Successful ECT in an adolescent with catatonia and psychosis due to COVID-19.

This case report highlights the use of ECT in an adolescent patient with a COVID-19 infection, which is an area of limited data. The patient received a full course of bitemporal ECT, with a total of 15 treatments administered over four months. The patient responded robustly, with a complete return to her pre-infection baseline mental status, and response has remained durable for one-year post continuation phase ECT taper. Maintenance ECT considerations for catatonia should be determined on a case-by-case basis but was not needed for our patient, given the durability of the response to ECT.

Chrysalis.

Description This poem explores the experience of being an Asian American care provider and civilian, growing up and trying to mesh together culture with "fitting in" and suffering racism from other individuals and patients. It was inspired by the March 16, 2021, shootings in Atlanta and discusses the origin of hatred and racism/xenophobia. What I hope this conveys is a glimpse into the shared perspectives of many Asian American and Pacific Islanders and describes the optimism moving forward as we begin to tackle these issues.

Soar: A Glimpse of Hope During the Pandemic.

Description This original watercolor and ink painting features a cardinal with its wings spread against a blue sky. The cardinal symbolizes pivotal moments, and we as a nation find ourselves at a pivotal moment with regards to our handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The bird with its wings spread against the sky gives a vision of anticipation. These feelings of hope and anticipation mimic those that many are starting to feel as vaccine distribution has ramped up. Health workers should take a moment to acknowledge this extraordinary state that we have reached while continuing our care and following CDC guidelines. We hope that we will soar into a new tomorrow where we are able to tackle the pandemic and we appreciate that we are allowed a glimpse of hope into a return to normal.

A Moment of Peace: An Artistic Representation of the Influence of Healthcare on Social Disruption.

Description This original pen-and-ink artwork features a lily on the water symbolizing peace. As war, distrust, chaos and coups wreak havoc throughout many developing nations, healthcare workers and public health officials should be encouraged that we do in fact have a part to play in managing the human health affected by the disruption. Health work can provide a zone of comfort, spread solidarity and understanding, and manage the human toll of war. Healthcare workers have major roles in peace-keeping efforts as a result of these determinations and their impact on peace should be acknowledged and lauded. We hope that as we move forward, we can continue to improve and create positive healthcare outcomes through our public health and social work initiatives.

Functional connectivity, behavioral and dopaminergic alterations 24 hours following acute exposure to synthetic bath salt drug methylenedioxypyrovalerone.

Among cathinone drugs known as bath salts, methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) exerts its potent actions via the dopamine (DA) system, and at intoxicating doses may produce adverse behavioral effects. Previous work by our group suggests that prolonged alterations in correlated neural activity between cortical and striatal areas could underlie, at least in part, the adverse reactions to this bath salt drug. In the present study, we assessed the effect of acute MDPV administration on brain functional connectivity at 1 and 24 h in rats. Using graph theory metrics to assess in vivo brain functional network organization we observed that 24 h after MDPV administration there was an increased clustering coefficient, rich club index, and average path length. Increases in these metrics suggests that MDPV produces a prolonged pattern of correlated activity characterized by greater interactions between subsets of high degree nodes but a reduced interaction with regions outside this core subset. Further analysis revealed that the core set of nodes include prefrontal cortical, amygdala, hypothalamic, somatosensory and striatal areas. At the molecular level, MDPV downregulated the dopamine transporter (DAT) in striatum and produced a shift in its subcellular distribution, an effect likely to involve rapid internalization at the membrane. These new findings suggest that potent binding of MDPV to DAT may trigger internalization and a prolonged alteration in homeostatic regulation of DA and functional brain network reorganization. We propose that the observed MDPV-induced network reorganization and DAergic changes may contribute to previously reported adverse behavioral responses to MDPV.