The discipline of clinical neuropsychiatry currently provides specialised services for a number of conditions that cross the traditional boundaries of neurology and psychiatry, including non-epileptic attack disorder. Neurophysiological investigations have an important role within neuropsychiatry services, with video-electroencephalography (EEG) telemetry being the gold standard investigation for the differential diagnosis between epileptic seizures and non-epileptic attacks. This article reviews existing evidence on best practices for neurophysiology investigations, with focus on safety measures for video-EEG telemetry.

We conducted a systematic literature review using the PubMed database in order to identify the scientific literature on the best practices when using neurophysiological investigations in patients with suspected epileptic seizures or non-epileptic attacks.

Specific measures need to be implemented for video-EEG telemetry to be safely and effectively carried out by neuropsychiatry services. A confirmed diagnosis of non-epileptic attack disorder following video-EEG telemetry carried out within neuropsychiatry units has the inherent advantage of allowing diagnosis communication and implementation of treatment strategies in a timely fashion, potentially improving clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness significantly.

The identified recommendations set the stage for the development of standardised guidelines to enable neuropsychiatry services to implement streamlined and evidence-based care pathways.

The Germanwings 9525 incident drew significant attention to the ‘plane-assisted suicide’ construct, yet little scientific literature exists on this topic. This paper reviews the available literature and applies lessons from the suicide-homicide and men’s mental health literature to better understand this construct from a scientific perspective.

A systematic review of the relevant clinical literature was undertaken.

Multiple lines of evidence suggests the applicability and relevance of suicide-homicide research and men’s mental health to the plane-assisted suicide phenomenon. Plane-assisted suicides occur within an overwhelmingly male, middle aged population who, in addition to suicide, commit large scale acts of murder. Issues of divorce, separation, and threats to masculinity appear integral to an effective prevention program.

Further research in the understanding of plane-assisted suicide as a product of neuropsychiatric disorder may advance such prevention efforts and have the opportunity to reduce the loss of life in future tragedies.

The occurrence of a relapse during abstinence is an important issue that must be addressed during treatment for drug addiction. We investigated the influence of drug exposure pattern on morphine-seeking behaviour following withdrawal. We also studied the role of the hippocampus in this process to confirm its involvement in drug relapse.

Male Sprague–Dawley rats that were trained to self-administer morphine (1.0 mg/kg) using 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 h daily sessions underwent withdrawal in their home cages and were re-exposed to the operant chamber to evaluate morphine-seeking behaviour. During the relapse session, rats were intravenously injected with morphine (0.25 mg/kg) or saline before re-exposure to the chamber. In the second experiment, rats were administered a microinjection of saline or cobalt chloride (CoCl2, 1 mM), a synaptic blocker, into the CA1 of the hippocampus prior to the relapse test.

In the first experiment, more morphine-seeking behaviour was observed in the 2 h group (animals trained to self-administer morphine during a 2 h daily session spread over 21 days) during the relapse session, despite all groups being exposed to similar amounts of morphine during the training period before withdrawal. In the second experiment, pretreatment with CoCl2 markedly reduced morphine-seeking behaviour in the 2 h group.

The present findings suggest that the exposure pattern influences the degree of relapse and that control of memorisation is important for prevention of relapse.

We performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to discriminate the differential brain activation patterns in patients with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and healthy controls during implicit retrieval tasks with emotionally neutral and unpleasant words.

Sixteen patients with OCD (mean age: 31.4±10.1 years) and 16 healthy controls (mean age: 32.6±5.8 years) with no history of neurological or psychiatric illness underwent 3-T fMRI. The stimulation paradigm consisted of the following cycle: rest, encoding of a string of two-syllable words, rest, and retrieval of the previously encoded words with the first consonant omitted.

During the implicit retrieval task with emotionally neutral words, no distinct brain activity was observed in either the patients with OCD or healthy controls. On the other hand, during the retrieval task with unpleasant words, the patients with OCD showed predominant activity in the superior/middle temporal pole, medial superior frontal gyrus, and orbitofrontal cortex (uncorrected p<0.001, extent threshold: 30 voxels), whereas the healthy controls did not show any distinct regions of activation.

This study revealed the differential brain activation patterns between patients with OCD and healthy controls during implicit memory tasks with unpleasant words. Our results suggest that the impact of negative emotion on implicit memory task may be associated with the symptomatology of OCD. This finding may be helpful for understanding the neural mechanisms that underlie implicit memory retrieval, particularly the interaction between emotion and cognition, in patients with OCD.

Recent genome-wide analysis has indicated that the autism susceptibility candidate 2 (AUTS2) gene is involved in the regulation of alcohol consumption. We hypothesised that AUTS2 might be associated with the development of alcohol dependence. Therefore, in this exploratory study, we compared the genotype and allele frequencies of the polymorphisms rs6943555 and rs9886351 in the AUTS2 gene between patients with alcohol dependence and healthy control subjects living in a Japanese provincial prefecture. We also examined whether or not the haplotypes consisting of these polymorphisms are related to alcohol dependence.

The subjects of this study consisted of 64 patients with alcohol dependence and 75 unrelated healthy people. The AUTS2 genotypes were determined by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) method.

No significant differences in the genotype and allele frequencies of the polymorphisms AUTS2 rs6943555 and rs9886351 were found between alcohol dependence and control subjects. On the other hand, the frequencies of the AUTS2 haplotypes were significantly different between them, and the rs6943555 and rs9886351 A-A haplotype was associated with alcohol dependence (p=0.0187).

This suggests that the rs6943555 and rs9886351 A-A haplotype might affect the vulnerability to alcohol dependence pathogenesis. Further studies are needed to confirm the reproducibility of the results of this study with increased numbers of subjects.

Among the 28 metalloproteinases described so far, 23 can be found in the human organism, but only few are expressed in the human brain. The main objective of this study was to analyse the relationship between MMP-2, MMP-9 and TIMP-2 gene expression and cognitive performance.

The study comprised 234 subjects: patients suffering from recurrent depressive disorder (rDD, n=139) and healthy subjects (HS, n=95). The cognitive function assessment was carried out with the help of the following tests: Trail Making Test, The Stroop Test, Verbal Fluency Test and Auditory Verbal Learning Test. Gene expression on the mRNA and protein level was evaluated for MMP-2, MMP-9 and TIMP-2 in both groups using RNA extraction, reverse transcription and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.

Both mRNA and protein expression levels of all the genes were significantly lower in rDD subjects as compared with HS. Having analysed the entire experimental group (N=234), significant interrelations were found between the expression of the analysed genes and the results of the tests used to measure cognitive functions. Increased expression on both the mRNA and the protein level was associated in each case with better performance of all the tests conducted. After carrying out a separate analysis on the people from the rDD group and the HS group, similar dependencies were still observed.

The results of our study show decreased expression of MMP-2, MMP-9 and TIMP-2 genes on both mRNA and protein levels in depression. Elevated expression of MMP-2, MMP-9, TIMP-2 positively affects cognitive efficiency: working memory, executive functions, attention functions, direct and delayed auditory–verbal memory, the effectiveness of learning processes and verbal fluency. The study highlights the important role of peripheral matrix metalloproteinases genes in depression and cognitive functions.

We examined Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities in adolescents with early-onset schizophrenia (EOS) and their correlation with clinical findings and Executive Functions (EF).

The ToM abilities of 12 adolescents with EOS were compared with those of healthy participants matched in age and educational level. The Moving Shapes Paradigm was used to explore ToM abilities in three modalities: random movement, goal-directed movement and ToM – scored on the dimensions of intentionality, appropriateness and length of each answer. EF was tested using Davidson’s Battery and the clinical psychopathology with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS).

Adolescents with EOS were significantly more impaired than controls in the three dimensions evaluated for the goal-directed and ToM modalities. Regarding the random movement modality, the only difference was in appropriateness (p<0.01). No correlation with age or level of education was evident for ToM skills. Total PANSS score was negatively correlated with appropriateness score for the goal-directed (p=0.02) and ToM modalities (p=0.01). No correlation existed between performance in the ToM Animated Tasks and positive, negative or disorganisation PANSS subscores. No correlations were found among the three scores in the Moving Shapes Paradigm and any measures of the accuracy of the three tasks assessing EF.

Our results confirm previous findings of ToM deficits in adult individuals with schizophrenia and attest the severity of these deficits in patients with EOS.

To evaluate the influence of acute restraint stress (ARS) on plasma enkephalinase and oxytocinase activities. ARS modifies basal activities in cortico-limbic regions of rats and induces changes in the correlations observed between these regions. The interactions between plasma and cortico-limbic activities will be also evaluated.

Enkephalinase (AlaAP and LeuAP) and oxytocinase (P-LeuAP) activities were fluorometrically determined in plasma of control and stressed rats using aminoacyl-β-naphthylamides (aaNNap), AlaNNap and LeuNNap as substrates.

No differences in enzymatic activities were observed between control and stressed animals in plasma. In contrast, highly significant positive and negative correlations between plasma and cortico-limbic regions were demonstrated in controls. Stress conditions significantly alter the pattern of these correlations.

The present results clearly support a connection between plasma and brain involving certain neuropeptidase activities that change under stress conditions.