ-VSFBA-J) and compared them against healthy control (n = 809). Both addiction groups showed significantly lower BPQ than the control, with no substantial differences between inpatients and outpatients for alcohol samples. Notably, BPQ scores for gambling patients were significantly lower than those for the alcohol group. This evidence may suggest a putative role of interoceptive ability on the severity of behavioral addiction over substance-based addiction.

A single site study to investigate the current prevalence of anti-hepatitis C virus antibody among substance use disorder patients in Hiroshima-Insufficient testing and diagnosis.

AIMS: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection among drug users presents an important public health problem; however, little recognition and few approaches to address this issue in Japan. This study was conducted to investigate the current disease status by assessing anti-HCV antibody (Ab) seroprevalence among people who inject drugs (PWIDs) and people who use drugs (PWUDs) in Hiroshima, Japan. METHODS: This study was a psychiatric single-site chart review in patients with drug abuse problems in the Hiroshima region. The primary outcome was anti-HCV Ab prevalence among PWIDs who underwent anti-HCV Ab testing. The secondary outcomes included the prevalence of anti-HCV Ab among PWUDs who underwent anti-HCV Ab testing and the proportion of patients who underwent anti-HCV Ab examination. RESULTS: A total of 222 PWUD patients were enrolled. Among these, 16 patients (7.2%) had records of injection drug use (PWIDs). Eleven (68.8%) of the 16 PWIDs received anti-HCV Ab tests, and 4 (36.4%, 4/11) were anti-HCV Ab-positive. Among 222 PWUDs, 126 (56.8%) patients received anti-HCV Ab tests, and 57 of these patients (45.2%, 57/126) were anti-HCV Ab-positive. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of anti-HCV Ab among PWIDs and PWUDs who visited the study site was higher than the general population, which was 2.2% among hospitalized patients between May 2018 and November 2019. Considering the World Health Organization's (WHO) elimination goal and recent advances in HCV treatment, patients with drug abuse experience should be encouraged to take HCV tests and consult hepatologists for further investigations and treatment if they are positive for anti-HCV Ab.

Risk factors for the onset of dependence and chronic psychosis due to cannabis use: Survey of patients with cannabis-related psychiatric disorders.

AIM: The objective of the current study was to identify risk factors that affect the onset of dependence and chronic psychosis due to cannabis use. METHODS: We examined clinical genetic factors, psychiatric disorders prior to cannabis use, starting age of cannabis use, duration and frequency of cannabis use, types of cannabis products used, combined use of other psychoactive substances, and the psychiatric diagnosis of 71 patients with cannabis-related psychiatric disorders who underwent treatment at nine mental health hospitals in Japan. Information was collected from cross-sectional interview surveys conducted by each patient's attending psychiatrist. RESULTS: For the diagnosis of dependence syndrome due to the use of cannabis, we found associations with the number of years of cannabis use and the use of cannabis products with a high Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content. However, we found no association between diagnosis of residual and late-onset psychotic disorders and clinical genetic factors, presence of preceding psychiatric disorders, duration and frequency of cannabis use, starting age of cannabis use, or combined use of other psychoactive substances; an association was found only for the absence of use of cannabis products other than dried cannabis. CONCLUSION: The onset of cannabis dependence was related to long-term cannabis use and the use of cannabis products with a high THC content. However, chronic psychosis was not associated with total THC intake or psychiatric vulnerability. Thus, unknown factors appear to be involved in the onset of chronic psychosis.

Lack of association between suicidal ideation and enhanced platelet 5-HT2A receptor-mediated calcium mobilization in cancer patients with depression.

BACKGROUND: Increased density of 5-HT2A receptors was observed in the platelets of depressive patients with suicidal ideation. Enhanced 5-HT2A receptor-mediated platelet calcium mobilization has been proposed as a biological marker for the pathophysiology of major depression in cancer patients as well as in physically healthy patients. To examine whether depressive cancer patients with suicidal ideation have enhanced 5-HT2A receptor-mediated platelet response compared with those without suicidal ideation, we compared 5-HT-induced platelet calcium mobilization in depressive cancer patients with and without suicidal ideation. METHODS: 5-HT-induced platelet calcium mobilization was examined in 24 cancer patients diagnosed as having major depression according to the DSM-IV criteria. Suicidal ideation was evaluated by the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale and Zung's Self Depression Scale, as well as by the DSM-IV criteria. RESULTS: There was no significant differences in 5-HT-induced platelet calcium response between the depressive cancer patients with (n = 8) and without suicidal ideation (n = 16). 5-HT-induced platelet calcium response was also not significantly associated with the severity of suicidal ideation or with the severity of depression assessed by Hamilton Depression Rating Scale and Zung's Self Depression Scale. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that enhanced 5-HT2A receptor-mediated response was not associated with suicidal ideation in cancer patients with depression.

The effects of antidepressant drug treatments on activator protein-1 binding activity in the rat brain.

Since a long-term administration of antidepressant drugs and mood stabilizers is required in the treatment of mood disorders, the regulation of gene expression by these drugs that is mediated by transcription factors, such as activator protein-1 (AP-1) complex, may play an important role in the therapeutic action. In this study, the authors investigated the influence of lithium, antidepressant drugs and stress on AP-1 binding activity in the rat brain. In addition, we examined pretreatment with these drugs on the expression of AP-1 binding activity in response to stress. A gel shift assay was used to measure the levels of AP-1 binding activity. Our results indicate that neither acute nor chronic treatment with antidepressant drugs affects in AP-1 binding activity in the rat frontal cortex or hippocampus. However, the authors found that acute restraint stress for 90 min upregulated the induction of AP-1 binding activity in the rat frontal cortex. In addition, chronic pretreatment with imipramine, but not lithium or paroxetine, downregulated the induction of AP-1 binding activity in response to acute restraint stress in the frontal cortex. The functional classification of antidepressant drugs based on the downregulation of restraint stress-induced AP-1 binding activity may contribute to the advances in our understanding of the pathogenesis of depression.