Changes in cognitive function associated with syndrome changes on two five-factor models of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to examine the association between neuropsychological function and symptom changes over time on two five-factor models, pentagonal (PM) and Van der Gaag (VDG), of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and to determine the added value of these syndrome models for interpreting neuropsychological changes. METHODS: Data were collected in a randomized controlled trial comparing second-generation and conventional antipsychotic medications for 108 adult patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and monitored prospectively for 12 months using standard neuropsychological instruments and the PANSS. Random-effects regression was used to estimate the change over time in neuropsychological function and the association of PANSS covariates. RESULTS: Improvements in positive, negative, and cognitive syndromes were significant predictors of change on nine neuropsychological measures. The neuropsychological function was worsening on five of these measures. The PM model represented the best set of predictors examining positive and negative syndrome covariates, whereas the VDG model consistently represented the best predictors examining cognitive syndrome covariates. CONCLUSIONS: The PM positive and negative syndrome factors and the VDG disorganized thoughts syndrome factor are differentially associated with changes in neuropsychological function over time. Clinical investigators may want to target their use of these factors from the PANSS according to the outcome variables being measured.

Anton's syndrome due to a giant anterior fossa meningioma. The problem of routine use of advanced diagnostic imaging in psychiatric care.

We present a case of blindness and Anton's syndrome in a psychiatric patient with late diagnosis of a giant frontal meningioma. The criteria for advanced diagnostic imaging in the psychiatric population are discussed. We conclude that MR or CT scan is indicated in psychiatric in-patients who fail to improve with standard psychiatric treatment. This strategy should be submitted to a cost-benefit analysis.

Inoculación de embriones de pollo con líquido céfalo-raquídeo de pacientes esquizofrénicos: estudio inmuno-electromicroscópico / Inoculation of chicken embryos with cerebrospinal fluid from schizophrenic patients: inmuno-electron microscope study

La hipótesis viral de la esquizofrenia se ha considerado entre las posibles etiologías de la enfermedad. Diferentes intentos de transmisión experimental en animales de laboratorio y en cultivos de tejido usando inóculos procedentes de muestras de pacientes se han reportado desde principios del siglo pasado. En el presente trabajo se dan a conocer los resultados obtenidos del estudio inmunoelectromicroscópico en muestras de cerebros de embriones de pollo inoculados con líquido cefalorraquídeo de una paciente esquizofrénica hebefrénica. Los resultados obtenidos son similares a los observados en estudios previos en cerebros de esquizofrénicos adultos fallecidos y en cerebros abortados de fetos de madres esquizofrénicas. Estos resultados se relacionan con la presencia de partículas y con un fenómeno de replicación anormal de membranas en el sistema nervioso de los embriones inoculados. La presencia de antígeno del virus herpes simplex hominis tipo I (HSV-1) en partículas y en estructuras de membrana en las muestras observadas constituye un elemento a favor de la hipótesis viral lenta planteada para la enfermedad por este virus. Se comparan los resultados obtenidos con los de otros autores usando la mismas técnicas de inoculación

Inoculación de embriones de pollo con líquido céfalo-raquídeo de pacientes esquizofrénicos: estudio inmuno-electromicroscópico / Inoculation of chicken embryos with cerebrospinal fluid from schizophrenic patients: inmuno-electron microscope study

La hipótesis viral de la esquizofrenia se ha considerado entre las posibles etiologías de la enfermedad. Diferentes intentos de transmisión experimental en animales de laboratorio y en cultivos de tejido usando inóculos procedentes de muestras de pacientes se han reportado desde principios del siglo pasado. En el presente trabajo se dan a conocer los resultados obtenidos del estudio inmunoelectromicroscópico en muestras de cerebros de embriones de pollo inoculados con líquido cefalorraquídeo de una paciente esquizofrénica hebefrénica. Los resultados obtenidos son similares a los observados en estudios previos en cerebros de esquizofrénicos adultos fallecidos y en cerebros abortados de fetos de madres esquizofrénicas. Estos resultados se relacionan con la presencia de partículas y con un fenómeno de replicación anormal de membranas en el sistema nervioso de los embriones inoculados. La presencia de antígeno del virus herpes simplex hominis tipo I (HSV-1) en partículas y en estructuras de membrana en las muestras observadas constituye un elemento a favor de la hipótesis viral lenta planteada para la enfermedad por este virus. Se comparan los resultados obtenidos con los de otros autores usando la mismas técnicas de inoculación(AU)

Psychiatric features of adult GM2 gangliosidosis.

The report describes three unrelated Ashkenazi Jewish women with adult GM2 gangliosidosis in whom mental symptoms were prominent, mimicking different psychiatric disorders, and thus delaying accurate diagnosis.

Seasonality of schizophrenic births in the United States.

The birth months of persons later diagnosed as schizophrenic were studied. Data were collected from 19 states on 53,584 schizophrenics born between 1920 and 1955. The controls were the general births in the same states for the same years. A highly significant peak in schizophrenic births was found from December to May, most marked in March and April. The seasonality was stronger in New England and the Midwest than in the South. Previous studies of schizophrenic births are also reviewed. The cumulative evidence would appear to establish more firmly a winter and spring seasonality of schizophrenic births in northern Europe and the eastern United States. Selection of patients, nutritional factors, environmental factors, genetic factors, and infectious agents are discussed as possible etiological explanations.

[Concept determination and classification of the so-called epileptic psychoses]. / Begriffsbestimmung und Einteilung der sog. epileptischen Psychosen.

Some concepts and classifications of the epileptic psychoses are discussed with special regard to their capacity of being integrated into a multiconditionel view. In epileptics, too, the term of "psychosis" should no longer be connected to the axiom of the somatic origin of the psychic syndrome. The term of "twilight state" should be reserved to those among the epileptic psychoses which go along with troubles of consciousness. The socalled episodic morbid moods of the epileptics are no more merely to be understood as psychoses of somatic origin. They may as well develop as a psychic reaction. If one conceptualizes the psychic troubles of the epileptics as "transient syndrome" (Durchgangssyndrom), as functional psychosis, or as psychosyndrome originating from local or diffuse brain damage, their classification must be limited to the undoubtedly somatogenic psychoses. The term of "epileptic psychosis", however, includes the somatogenic, endogenic, as well as the psychogenic psychoses of the patients with epilepsy. The question of the psychogenesis of schizophrenia-like, maniac or depressive psychoses in epileptics until now cannot be answered because the psychosocial patterns which might condition them have not jet been investigated upon. Anyhow, the exclusive psychogenesis of a schizophrenialike epileptic psychosis leaves to be proved.