Resting state quantitative electroencephalogram gamma power spectra in patients with first episode psychosis: An observational study.

INTRODUCTION: Electrophysiological abnormalities, especially in the gamma frequency range, have been well documented in schizophrenia. This study was aimed to investigate the gamma spectral power of the brain in patients with first episode psychosis, using high-resolution electroencephalography. METHODOLOGY: Twenty-nine neuroleptic naïve/free male patients with non-affective psychosis as per ICD 10 DCR clinical criteria were compared with thirty age, sex, education and handedness matched healthy individuals as controls. All participants underwent 192-channel resting electroencephalography (EEG) recording. Gamma spectral power was calculated for low (31-50 Hz) and high-gamma (51-70 and 71-100 Hz) bands and compared between two groups using MANOVA and supplementary one-way ANOVA. Pearson correlation and linear regression analyses were conducted between spectral power parameters and various clinical variables. RESULTS: The gamma spectral power in 31-50 Hz and 51-70 Hz frequency bands was found to be significantly higher in patients in most brain regions. Duration of illness predicted the gamma spectral power in both right and left frontal regions of the brain in the frequency range 31-50 Hz and 71-100 Hz, as well as in the right temporal region in 71-100 Hz range, where it was negatively correlated. CONCLUSION: Patients with first episode psychosis have increased gamma spectral power, which might be indirectly related to the duration of illness.

Stigma and quality of life in individuals with epilepsy: a preliminary report.

OBJECTIVE: Epilepsy is considered to be a debilitating illness associated with a high level of stigma and impaired quality of life. This study was aimed at evaluating whether exposure to treatment is associated with a decrease in the level of stigma in individuals with epilepsy and its relationship to quality of life. METHODS: Participants were divided into three groups. The first group comprised 15 newly registered patients at the Epilepsy Clinic of the Central Institute of Psychiatry. The second group included 15 patients of the clinic who had been receiving regular treatment, including comprehensive psychosocial intervention per clinic protocol, for at least 1 year. The control group comprised 15 community-dwelling normal healthy participants. The Stigma Scale for Epilepsy, Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory-89, and World Health Organization Quality of Life-Brief Version were administered to measure stigma and quality of life. RESULTS: The perception of stigma was strongly associated with epilepsy, but there was no difference between the treated and untreated groups with epilepsy. Also, stigma and quality of life were negatively correlated. CONCLUSION: There is a need for a community-level awareness program to deal with the stigma associated with epilepsy.

Event related desynchronisation of mu-wave over right sensorimotor cortex at baseline may predict subsequent response to antipsychotics in Schizophrenia.

Mirror neuron system (MNS) has been demonstrated to be defective in patients with schizophrenia. This paper report findings from a high resolution (192-channel) EEG study conducted on 15 drug free/naïve consenting schizophrenia patients, in which the specific role of right hemispheric MNS has been explored over 4 weeks of antipsychotic treatment. The authors used mu wave suppression paradigm, and found that baseline right MNS mu suppression correlated negatively with and predicted relative improvement in thought disturbance cluster score of PANSS during first 4 weeks of drug treatment.

Visuospatial and affect recognition deficit in depression.

BACKGROUND: Theorists differ in their opinion whether interpersonal difficulties in depression is associated more with perceptual impairment or with emotional bias. The present study intended to resolve such differences of opinion. METHOD: Major depressives, general medical patients, and non-patient controls were administered three visuospatial and two affective tasks to examine the nature of performance deficit associated with each group. RESULTS: Major depressives were found significantly impaired in both visuospatial and affective tasks in comparison to general medical patients, who in turn, were impaired than non-patient controls. CONCLUSION: Major depressives' perceptual deficit is pervasive and not specific to affective categories. LIMITATION: The study could have been more informative if more psychiatric groups had been included as subjects. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Improvement in depressives' ability for visuospatial and affective tasks may be considered as a marker of their clinical improvement.

Bilateral transfer deficit in schizophrenia: a trait marker.

Schizophrenic patients who had shown improvement over a 6-week treatment period were tested for their bilateral transfer of skill with a mirror-drawing task. Compared with first degree relatives and normal control subjects, patients showed a significant deficit in bilateral transfer of skills in terms of response accuracy both before and after treatment. These findings indicate that the deficit is an enduring functional loss in schizophrenia.

Generality and specificity of emotion-recognition deficit in schizophrenic patients with positive and negative symptoms.

Schizophrenic patients with positive and negative symptoms, as well as non-patient control subjects, were asked to recognize emotional stimuli of happy, sad, and neutral facial expressions. Dependent measures were the percentage of correct responses, and the incorrect use of an emotion category owing to false recognition. Schizophrenic patients with negative symptoms exhibited a generalized emotion-recognition deficit, and their use of emotion categories during false recognition was random. Schizophrenic patients with positive symptoms showed a deficit in their recognition of 'sad' emotion and were 'positively biased' to the category 'happy' as reflected by its most frequent usage during false recognition.

Convulsions in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and epilepsy tend to share a close association. However, the exact relationship between OCD symptoms and epileptic convulsions is not well known. A case of OCD who improved remarkably following drug-induced seizures is described, implicating a role for convulsion as an alternative therapeutic modality in OCD.