Mental health criminal defenses in persons with neuropsychiatric disorders.

Persons with neuropsychiatric disorders present specific and unique challenges for forensic experts and defense attorneys in the criminal justice system. This article reviews two potential criminal defenses: legal insanity and the various legal standards or tests of criminal responsibility that are used in jurisdictions throughout the United States (i.e., the M'Naghten standard and the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code), and the partial legal defense of diminished capacity (lacking the mental state necessary to be found guilty of a specific intent crime). The process of evaluating criminal responsibility or diminished capacity is also presented with a specific emphasis on common issues that arise in evaluating defendants with Intellectual Developmental Disorder (Intellectual Disability), Parasomnias, Seizure Disorders, and Neurocognitive Disorders.

Mechanistic insight and structure activity relationship of isatin-based derivatives in development of anti-breast cancer agents.

Breast cancer is most common in women and most difficult to manage that causes highest mortality and morbidity among all diseases and posing significant threat to mankind as well as burden on healthcare system. In 2020, 2.3 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer and it was responsible for 685,000 deaths globally, suggesting the severity of this disease. Apart from that, relapsing of cases and resistance among available anticancer drugs along with associated side effects making the situation even worse. Therefore, it is a global emergency to develop potent and safer antibreast cancer agents. Isatin is most versatile and flying one nucleus which is an integral competent and various anticancer agent in clinical practice and widely used by various research groups around the globe for development of novel, potent, and safer antibreast cancer agents. This review will shed light on the structural insights and antiproliferative potential of various isatin-based derivatives developed for targeting breast cancer in last three decades that will help researchers in design and development of novel, potent, and safer isatin-based antibreast cancer agents.

1,2,3-Triazole Derivatives as an Emerging Scaffold for Antifungal Drug Development against Candida albicans: A Comprehensive Review.

Candida infections are most prominent among fungal infections majorly target immunocompromised and hospitalized patients and cause significant morbidity and mortality. Candida albicans is the notorious and most prevalent among all pathogenic Candida strains. Its emerging resistance toward available antifungal agents making it hard to tackle and emerging as global healthcare emergency. Simultaneously, 1,2,3-triazole nucleus is a privileged scaffold that is gaining importance in antifungal drug development due to being a prominent bioactive linker and isostere of triazole based antifungal class core 1,2,4-triazole. Numerous reports have been updated in scientific literature in last few decades related to utilization of 1,2,3-triazole nucleus in antifungal drug development against Candida albicans. Present review will shed light on various preclinical studies focused on development of 1,2,3-triazole derivatives targeting Candida albicans along with brief highlight on clinical trials and newly approved drugs. Structure-activity relationship has been precisely discussed for each architect along with future perspective that will help medicinal chemists in design and development of potent antifungal agents for tackling infections derived from Candida albicans.

Mechanistic investigation in the [1,4] and [1,2] Wittig rearrangement reactions: a DFT study.

The mechanistic pathways for the [1,4] and [1,2] Wittig rearrangements of 2-silyl-6-aryl-5,6-dihydro-(2H)-pyrans have been studied at the M06-2X/6-31+G(d,p), 6-311++G(d,p) and cc-pVTZ level of theory. The crucial C-O bond cleavage step in the mechanism has been analysed initially, using two model reactions covering aliphatic as well as cyclic allylic ethers. The barriers for the one-step as well as two-step pathways have been calculated and the mechanisms for both the [1,4] and [1,2] Wittig rearrangement reactions are predicted to occur through a two-step mode. An energetic analysis of the reaction pathways reveals that the [1,4]-rearrangement has a lower barrier than the [1,2]-Wittig rearrangement. The C-O cleavage transition state was found to have the highest barrier and is thus the rate determining transition state for all of the studied molecules. This is in agreement with the previously published experimental studies. The role of the allylic trimethylsilane group in the stabilization of the intermediate anions of the Wittig reactants has also been investigated while comparing it with the phenyl and allylic t-butyl groups through Natural Bond Orbital (NBO) calculations.

iEDDA Reaction of the Molecular Iodine-Catalyzed Synthesis of 1,3,5-Triazines via Functionalization of the sp3 C-H Bond of Acetophenones with Amidines: An Experimental Investigation and DFT Study.

The present work reports an inverse electron demand Diels-Alder (iEDDA)-type reaction to synthesize 1,3,5-trizines from acetophenones and amidines. The use of molecular iodine in a catalytic amount facilitates the functionalization of the sp3 C-H bond of acetophenones. This is a simple and efficient methodology for the synthesis of 1,3,5-triazines in good to excellent yields under transition-metal-free and peroxide-free conditions. The reaction is believed to take place via an in situ iodination-based oxidative elimination of formaldehyde. DFT calculations at the M062X/6-31+G(d,p) level were employed to investigate the reaction mechanism. Reaction barriers for the cycloaddition as well as a formaldehyde expulsion steps were computed, and a multistep mechanism starting with the nucleophilic attack by benzamidine on an in situ generated imine intermediate has been proposed. Both local and global reactivity descriptors were used to study the regioselectivity of the addition steps.

PyGlobal: A toolkit for automated compilation of DFT-based descriptors.

Density Functional Theory (DFT)-based Global reactivity descriptor calculations have emerged as powerful tools for studying the reactivity, selectivity, and stability of chemical and biological systems. A Python-based module, PyGlobal has been developed for systematically parsing a typical Gaussian outfile and extracting the relevant energies of the HOMO and LUMO. Corresponding global reactivity descriptors are further calculated and the data is saved into a spreadsheet compatible with applications like Microsoft Excel and LibreOffice. The efficiency of the module has been accounted by measuring the time interval for randomly selected Gaussian outfiles for 1000 molecules. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Bio-Inspired Vision and Gesture-Based Robot-Robot Interaction for Human-Cooperative Package Delivery.

This research presents a novel bio-inspired framework for two robots interacting together for a cooperative package delivery task with a human-in the-loop. It contributes to eliminating the need for network-based robot-robot interaction in constrained environments. An individual robot is instructed to move in specific shapes with a particular orientation at a certain speed for the other robot to infer using object detection (custom YOLOv4) and depth perception. The shape is identified by calculating the area occupied by the detected polygonal route. A metric for the area's extent is calculated and empirically used to assign regions for specific shapes and gives an overall accuracy of 93.3% in simulations and 90% in a physical setup. Additionally, gestures are analyzed for their accuracy of intended direction, distance, and the target coordinates in the map. The system gives an average positional RMSE of 0.349 in simulation and 0.461 in a physical experiment. A video demonstration of the problem statement along with the simulations and experiments for real world applications has been given here and in Supplementary Material.

Knowledge and Attitudes of Psychiatrists About the Gun Rights of Persons With Mental Illness.

Individuals with mental illness have often been misperceived by the public to pose a higher risk of violence to others. Consequently, the United States government and many individual states have enacted laws barring firearm access for certain individuals with mental illness. Many of these laws allow for eventual restoration of firearm access (i.e., relief from firearm disability (RFD)). This study assesses the knowledge base and attitudes of psychiatrists practicing in South Carolina regarding these gun laws. Results of this study indicate that psychiatrists in South Carolina have significant knowledge deficits pertaining to gun laws that both restrict gun ownership and allow restoration of gun ownership rights for persons with mental illness; these deficits may apply to practitioners in other states as well. The only variable that predicted a greater knowledge about limitations on gun rights was whether a psychiatrist had a patient who was prohibited from gun ownership. South Carolina psychiatrists had more favorable attitudes about restricting gun access for persons with mental illness than about supporting the right of persons with mental illness to own a gun. Finally, if psychiatrists owned a firearm, they were more likely to support the right of persons with mental illness to own a firearm.

Prolonged hospitalization and diagnostic clarification saves U.S. Air Force $650,000 in unwarranted disability payments.

Over the last few decades in health care a premium has been placed on decreasing the length of stay. Cost containment measures and more effective psychotropic medications have fueled this trend. The new paradigm is "diagnose, stabilize quickly, and discharge to outpatient setting." Although in the short run this model saves money, it is at the cost of an accurate diagnosis; however, in the long run the costs far exceed the initial savings, especially in today's dismal economy. This editorial presents a case report where prolonged psychiatric hospitalization and diagnostic clarification saved the U.S. Air Force $650,000 in unwarranted disability payments.

Malpractice Law and Psychiatry: An Overview.

Fortunately, psychiatrists are less likely to be sued for malpractice than most physicians in other specialties. However, once sued, psychiatrists must navigate a complicated and nonintuitive legal process. This article reviews the major elements of a malpractice claim, the litigation process in medical malpractice cases, and the common allegations of negligence that are encountered in such cases. The major types of malpractice insurance coverage are reviewed, and recommendations about liability prevention and how to best respond to a malpractice action are presented.

Theoretical studies on the electronic structure, charge distribution and vibrational spectra of diglyme-M(+)-AsF(6)(-) (M=Li, Na, K).

Electronic structure and the vibrational spectra of CH(3)(OCH(2)CH(2))(2)OCH(3)-M(+)-AsF(6)(-) (M=Li, Na, K) have been obtained using the density functional theory. Lithium ion exhibits a pentavalent coordination via 3 oxygens from diglyme and two fluorines of AsF(6)(-) whereas Na(+) and K(+) exhibit coordinate number 6 with 3 fluorines of the anion binding to alkali metal in these complexes. Analysis of calculated spectra reveal that the CH(2) wag (840-1120 cm(-1)) vibrations in the complex are sensitive to metal ion coordination. A frequency downshift relative to the free anion has been predicted for the vibrations of AsF(6)(-) anion when the fluorines are directly bonded (denoted by F) to metal ion. Consequent reorganization of electron density in the complex engenders a frequency shift in the opposite direction for As-F vibrations wherein the fluorine atoms are not coordinating to the alkali metal ion. An approach based on the molecular electron density topography coupled with the difference electron density map explains the direction of the frequency shifts of C-O-C and the As-F stretchings compared to those of free diglyme or AsF(6) anion. A new method, which includes the color-mapping function for the difference molecular electron density (MED), superimposed on the bond critical points in MED topography has been suggested to explain the direction of the frequency shifts in a single attempt.

Implications of Pseudologia Fantastica in Criminal Forensic Evaluations: A Review and Case Report.

Pseudologia fantastica, a psychological phenomenon that has been described in the literature for at least a century, is an understudied and poorly understood entity. Sometimes referred to as pathological lying, pseudologia fantastica involves disproportionate fabrication that may be present for many years or a lifetime. In a forensic context, it can significantly complicate the evaluation of capacity to stand trial and, in certain jurisdictions, criminal responsibility. We review the current literature regarding pseudologia fantastica and present a case to highlight the clinical and forensic challenges it may create. We specifically discuss the complications that pseudologia fantastica may have on the assessment of a defendant's rational ability to consult with an attorney, a required element of capacity to stand trial. In addition, we discuss the implications of pseudologia fantastica in the evaluation of criminal responsibility.

Shared psychotic disorder and criminal responsibility: a review and case report of folie à trois.

We present a case of shared psychotic disorder involving three sisters who were successful in establishing an insanity defense on numerous felony charges in the South Carolina criminal court system. Two of the authors of this article were court-appointed examiners in this case. We then present a history of shared psychotic disorder, an overview of the use of this diagnosis in the defense of insanity, and a discussion of the disposition of individuals with "temporary insanity." Finally, we compare shared psychotic disorder, culturally based belief systems, and religious cults, with a focus on their common and contrasting characteristics.

Exploring isoxazole and carboxamide derivatives as potential non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors.

Nonnucleoside reverse transciptase inhibitors (NNRTI) are a class of drug molecules with a specific target of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT). In the present work, we evaluated a set of selected oxazole and carboxamide derivatives to identify potential pharmacophoric features using molecular docking approach. The docking approach employed has been validated by enrichment factor calculation at top 1% (EF1%). It shows a considerable improvement in EF1%value compared to earlier reported study carried out on specific dataset of ligands and decoys for RT, in the directory of useful decoys (DUD). The carboxamide derivatives show better activity as NNRT inhibitors than oxazole derivatives. From this study, four pharmacophoric groups including a triazine ring, an aniline substituent, a benzyl amide moiety and a trimethylphenoxy substituent have been recognized and used for designing new NNRT inhibitors. Newly designed molecules show significant enhancement in docking scores over the native ligand, parent and other training set molecules. In addition, some functional groups have also been identified to assist in improving the activity of these pharmacophores. Thus a nitrile group, an amide and fluoro substitution turn out to be an important requisite for NNRT potential inhibitors.

Implications of the Group Model of Supervision and Consultation in Forensic Training.

The clinical case conference has been a hallmark of undergraduate and graduate medical education for decades and affords attendees the opportunity to hear about interesting and difficult cases and to learn from a discussion of the complexities of diagnosis and treatment. In forensic psychiatry, the complexities in a case conference also extend to the formation of a forensic opinion. The application of the clinical case conference to forensic psychiatry has not been described in the literature, although many fellowship programs engage in this activity. In the forensic arena, special ethics concerns may arise regarding confidentiality, dual agency, and conflicts of interest. In this commentary, we discuss the implications of using the group approach to supervision and consultation outlined by Buchanan et al., as it relates to professional development and understanding of ethics among forensic psychiatry trainees. We also discuss the usefulness of this type of group consultation in faculty development, including the satisfaction of the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education's (ACGME) Common Program Requirements and, potentially, one part of the Maintenance of Certification requirements of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, Inc.

Psychiatric advance directives.

Psychiatric advance directives are gaining attention as the number of consumers seeking metal health services increases. Even though medical advance directives have existed for years, psychiatric advance directives are in their infancy. The goal of these directives is to increase patient autonomy and decrease coercive treatment. Although this concept sounds simple, advance directives have generated heated debates that encompass ethics, law, and medicine. Psychiatric advance directives are also not universally accepted--only 14 states currently recognize such directives. This review article discusses the premise behind psychiatric advance directives and explores possible benefits and obstacles to the use of such directives.