Diagnosis in psychiatry faces familiar challenges. Validity and utility remain elusive, and confusion regarding the fluid and arbitrary border between mental health and illness is increasing. The mainstream strategy has been conservative and iterative, retaining current nosology until something better emerges. However, this has led to stagnation. New conceptual frameworks are urgently required to catalyze a genuine paradigm shift.

We outline candidate strategies that could pave the way for such a paradigm shift. These include the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC), the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP), and Clinical Staging, which all promote a blend of dimensional and categorical approaches.

These alternative still heuristic transdiagnostic models provide varying levels of clinical and research utility. RDoC was intended to provide a framework to reorient research beyond the constraints of DSM. HiTOP began as a nosology derived from statistical methods and is now pursuing clinical utility. Clinical Staging aims to both expand the scope and refine the utility of diagnosis by the inclusion of the dimension of timing. None is yet fit for purpose. Yet they are relatively complementary, and it may be possible for them to operate as an ecosystem. Time will tell whether they have the capacity singly or jointly to deliver a paradigm shift.

Several heuristic models have been developed that separately or synergistically build infrastructure to enable new transdiagnostic research to define the structure, development, and mechanisms of mental disorders, to guide treatment and better meet the needs of patients, policymakers, and society.

Functional impairment is a major concern among those presenting to youth mental health services and can have a profound impact on long-term outcomes. Early recognition and prevention for those at risk of functional impairment is essential to guide effective youth mental health care. Yet, identifying those at risk is challenging and impacts the appropriate allocation of indicated prevention and early intervention strategies.

We developed a prognostic model to predict a young person’s social and occupational functional impairment trajectory over 3 months. The sample included 718 young people (12–25 years) engaged in youth mental health care. A Bayesian random effects model was designed using demographic and clinical factors and model performance was evaluated on held-out test data via 5-fold cross-validation.

Eight factors were identified as the optimal set for prediction: employment, education, or training status; self-harm; psychotic-like experiences; physical health comorbidity; childhood-onset syndrome; illness type; clinical stage; and circadian disturbances. The model had an acceptable area under the curve (AUC) of 0.70 (95% CI, 0.56–0.81) overall, indicating its utility for predicting functional impairment over 3 months. For those with good baseline functioning, it showed excellent performance (AUC = 0.80, 0.67–0.79) for identifying individuals at risk of deterioration.

We developed and validated a prognostic model for youth mental health services to predict functional impairment trajectories over a 3-month period. This model serves as a foundation for further tool development and demonstrates its potential to guide indicated prevention and early intervention for enhancing functional outcomes or preventing functional decline.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) are useful tools that can improve precision medicine and can prove useful in the clinical care of patients with psychosis.

Our aim was to determine whether AI and VR have been applied to the prediction of clinical response in women with schizophrenia.

A systematic review was carried out in PubMed and Scopus from inception to September 2023 by using the PRISMA guidelines. Search terms: (“artificial intelligence” OR “intelligent support” OR “machine intelligence” OR “machine learning” OR “virtual reality” OR “intelligent agent” OR “neural networks” OR “virtual reality” OR “digital twins”) AND (“schizophrenia” OR “psychosis”) AND (“women” OR gender”). Inclusion criteria: 1)English, French, German or Spanish language, 2) reporting treatment response in schizophrenia (as long as information in women was included), and 3) including AI and VR techniques.

From a total of 320 abstracts initially screened (PubMed:182, Scopus:138), we selected 6 studies that met criteria.

• - Prediction of treatment response. (1) Clinical information, genetic risk score and proxy methylation score have been shown to improve prediction models. (2) Graph-theory-based measures have been combined with machine learning.

• - Therapeutic drug monitoring. (1) A machine learning model has been useful in predicting quetiapine blood concentrations.

• - Pharmacovigilance. (1) Machine learning has connected prolactin levels and response in olanzapine-treated patients. (Zhu et al., 2022).

• - Treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS). (1) Women with TRS have been found to receive clozapine less frequently than men (adjusted for sociodemographic, biological and clinical factors). (2) Statistical learning approach: Women have been found to respond better to clozapine than men.

AI, including machine learning, show promising results in the prediction of treatment response in women with schizophrenia. As of yet, digital twins have not been investigated to test specific interventions or to personalize treatment in women with schizophrenia.

None Declared

There are many theoretical reasons to implement gender-specific care for schizophrenia. For all these reasons, the Mutua Terrassa-Functional Unit for Women with Schizophrenia was inaugurated in January 2023 in the context of a community mental health service.

Our aim today is to describe the health care model applied in this newly initiated unit.

We created a healthcare model in our new unit consisting of A)Five observatories of Health (somatic morbi-mortality, hyperprolactinemia-HPRL, substance use disorders, social exclusion/discrimination, and drug safety); B)Monitoring stations or vigilance teams (reflecting the 5 observatories); and C)resulting actions (specific interventions). The observatory teams each meet monthly. In this presentation, according to the healthcare model we implemented, we first describe data about the original patient recruitment and then focus on the observatories of somatic morbi-mortality and hyperprolactinemia.

From 265 potentially eligible women, 42 were included in the 5 observatories. (A) of the 11 women in the observatory of somatic morbi-mortality, 10 women had died within the last 24 months. Causes of Death: (1)respiratory tract disease (n=5,45.4%), (2)cancer (n=3;27.3%): lung cancer (n=1), pancreatic cancer (n=1), kidney cancer (n=1), (3)ischemic colitis (n=1;9%), (4)Alzheimer disease (n=1;9%). 2) Morbidity. One woman had an ongoing glioblastoma. (B)Observatory of HPRL. Eight women with moderate/severe HPRL were included. Strategies for lowering prolactin levels were discussed with neuroendocrinologists. Interventions:adjunctive aripiprazole (n=3), switch to aripiprazole (n=2), lowering antipsychotic doses (n=2), and adjunctive cabergoline (n=1).

Designating special teams to focus on specific problems of women with schizophrenia will reduce morbidity and improve outcomes in this vulnerable population.

None Declared

The needs of young people attending mental healthcare can be complex and often span multiple domains (e.g., social, emotional and physical health factors). These factors often complicate treatment approaches and contribute to poorer outcomes in youth mental health. We aimed to identify how these factors interact over time by modelling the temporal dependencies between these transdiagnostic social, emotional and physical health factors among young people presenting for youth mental healthcare.

Dynamic Bayesian networks were used to examine the relationship between mental health factors across multiple domains (social and occupational function, self-harm and suicidality, alcohol and substance use, physical health and psychiatric syndromes) in a longitudinal cohort of 2663 young people accessing youth mental health services. Two networks were developed: (1) ‘initial network’, that shows the conditional dependencies between factors at first presentation, and a (2) ‘transition network’, how factors are dependent longitudinally.

The ‘initial network’ identified that childhood disorders tend to precede adolescent depression which itself was associated with three distinct pathways or illness trajectories; (1) anxiety disorder; (2) bipolar disorder, manic-like experiences, circadian disturbances and psychosis-like experiences; (3) self-harm and suicidality to alcohol and substance use or functioning. The ‘transition network’ identified that over time social and occupational function had the largest effect on self-harm and suicidality, with direct effects on ideation (relative risk [RR], 1.79; CI, 1.59–1.99) and self-harm (RR, 1.32; CI, 1.22–1.41), and an indirect effect on attempts (RR, 2.10; CI, 1.69–2.50). Suicide ideation had a direct effect on future suicide attempts (RR, 4.37; CI, 3.28–5.43) and self-harm (RR, 2.78; CI, 2.55–3.01). Alcohol and substance use, physical health and psychiatric syndromes (e.g., depression and anxiety, at-risk mental states) were independent domains whereby all direct effects remained within each domain over time.

This study identified probable temporal dependencies between domains, which has causal interpretations, and therefore can provide insight into their differential role over the course of illness. This work identified social, emotional and physical health factors that may be important early intervention and prevention targets. Improving social and occupational function may be a critical target due to its impacts longitudinally on self-harm and suicidality. The conditional independence of alcohol and substance use supports the need for specific interventions to target these comorbidities.

Psychotic disorders carry several economical, psychological and social consequences, both at individual and community levels. Early intervention programs after first-episode psychosis which combine pharmacological and psychosocial strategies are aimed at reducing symptoms, lowering costs in the use of health and non-health care resources and improving overall functioning. AGES-Mind study is based on manualized psychotherapeutic interventions for people with first-psychosis episodes.

The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of a group psychotherapeutic intervention on the clinical status and use of clinical resources in a sample of patients with first-episode psychosis at 12 and 24 months after the beginning of the intervention. This cohort will be compared to patients with first-psychosis episodes without group psychotherapeutic intervention.

Longitudinal, observational, retrospective study on a cohort of N=46 patients with first-episode psychosis within the last 5 years. Two groups of 23 patients each were formed. The participants of one of those groups received group psychotherapy in the context of the AGES-Mind study and the other group received treatment as usual without group intervention. Non-exposed patients were matched by age, gender and time elapsed since first-episode psychosis with those exposed to the intervention. Sociodemographic data, clinical status and use of clinical resources outcome variables were assessed.

No significant differences were found in clinical status and use of resources between participants and non-participants in the psychotherapeutic group intervention after 12 and 24 months.

After controlling for potentially confounding variables as sociodemographic, age and time since first-episode, participating in a group psychotherapeutic program does not seem to improve clinical variables or use of resources. Further studies with larger samples would be necessary to explore other variables, such as symptoms, satisfaction with the intervention or social functioning.

None Declared

The cerebellum has been implicated in cognitive, affective and motor functions, including emotion regulation, executive control and sensorimotor processing. In schizophrenia, cerebellar dysfunction has been associated with treatment resistance and clinical features. However, few studies have been focused on delusional disorder (DD).

Our main purpose was to review the evidence available on cerebellum abnormalities and dysfunctions in patients with DD.

A systematic review was conducted through PubMed, Scopus and ClinicalTrials.gov (inception-June 2022) according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) directives. The following search terms were used: cerebellum OR cerebellar AND (“delusional disorder” AND paranoia). Reference lists from included studies were hand-checked to find other potential relevant papers.

Six studies were included from a total of 119 retrieved records (PubMed: 52, Scopus: 66, ClinicalTrials.gov: 1). Study 1:Patients with DD somatic type (n=14) presented a decreased gray matter volume in cerebellar lobules compared to healthy controls (HC) (n=32, left lobule VIIIa) and non-somatic DD (n=18, lobule V). Cerebellar volumes did not seem to differ between HC and non-somatic DD. Study 2:Abnormalities of voluntary saccadic eye movements, linking frontal and cerebellar functions, were found in DD patients (n=34) compared to HC (n=40). Study 3: Abnormal smooth pursuit eye movements in DD (n=15) compared with HC (n=40) and similar to schizophrenia (n=40). Case reports (n=3): DD associated with Dandy-Walker variant (partial vermian hypoplasia), unruptured intracerebral aneurysm of basilar artery, and megacisterna magna.

Cerebellar deficits in patients with DD has been reported, particularly in those presenting somatic delusional contents.

None Declared

To evaluate whether customary consumption of cannabis or cannabis dependence impacts the alerting, orienting, and executive control systems in young adults; to find out whether it is related to tobacco or alcohol dependence and if cannabis use characteristics are associated with the attention network systems.

One-hundred and fifty-four healthy adults and 102 cannabis users performed the Attention Network Test (ANT) to evaluate the alerting, orienting, and executive control systems.

Cannabis use enhanced the alerting system but decreased the orienting system. Moreover, those effects seem to be associated with cannabis dependence. Out of all the cannabis-using variables, only the age of onset of cannabis use significantly predicted the efficiency of the orienting and executive control systems.

Cannabis dependence favors tonic alertness but reduces selective attention ability; earlier use of cannabis worsens the efficiency of selective attention and resolution of conflicts.

Acute suicidality or a condition after attempted suicide frequently leads patients to both voluntary or involuntary inpatient admission. Emergency room psychiatrists decide whether such patients can be treated on an outpatient basis.

To identify if immigration status is associated with the decision whether a patient needs a hospital admission.

To detect social determinants of hospital-based health resource uses.

A cross-sectional study including data from 323 patients treated in a general hospital's emergency room after a suicidal attempt during year 2014.

Seventy-six patients were admitted to the hospital (23.5%). Hospitalization frequencies for immigrant and non-immigrant individuals were 6.3% and 26.5% (P = 0.002). No significant association was found between psychiatric admission and history of a diagnosed psychiatric disorder, previous suicidal attempts, previous emergency room care use, family support or current drug use. A subgroup of patients (n = 37; 9%) answered Beck's suicidal intent scale (SIS), a measure of risk in suicidal attempters. Mean SIS was found to be higher among hospitalized than discharged patients (8.5 vs. 16.5; P = 0.01). No significant difference was found in mean SIS between immigrant and non-immigrant patients (9.3 vs. 9.1; P = 0.3).

These preliminary results call for consideration. The highly significant lower rate of psychiatric admission among immigrant patients, without significant differences in mean SIS score in regard to non-immigrants, needs further study.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Epilepsy is considered a complex neurological disorder, and its clinical picture can resemble many different cerebral dysfunctions, including those associated to major psychiatric disorders.

We report the case of a 52-year-old gentleman, with a 30-year history of schizoaffective disorder and of complex partial epilepsy with secondary generalization. He was admitted to an emergency room due to a voluntary overdose with 8 mg of clonazepam. The patient explained how he had recently experienced visual hallucinations and insomnia, symptoms that originally led to the psychotic diagnosis. He had previously presented these symptoms, along with stupor, delusions and lability, as a prodrome of complex motor epileptic decompensations. Thus, he took the overdose not to suffer seizures. After carefully reconstructing the clinical history, psychiatric admissions had shown seizures, and periods of clinical stability had been achieved by regulating antiepileptic medication. Eslicarbazepine and lamotrigine reintroduction, and quetiapine withdrawal, led to symptomatic remission.

Epilepsy and major psychiatric disorders show a high comorbidity. There has been an effort to even include epilepsy and psychosis in a unique diagnosis (alternant psychosis). Furthermore, polimorphism and restitutio ad integrum may resemble classic cycloid psychosis. In this case, chronological study showed all symptoms could be explained by one disorder.

Epilepsy includes a variety of neuropsychiatric symptoms. It can be difficult to withdraw psychiatric diagnoses from patients after years of follow-up. However, a carefully taken medical history clarifies temporal criteria.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Psychiatric symptoms set forth brain dysfunction at several levels. Behavioral disturbances, although frequently associated to primary psychiatric disorders, call for a previous discard of neurologic treatable causes.

We report the case of a 30-year-old gentleman, receiving outpatient psychological treatment and follow-up for a 3-month history of low mood, abulia, apathy, generalized malaise, weight loss and insomnia. Non-structured jealous delusions were also present. No neurological deficit was found. After CT of the brain, a space occupying lesion, suggestive of glioblastoma multiforme, was found. Further studies, including biopsy and a MR, led to the diagnosis of central nervous system Chagas, related to a previously unknown HIV infection in AIDS status, and conditioning a secondary central hipothyroidism. Careful treatment of the etiological factors, along with symptomatic relieve with low dose paliperidone, led to the resolution of the symptoms.

The majority of patients suffering from neurologic diseases develop psychiatric symptoms over the course of their illness, with or without the presence of classical disturbances, such as weakness, sensory loss or seizures. Modern psychiatry uses a complex disease model, therefore necessarily integrating anatomy, biochemistry and function during every diagnostic approach.

It is necessary to rule out frequent treatable causes, thus involving both psychopatological and neuroscientific approach to psychiatric disturbances. However, while underlying causes are often difficult to treat, psychiatric symptoms respond to existing pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic therapies.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.