Diagnosing and treating attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in adults

Adult attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a valid and impairing psychiatric disorder. In this article, we review the diagnosis of ADHD in adults, focusing on symptom presentation differences between pediatric and adult ADHD as well as the importance of assessing functional impairments. Differentiating ADHD from other clinical disorders is often the most difficult part of making an ADHD diagnosis in adults. Psychiatric comorbidities are also described and discussed as potential impact factors upon not only diagnosing ADHD but also treatment of adult ADHD. Especially in those adults with psychiatric comorbidities, treatments need to be multimodal and include both pharmacotherapy and psychosocial interventions.     

Pyroptosis,and its Role in Central Nervous System Disease

Pyroptosis is an inflammatory form of cell death executed by transmembrane pore-forming proteins known as gasdermins and can be activated in an inflammasome-dependent or -independent manner. Inflammasome-dependent pyroptosis is triggered in response to pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) or damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) and has emerged as an important player in the pathogenesis of multiple inflammatory diseases, mainly by releasing inflammatory contents. More recently, numerous studies have revealed the intricate mechanisms of pyroptosis and its role in the development of neuroinflammation in central nervous system (CNS) diseases. In this review, we summarize current understandings of the molecular and regulatory mechanisms of pyroptosis. In addition, we discuss how pyroptosis can drive different forms of neurological diseases and new promising therapeutic strategies targeting pyroptosis that can be leveraged to treat neuroinflammation.     

Time perception,emotions and mood disorders

In this review, we describe recent internal clock models accounting for time perception and look at how they try to explain the time distortions produced by emotion. We then discuss the results of studies of patients suffering from affective disorders (depression) who experience the feeling of time slowing down. A distinction is thus made between time perception and explicit awareness of the passage of time. We conclude that the feeling that time is passing slowly is not systematically associated with a disruption in the basic mechanisms underlying time perception.     

Daily rest-activity patterns in the bipolar phenotype: A controlled actigraphy study

This study assessed daily rest-activity patterns in euthymic, medication-naïve bipolar phenotype individuals. The Mood Disorder Questionnaire was used to identify 19 bipolar phenotype individuals and 21 controls. Participants wore an Actiwatch-L for 2 weeks to assess their sleep behaviour and circadian rest-activity rhythmicity. Bipolar phenotype individuals had increased movement during sleep, as assessed by the fragmentation index, greater activity levels during their least active 5?h (2 am–7 am), and lower circadian relative amplitude compared to controls. Higher activity levels during sleep affecting circadian amplitude in young adults with the bipolar phenotype may be associated with vulnerability for developing mood disorder.     

Amyloids or prions? That is the question

ABSTRACT

Despite major efforts devoted to understanding the phenomenon of prion transmissibility, it is still poorly understood how this property is encoded in the amino acid sequence. In recent years, experimental data on yeast prion domains allow to start at least partially decrypting the sequence requirements of prion formation. These experiments illustrate the need for intrinsically disordered sequence regions enriched with a particularly high proportion of glutamine and asparagine. Bioinformatic analysis suggests that these regions strike a balance between sufficient amyloid nucleation propensity on the one hand and disorder on the other, which ensures availability of the amyloid prone regions but entropically prevents unwanted nucleation and facilitates brittleness required for propagation.     

Developmental and temporal characteristics of clonal sperm mosaicism

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Inference of link among diabetes,obesity, and thyroid dysfunction in data from a clinic at Saudi Arabia

The clinical link among diabetes, obesity, and thyroid dysfunction is of interest. Hence, medical records of 601 patients with diabetes, obesity, and thyroid dysfunctions at the Abha Specialist Center and Military Diabetic Endocrine Center we used in this analysis. Approximately 28% of diabetic patients had thyroid dysfunction, and 12.4% were vitamin D deficient. The patients with thyroid dysfunction had significantly elevated triglyceride levels compared to the patients without thyroid dysfunction (173.6 vs. 128. p=0.009). Vitamin D deficient obese patients were significantly younger (33.99±10.69 vs. 43.68±14.42; p<0.001) and had significantly lower levels of HbA1c (5.73±1.16 vs. 6.83±2.08; p=0.014) and lower systolic BP (120.26±11.75 vs. 124.58±13.63; p=0.049) than non-vitamin D deficient obese patients. Vitamin D deficient thyroid patients had significantly lower diastolic BP (71.4±9.9 vs. 74.9±9.7; p=0.040) and higher HbA1c (8.7±3.6 vs. 6.4±1.7; p=0.003) in comparison to non-vitamin D deficient thyroid patients. Hence, analysis of metabolic disorders in these patients will help combat complications in these cases.     

Nonlinear time-series approaches in characterizing mood stability and mood instability in bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder is a psychiatric condition characterized by episodes of elevated mood interspersed with episodes of depression. While treatment developments and understanding the disruptive nature of this illness have focused on these episodes, it is also evident that some patients may have chronic week-to-week mood instability. This is also a major morbidity. The longitudinal pattern of this mood instability is poorly understood as it has, until recently, been difficult to quantify. We propose that understanding this mood variability is critical for the development of cognitive neuroscience-based treatments. In this study, we develop a time-series approach to capture mood variability in two groups of patients with bipolar disorder who appear on the basis of clinical judgement to show relatively stable or unstable illness courses. Using weekly mood scores based on a self-rated scale (quick inventory of depressive symptomatology-self-rated; QIDS-SR) from 23 patients over a 220-week period, we show that the observed mood variability is nonlinear and that the stable and unstable patient groups are described by different nonlinear time-series processes. We emphasize the necessity in combining both appropriate measures of the underlying deterministic processes (the QIDS-SR score) and noise (uncharacterized temporal variation) in understanding dynamical patterns of mood variability associated with bipolar disorder.     

Disruption of Contactin 4 in two subjects with autism in Chinese population

Autism is a heterogeneous childhood neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterised by deficits in verbal communication, impaired social interactions, restricted interests and repetitive behaviours. Using an Illumina HumanCNV370-Quad BeadChip, we identified two Han Chinese individuals with autism and large duplications (~1.6 Mb and ~2.4 Mb) disrupting the same CNTN4 gene. CNTN4 encodes a protein that functions as a cell-adhesion molecule and may play an essential role in the formation of axon connections in the developing nervous system. The disruption of this gene has been reported to be the cause of the 3p deletion syndrome and also a possible susceptibility factor for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Our results suggest that rare copy number variations (CNVs) in CNTN4 may also influence autism susceptibility in Asian populations. Interestingly, a comparison of the clinical phenotypes between the two subjects revealed that the subject with the 2.4 Mb CNV (involving several other genes) presented with a more severe phenotype than the subject with the 1.6 Mb CNV (disrupting only CNTN4 and CNTN6). This suggests that other genes in the nearby region may contribute to the pathogenesis.