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Cross-Disorder Psychiatric Genomics
Abstract Purpose of Review The following review provides some description of the movement in cross-disorder psychiatric genomics toward addressing both comorbidity and polygenicity. Recent Findings We attempt to show how dimensional approaches to the phenotype have led to further addressing the problem of comorbidity of psychiatric diagnoses. And we also attempt to show how a dimensional approach to the genome, with different statistical methods from traditional genome-wide association an...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - July 1, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Behavioral Therapy for Tourette Disorder: An Update
Abstract Purpose of Review The past decade has realized substantial progress in understanding and treating Tourette disorder (TD). The goal of this review is to highlight recent research on behavioral approaches for treating TD and to identify limitations to this treatment approach and directions for future research. Recent Findings Two large randomized controlled trials provide the most compelling evidence to date of the efficacy of behavior therapy for reducing tic severity in both chil...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - July 1, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

A Review of Anticipatory Pleasure in Schizophrenia
Abstract Purpose of Review Anhedonia, traditionally defined as a diminished capacity to experience pleasure, has long been considered a core symptom of schizophrenia. However, recent research calls into question whether individuals with schizophrenia are truly anhedonic, suggesting intact subjective and neurophysiological response to rewarding stimuli in-the-moment. Despite a presumably intact capacity to experience pleasure, people with schizophrenia still engage in fewer reward-seeking behaviors. This discrepancy has been explained as a dissociation between “li...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - June 29, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

The Neurobiological Basis for Social Affiliation in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Schizophrenia
Abstract Social interaction and communication are complex behavioral paradigms involving many components. Many different neurotransmitters, hormones, sensory inputs, and brain regions are involved in the act of social engagement and verbal or nonverbal communication. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia are two neurodevelopmental disorders that have social and language deficits as hallmark symptoms but show very different etiologies. The output of social dysfunction is common to both ASD and schizophrenia, but this likely arises from very different pathophysiological means. This review will at...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - April 15, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Current Trends in Identifying Rapidly Acting Treatments for Depression
Abstract Traditional antidepressant medications generally take weeks to months to achieve effect. However, the breakthrough finding of ketamine’s rapidly acting antidepressant properties has inspired a decade and a half of progress towards the identification of treatments that work quickly—within hours to days. This paradigm shift in the discovery of antidepressant therapies has significantly changed the current landscape of antidepressant drug development. Building on this, the current review briefly highlights the recent trends in research towards identifying rapidly acting antidepressants. Specific...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - April 14, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Can Oxytocin Enhance Social Affiliation in Schizophrenia?
Abstract Schizophrenia is a chronic, persistent, and severe mental illness characterized by deficits in cognition in addition to the well-established positive and negative symptoms. Impairment in cognition has been a keen area of research that has received a lot of attention in the last two decades. Several cognitive domains, including social cognition, are impaired in schizophrenia. Social cognition in schizophrenia is a rapidly emerging and major focus of schizophrenia research since deficits in various domains of social cognition lead to poorer outcomes and functioning. Although antipsychotic medicatio...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - April 10, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Uncertainty and Promise: the Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Working Memory
Abstract Working memory (WM) is an essential neuropsychological system that supports complex cognitive processes. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) uses electrical current to modulate brain activity and may serve as a tool for studying or even enhancing WM. Here, we review the recent research that has explored the effects of tDCS on WM in healthy young adults, older adults, and patient populations. We also discuss several recent meta-analyses that have examined the efficacy of tDCS as a WM intervention. While a majority of the papers reviewed suggest that tDCS can modulate WM, this effect is ...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - April 4, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation and Learning in Schizophrenia
Abstract Conceptually, motivation can be separated into two types, intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation involves goal-directed behaviors that meet internal psychological needs, while extrinsic motivation involves behaviors executed to obtain external reward or avoid punishment. Both these types of motivation are diminished in psychosis and are linked to amotivation and anhedonia, two of the negative symptoms seen in schizophrenia. In the last several years, the field of motivation research has advanced by (a) developing better instruments to quantify intrinsic motivation, (b) studying the role of...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - April 4, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Aerobic Exercise in People with Schizophrenia: Neural and Neurocognitive Benefits
Abstract Schizophrenia is characterized by extensive neurocognitive deficits, which are linked to greater disability, poorer functional outcome, and have been suggested to impact daily functioning more than clinical symptoms. Aerobic exercise (AE) has emerged as a potential intervention. This review examines the impact of AE on brain structure and function along with neurocognitive performance in individuals with schizophrenia. Preliminary evidence indicates that AE can increase hippocampal volume and cortical thickness, in addition to exerting a neuroprotective effect against hippocampal volume decrease ...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - April 3, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Executive Dysfunction Following Critical Illness: Exploring Risk Factors and Management Options in Geriatric Populations
Abstract Cognitive impairment is a common occurrence that has been shown to occur in over 50 % of patients following critical illness. This impairment occurs across a range of domains including attention, memory, processing speed, and executive dysfunction. In this article, we will discuss the pathophysiology behind cognitive impairment including hypoxemia and cytokines. Secondly, we will describe the risk factors for cognitive impairment including age, length of stay, and delirium. Lastly, we will review emerging data related to the use of cognitive rehabilitation, formation of postintensive care clinic...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - March 30, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Deep Brain Stimulation for Depression: An Update
Abstract Depression is an often debilitating disorder affecting a person’s ability to work and function. Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) leads to many interventions and significant health care costs. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an emerging potential intervention for those with TRD who have undergone adequate medication, therapy, and rTMS/ECT trials, but who continue to suffer from unremitting depressive symptoms. The latest clinical safety and efficacy data of DBS for TRD is presented in this review. Since the origin of DBS is rooted in specific neuroanatomical targets, the discussion is organi...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - March 30, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Advances in the Application of Electroconvulsive Therapy
Abstract Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is one of the oldest and most effective treatments in psychiatry. Despite modifications in technique, memory loss remains the major side effect of ECT causing many patients who might benefit from the treatment to avoid it. In this review, we present updates on three ECT-related topics. In December 2015, the FDA issued draft guidelines for ECT device classification and administration which propose special controls over what patients should be told about cognitive side effects and how they should be monitored. In this review, we update readers on the topic of ECT-tri...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - March 29, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Enhancing Cognition with Theta Burst Stimulation
Abstract Theta burst stimulation (TBS) protocols are believed to produce more reliable, longer-lasting effects on cortical dynamics and on behavior than other standard forms of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Most TBS experiments use stimulation to a targeted region to impair cognitive function, allowing for causal inferences between anatomical locations and cognitive processes to be drawn. However, this review covers a small but rapidly growing literature suggesting TBS can also benefit cognitive performance. These pro-cognitive effects have been observed in both healthy individuals and in clini...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - March 27, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

Current Status of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Posttraumatic Stress and Other Anxiety Disorders
Abstract Several empirically supported treatments have been identified for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), yet a sizable number of patients are either unable to tolerate these approaches or remain symptomatic following treatment. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a well-tolerated method of modulating neuronal excitability that may hold promise as a novel intervention in PTSD and related disorders. The current review summarizes literature on the disrupted neural circuitry in PTSD and discusses the rationale for the commonly targeted prefrontal cortex (PFC) as it relates to PTSD. We th...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - March 27, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research

What Happens in Your Brain During Mental Dissociation? A Quest Towards Neural Markers of a Unified Sense of Self
Abstract Whether you feel dissociated from the rest of the world or from yourself, you feel some kind of mental dissociations. Each form of mental dissociations varies in symptomatology and associated deficits. Nevertheless, psychiatrists, neurologists, and neuroscientists have discussed, for decades, the possibility of a holistic neural mechanism underlying the core feature of mental dissociations, i.e., disruption of a unified sense of self and a failure to accurately integrate multisensory information between self and social environment. Recently, functional and electrical neuroimaging studies shed lig...
Source: Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports - February 22, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research