Dynamics of Depressive and Psychomotor Symptoms During Electroconvulsive Therapy in Older Depressive Patients: A Case Series.

OBJECTIVE: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an effective treatment for patients experiencing a major depressive episode, especially older ones. Identification of specific responses within early ECT sessions remains an issue of debate, however. Hence, this pilot study prospectively examined the outcome in terms of depressive signs, symptom by symptom, throughout a course of ECT, concentrating particularly on psychomotor retardation symptoms. METHODS: Nine patients were clinically evaluated several times during the ECT course, before the first session and then weekly (over 3-6 weeks, according to their evolution), by completing the Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), the Mini-Mental State Examination test, and the French Retardation Rating Scale for Depression for assessing the severity of psychomotor retardation. RESULTS: Nonparametric Friedman tests showed significant positive changes in mood disorders during ECT in older depressive patients (mean, -27.3% of initial MADRS total score). Fast improvement in French Retardation Rating Scale for Depression score was observed at t1 (ie, after 3-4 ECT sessions), whereas a slightly delayed improvement in the MADRS scores was found at t2 (ie, after 5-6 ECT sessions). Moreover, the scores for items linked to the motor component of psychomotor retardation (eg, gait, postural control, fatigability) were the first to significantly decrease during the first 2 weeks of the ECT course compared with the cognitive component. CONCLUSIONS: Interestingly, participants' concentration on daily functional activities, their interest and fatigability, and their reported state of sadness were the first to progress, representing possible precursor signs of positive patient outcomes after ECT.

Using polygenic scores and clinical data for bipolar disorder patient stratification and lithium response prediction: machine learning approach.

BACKGROUND: Response to lithium in patients with bipolar disorder is associated with clinical and transdiagnostic genetic factors. The predictive combination of these variables might help clinicians better predict which patients will respond to lithium treatment. AIMS: To use a combination of transdiagnostic genetic and clinical factors to predict lithium response in patients with bipolar disorder. METHOD: This study utilised genetic and clinical data (n = 1034) collected as part of the International Consortium on Lithium Genetics (ConLi+Gen) project. Polygenic risk scores (PRS) were computed for schizophrenia and major depressive disorder, and then combined with clinical variables using a cross-validated machine-learning regression approach. Unimodal, multimodal and genetically stratified models were trained and validated using ridge, elastic net and random forest regression on 692 patients with bipolar disorder from ten study sites using leave-site-out cross-validation. All models were then tested on an independent test set of 342 patients. The best performing models were then tested in a classification framework. RESULTS: The best performing linear model explained 5.1% (P = 0.0001) of variance in lithium response and was composed of clinical variables, PRS variables and interaction terms between them. The best performing non-linear model used only clinical variables and explained 8.1% (P = 0.0001) of variance in lithium response. A priori genomic stratification improved non-linear model performance to 13.7% (P = 0.0001) and improved the binary classification of lithium response. This model stratified patients based on their meta-polygenic loadings for major depressive disorder and schizophrenia and was then trained using clinical data. CONCLUSIONS: Using PRS to first stratify patients genetically and then train machine-learning models with clinical predictors led to large improvements in lithium response prediction. When used with other PRS and biological markers in the future this approach may help inform which patients are most likely to respond to lithium treatment.

HLA-DRB1 and HLA-DQB1 genetic diversity modulates response to lithium in bipolar affective disorders.

Bipolar affective disorder (BD) is a severe psychiatric illness, for which lithium (Li) is the gold standard for acute and maintenance therapies. The therapeutic response to Li in BD is heterogeneous and reliable biomarkers allowing patients stratification are still needed. A GWAS performed by the International Consortium on Lithium Genetics (ConLiGen) has recently identified genetic markers associated with treatment responses to Li in the human leukocyte antigens (HLA) region. To better understand the molecular mechanisms underlying this association, we have genetically imputed the classical alleles of the HLA region in the European patients of the ConLiGen cohort. We found our best signal for amino-acid variants belonging to the HLA-DRB1*11:01 classical allele, associated with a better response to Li (p < 1 × 10-3; FDR < 0.09 in the recessive model). Alanine or Leucine at position 74 of the HLA-DRB1 heavy chain was associated with a good response while Arginine or Glutamic acid with a poor response. As these variants have been implicated in common inflammatory/autoimmune processes, our findings strongly suggest that HLA-mediated low inflammatory background may contribute to the efficient response to Li in BD patients, while an inflammatory status overriding Li anti-inflammatory properties would favor a weak response.

Association of polygenic score for major depression with response to lithium in patients with bipolar disorder.

Lithium is a first-line medication for bipolar disorder (BD), but only one in three patients respond optimally to the drug. Since evidence shows a strong clinical and genetic overlap between depression and bipolar disorder, we investigated whether a polygenic susceptibility to major depression is associated with response to lithium treatment in patients with BD. Weighted polygenic scores (PGSs) were computed for major depression (MD) at different GWAS p value thresholds using genetic data obtained from 2586 bipolar patients who received lithium treatment and took part in the Consortium on Lithium Genetics (ConLi+Gen) study. Summary statistics from genome-wide association studies in MD (135,458 cases and 344,901 controls) from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) were used for PGS weighting. Response to lithium treatment was defined by continuous scores and categorical outcome (responders versus non-responders) using measurements on the Alda scale. Associations between PGSs of MD and lithium treatment response were assessed using a linear and binary logistic regression modeling for the continuous and categorical outcomes, respectively. The analysis was performed for the entire cohort, and for European and Asian sub-samples. The PGSs for MD were significantly associated with lithium treatment response in multi-ethnic, European or Asian populations, at various p value thresholds. Bipolar patients with a low polygenic load for MD were more likely to respond well to lithium, compared to those patients with high polygenic load [lowest vs highest PGS quartiles, multi-ethnic sample: OR = 1.54 (95% CI: 1.18-2.01) and European sample: OR = 1.75 (95% CI: 1.30-2.36)]. While our analysis in the Asian sample found equivalent effect size in the same direction: OR = 1.71 (95% CI: 0.61-4.90), this was not statistically significant. Using PGS decile comparison, we found a similar trend of association between a high genetic loading for MD and lower response to lithium. Our findings underscore the genetic contribution to lithium response in BD and support the emerging concept of a lithium-responsive biotype in BD.

An examination of the quality and performance of the Alda scale for classifying lithium response phenotypes.

OBJECTIVES: The Retrospective Assessment of the Lithium Response Phenotype Scale (Alda scale) is the most widely used clinical measure of lithium response phenotypes. We assess its performance against recommended psychometric and clinimetric standards. METHODS: We used data from the Consortium for Lithium Genetics and a French study of lithium response phenotypes (combined sample >2500) to assess reproducibility, responsiveness, validity, and interpretability of the A scale (assessing change in illness activity), the B scale, and its items (assessing confounders of response) and the previously established response categories derived from the Total Score for the Alda scale. RESULTS: The key findings are that the B scale is vulnerable to error measurement. For example, some items contribute little to overall performance of the Alda scale (eg, B2) and that the B scale does not reliably assess a single construct (uncertainty in response). Machine learning models indicate that it may be more useful to employ an algorithm for combining the ratings of individual B items in a sequence that clarifies the noise to signal ratio instead of using a composite score. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights three important topics. First, empirical approaches can help determine which aspects of the performance of any scale can be improved. Second, the B scale of the Alda is best applied as a multidimensional index (identifying several independent confounders of the assessment of response). Third, an integrated science approach to precision psychiatry is vital, otherwise phenotypic misclassifications will undermine the reliability and validity of findings from genetics and biomarker studies.

Investigating polygenic burden in age at disease onset in bipolar disorder: Findings from an international multicentric study.

OBJECTIVES: Bipolar disorder (BD) with early disease onset is associated with an unfavorable clinical outcome and constitutes a clinically and biologically homogenous subgroup within the heterogeneous BD spectrum. Previous studies have found an accumulation of early age at onset (AAO) in BD families and have therefore hypothesized that there is a larger genetic contribution to the early-onset cases than to late onset BD. To investigate the genetic background of this subphenotype, we evaluated whether an increased polygenic burden of BD- and schizophrenia (SCZ)-associated risk variants is associated with an earlier AAO in BD patients. METHODS: A total of 1995 BD type 1 patients from the Consortium of Lithium Genetics (ConLiGen), PsyCourse and Bonn-Mannheim samples were genotyped and their BD and SCZ polygenic risk scores (PRSs) were calculated using the summary statistics of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium as a training data set. AAO was either separated into onset groups of clinical interest (childhood and adolescence [≤18 years] vs adulthood [>18 years]) or considered as a continuous measure. The associations between BD- and SCZ-PRSs and AAO were evaluated with regression models. RESULTS: BD- and SCZ-PRSs were not significantly associated with age at disease onset. Results remained the same when analyses were stratified by site of recruitment. CONCLUSIONS: The current study is the largest conducted so far to investigate the association between the cumulative BD and SCZ polygenic risk and AAO in BD patients. The reported negative results suggest that such a polygenic influence, if there is any, is not large, and highlight the importance of conducting further, larger scale studies to obtain more information on the genetic architecture of this clinically relevant phenotype.

A study in the general population about sadness to disentangle the continuum from well-being to depressive disorders.

OBJECTIVE: Sadness is both a common experience in general population and one of the main criteria of major depressive disorder (MDD). We tested the hypothesis of a depressive continuum using sadness as an intermediate experience between well-being and disorder. METHODS: A French cross-sectional Mental Health survey in General Population interviewed 38,694 individuals. We examined prevalences and compared sociodemographic correlates and psychiatric disorders of individuals in 3 independent groups 1) MDD, 2) sadness without MDD, and 3) controls. RESULTS: The prevalence of sadness was of 29.8% in the whole sample and of 93% in subjects suffering from MDD (n = 4976). The "sadness" group shared the same sociodemographic patterns as the "MDD" group. All psychiatric disorders assessed (i.e. bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, alcohol use disorder, psychotic disorder and suicide attempts) were significantly associated with both "sadness" and "MDD" groups compared to "controls". Individuals with sadness, compared to those with MDD, were significantly less likely to meet the criteria for all psychiatric disorders. MDD's sensitivity of sadness was 94,2%. LIMITATIONS: Even though we used a quota sampling method, the sample was not strictly representative of the general population. CONCLUSION: Sadness validates the depressive continuum hypothesis, since it is more frequent in the general population than MDD itself and at the same time shares with MDD the same sociodemographic and clinical correlates. A gradual association from controls to MDD was observed for psychiatric comorbidities. Finally, the high sensitivity of sadness may suggest its use to screen at-risk individuals converting from well-being to full psychiatric disorders.

Association of Polygenic Score for Schizophrenia and HLA Antigen and Inflammation Genes With Response to Lithium in Bipolar Affective Disorder: A Genome-Wide Association Study.

Importance: Lithium is a first-line mood stabilizer for the treatment of bipolar affective disorder (BPAD). However, the efficacy of lithium varies widely, with a nonresponse rate of up to 30%. Biological response markers are lacking. Genetic factors are thought to mediate treatment response to lithium, and there is a previously reported genetic overlap between BPAD and schizophrenia (SCZ). Objectives: To test whether a polygenic score for SCZ is associated with treatment response to lithium in BPAD and to explore the potential molecular underpinnings of this association. Design, Setting, and Participants: A total of 2586 patients with BPAD who had undergone lithium treatment were genotyped and assessed for long-term response to treatment between 2008 and 2013. Weighted SCZ polygenic scores were computed at different P value thresholds using summary statistics from an international multicenter genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 36 989 individuals with SCZ and genotype data from patients with BPAD from the Consortium on Lithium Genetics. For functional exploration, a cross-trait meta-GWAS and pathway analysis was performed, combining GWAS summary statistics on SCZ and response to treatment with lithium. Data analysis was performed from September 2016 to February 2017. Main Outcomes and Measures: Treatment response to lithium was defined on both the categorical and continuous scales using the Retrospective Criteria of Long-Term Treatment Response in Research Subjects with Bipolar Disorder score. The effect measures include odds ratios and the proportion of variance explained. Results: Of the 2586 patients in the study (mean [SD] age, 47.2 [13.9] years), 1478 were women and 1108 were men. The polygenic score for SCZ was inversely associated with lithium treatment response in the categorical outcome, at a threshold P < 5 × 10-2. Patients with BPAD who had a low polygenic load for SCZ responded better to lithium, with odds ratios for lithium response ranging from 3.46 (95% CI, 1.42-8.41) at the first decile to 2.03 (95% CI, 0.86-4.81) at the ninth decile, compared with the patients in the 10th decile of SCZ risk. In the cross-trait meta-GWAS, 15 genetic loci that may have overlapping effects on lithium treatment response and susceptibility to SCZ were identified. Functional pathway and network analysis of these loci point to the HLA antigen complex and inflammatory cytokines. Conclusions and Relevance: This study provides evidence for a negative association between high genetic loading for SCZ and poor response to lithium in patients with BPAD. These results suggest the potential for translational research aimed at personalized prescribing of lithium.

Clinical factors associated with lithium response in bipolar disorders.

BACKGROUND: Bipolar disorder is a common chronic illness characterized by high levels of morbidity and all-cause mortality. Lithium is one of the gold standard mood stabilizer treatments, but the identification of good, partial and non-responders in clinical settings is inconsistent. METHODS: We used an established rating scale (the Alda scale) to classify the degree of lithium response (good response, partial response, non-response) in a large, multicentre clinically representative sample of well-characterized cases of bipolar disorders I and II. Next, we examined previously reported clinical predictors of response to determine which factors significantly differentiated between the three response groups. RESULTS: Of 754 cases, 300 received lithium, for at least 6 months, as a treatment for bipolar disorder (40%). Of these cases, 17% were classified as good response, 52% as partial response and 31% as non-response. Lifetime history of mixed episodes ( p = 0.017) and alcohol use disorders ( p = 0.015) both occurred in >20% of partial response and non-response groups but <10% of good response cases. Family history of bipolar disorder I was of borderline statistical significance, being more frequent in the good response group (38%) compared with the non-response group (18%). There was a trend ( p = 0.06) for bipolar disorder II to be associated with non-response. CONCLUSIONS: Only three factors previously identified as predictors of lithium response significantly differentiated the response groups identified in our sample. Interestingly, these factors have all been found to co-occur more often than expected by chance, and it can be hypothesized that they may represent a shared underlying factor or dimension. Further prospective studies of predictors and the performance of the Alda scale are recommended.

Genome-wide association study of 40,000 individuals identifies two novel loci associated with bipolar disorder.

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a genetically complex mental illness characterized by severe oscillations of mood and behaviour. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified several risk loci that together account for a small portion of the heritability. To identify additional risk loci, we performed a two-stage meta-analysis of >9 million genetic variants in 9,784 bipolar disorder patients and 30,471 controls, the largest GWAS of BD to date. In this study, to increase power we used ∼2,000 lithium-treated cases with a long-term diagnosis of BD from the Consortium on Lithium Genetics, excess controls, and analytic methods optimized for markers on the X-chromosome. In addition to four known loci, results revealed genome-wide significant associations at two novel loci: an intergenic region on 9p21.3 (rs12553324, P = 5.87 × 10 - 9; odds ratio (OR) = 1.12) and markers within ERBB2 (rs2517959, P = 4.53 × 10 - 9; OR = 1.13). No significant X-chromosome associations were detected and X-linked markers explained very little BD heritability. The results add to a growing list of common autosomal variants involved in BD and illustrate the power of comparing well-characterized cases to an excess of controls in GWAS.

Genetic variants associated with response to lithium treatment in bipolar disorder: a genome-wide association study.

BACKGROUND: Lithium is a first-line treatment in bipolar disorder, but individual response is variable. Previous studies have suggested that lithium response is a heritable trait. However, no genetic markers of treatment response have been reproducibly identified. METHODS: Here, we report the results of a genome-wide association study of lithium response in 2563 patients collected by 22 participating sites from the International Consortium on Lithium Genetics (ConLiGen). Data from common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were tested for association with categorical and continuous ratings of lithium response. Lithium response was measured using a well established scale (Alda scale). Genotyped SNPs were used to generate data at more than 6 million sites, using standard genomic imputation methods. Traits were regressed against genotype dosage. Results were combined across two batches by meta-analysis. FINDINGS: A single locus of four linked SNPs on chromosome 21 met genome-wide significance criteria for association with lithium response (rs79663003, p=1·37 × 10(-8); rs78015114, p=1·31 × 10(-8); rs74795342, p=3·31 × 10(-9); and rs75222709, p=3·50 × 10(-9)). In an independent, prospective study of 73 patients treated with lithium monotherapy for a period of up to 2 years, carriers of the response-associated alleles had a significantly lower rate of relapse than carriers of the alternate alleles (p=0·03268, hazard ratio 3·8, 95% CI 1·1-13·0). INTERPRETATION: The response-associated region contains two genes for long, non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), AL157359.3 and AL157359.4. LncRNAs are increasingly appreciated as important regulators of gene expression, particularly in the CNS. Confirmed biomarkers of lithium response would constitute an important step forward in the clinical management of bipolar disorder. Further studies are needed to establish the biological context and potential clinical utility of these findings. FUNDING: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, National Institute of Mental Health Intramural Research Program.

Are empty methadone bottles empty? An analytic study.

BACKGROUND: Methadone maintenance treatment is the most widely prescribed treatment for opiate dependence with proven benefits for patients. In naïve users or in case of recreational misuse, methadone can be a source of potentially lethal intoxications, resulting in fatal overdoses. A few cases of infantile intoxications have been described in the literature, some of which resulted in death. Nowadays, more than 50,000 bottles are used every day in France, most of which are thrown away in the bin. Relatives at home, especially children, can have access to these empty bottles. This study aims to determine whether the residual quantity of methadone in the bottles is associated with a risk of intoxication for someone who has a low tolerance to opiates, such as a child. METHODS: The methadone dosage left in a sample of 175 bottles recapped after use by the patients taking their maintenance treatment in an addiction treatment program centre was analysed during a 2-week period in March 2013. RESULTS: The mean residual quantity of methadone left in each bottle after use is 1.9 ± 1.8 mg and 3.3 ± 2.4 mg in the sample of 60 mg bottles. CONCLUSIONS: There is a potential danger of accidental overdose with empty bottles of methadone syrup, especially for children. To take into account this hazard, several harm reduction strategies can be proposed, such as favouring the taking of the treatment within the delivery centres rather than the 'take home' doses, asking methadone users to bring back their used bottles, and raising patients' awareness of the intoxication risks and the necessary everyday precautions. For stable patients with take home methadone, the use of capsules could be considered.

Memory deficits in late-onset schizophrenia.

Late-onset schizophrenia (LOS) is a controversial diagnosis, mainly characterized by more positive symptoms and less deterioration. LOS could be considered as either an extreme of typical schizophrenia (but for old age patients, and short duration of the disorder), or an independent group of patients with a specific diagnosis, with no clear evidence in favor or against any of these hypotheses. The aim of the present study is to characterize the memory cognitive profile of LOS patients without related organic factors (N=25), compared to early-onset schizophrenic patients (EOS, N=44), matched for the duration of the disorder, and healthy controls (HC, N=23), matched for the age of patients. Lifetime clinical symptoms and functioning were collected using the DIGS and the PANSS, and components of memory capacity were assessed with the Forward and Backward Digit Span Tasks, Rey Complex Figure and Verbal Fluency Tests. LOS patients were performing significantly better than EOS patients on the digit span task, Rey's complex figure at T1 score and phonemic verbal fluency. However, LOS had significantly lower performances than healthy controls on the digit span task and on both verbal fluency tests. This study provides evidence that LOS had intermediate outcome compared to EOS and controls. LOS can therefore be in line with a dimensional clinical approach of schizophrenia, whereby it presents few memory deficits and few disorganization and negative symptoms with mostly positive symptoms and possibly etiopathogenic specificities. Further studies including more specific memory assessment tests and larger samples are needed to confirm the present finding.

Law & psychiatry: the evolution of laws regulating psychiatric commitment in France.

This column reviews the evolution of French laws governing psychiatric commitment, culminating in the July 2011 Act, which was opposed by most professional organizations. The 2011 Act has maintained the two traditional French approaches to involuntary treatment: at the request of a third person and upon a decision by a prefect representing the government. However, the 2011 Act introduced major innovations into French practices: systematic review by a judge, a 72-hour observation period, and the possibility of compulsory community treatment.

Assessment of Response to Lithium Maintenance Treatment in Bipolar Disorder: A Consortium on Lithium Genetics (ConLiGen) Report.

OBJECTIVE: The assessment of response to lithium maintenance treatment in bipolar disorder (BD) is complicated by variable length of treatment, unpredictable clinical course, and often inconsistent compliance. Prospective and retrospective methods of assessment of lithium response have been proposed in the literature. In this study we report the key phenotypic measures of the "Retrospective Criteria of Long-Term Treatment Response in Research Subjects with Bipolar Disorder" scale currently used in the Consortium on Lithium Genetics (ConLiGen) study. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-nine ConLiGen sites took part in a two-stage case-vignette rating procedure to examine inter-rater agreement [Kappa (κ)] and reliability [intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC)] of lithium response. Annotated first-round vignettes and rating guidelines were circulated to expert research clinicians for training purposes between the two stages. Further, we analyzed the distributional properties of the treatment response scores available for 1,308 patients using mixture modeling. RESULTS: Substantial and moderate agreement was shown across sites in the first and second sets of vignettes (κ = 0.66 and κ = 0.54, respectively), without significant improvement from training. However, definition of response using the A score as a quantitative trait and selecting cases with B criteria of 4 or less showed an improvement between the two stages (ICC1 = 0.71 and ICC2 = 0.75, respectively). Mixture modeling of score distribution indicated three subpopulations (full responders, partial responders, non responders). CONCLUSIONS: We identified two definitions of lithium response, one dichotomous and the other continuous, with moderate to substantial inter-rater agreement and reliability. Accurate phenotypic measurement of lithium response is crucial for the ongoing ConLiGen pharmacogenomic study.

Relapsing-remitting behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia in a bipolar patient.

We report the case of a bipolar I patient who was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia at the age of 54 during a manic episode. Her neurological state improved when this episode ended. Each subsequent thymic relapse was associated with cognitive deficits which subsided when the patient became euthymic, even though SPECT continued to show the same frontal hypoperfusion. We here discuss the hypothesis that the cognitive reserve of this patient, a former journalist, may, except during her mood episodes, have provided her with sufficient resources to meet her life demands despite her underlying neurological disorder.