The relation of atypical antipsychotic use and stress with weight in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis.

Atypical antipsychotics (AT) and stress are related to weight gain in individuals with severe mental illness. This cross-sectional study examines AT use, stressful life events, and baseline weight in a sample of youth at clinical high risk for psychosis. Results showed that dependent and desirable life events moderated the relationship between AT use and weight after controlling for demographic factors and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressant (AD) use.

Demographic correlates of attenuated positive psychotic symptoms.

It is now well established that the utilization of standardized clinical criteria can enhance prediction of psychosis. These criteria are primarily concerned with the presence and severity of attenuated positive symptoms. Because these symptom criteria are used to derive algorithms for designating clinical high risk (CHR) status and for maximizing prediction of psychosis risk, it is important to know whether the symptom ratings vary as a function of demographic factors that have previously been linked with symptoms in diagnosed psychotic patients.

Stress exposure and sensitivity in the clinical high-risk syndrome: initial findings from the North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study (NAPLS).

There is inconsistent evidence for increased stress exposure among individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis. Yet similar to patients with a diagnosed psychotic illness, the preponderance of evidence suggests that CHR individuals tend to experience stressful life events (LE) and daily hassles (DH) as more subjectively stressful than healthy individuals. The present study utilizes data from the North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study Phase 2 (NAPLS-2) to test the hypotheses that (1) CHR individuals manifest higher self-reported stress in response to both LE and DH when compared to healthy controls (HC), (2) group differences in self-reported stress increase with age, (3) baseline self-reported stress is associated with follow-up clinical status, and (4) there is a sensitization effect of LE on the response to DH.

Developmental mechanisms in the prodrome to psychosis.

Psychotic disorders continue to be among the most disabling and scientifically challenging of all mental illnesses. Accumulating research findings suggest that the etiologic processes underlying the development of these disorders are more complex than had previously been assumed. At the same time, this complexity has revealed a wider range of potential options for preventive intervention, both psychosocial and biological.

The prodrome and clinical risk for psychotic disorders.

The psychosis prodrome offers great promise for identifying neural mechanisms involved in psychotic disorders and offers an opportunity to implement empirical interventions to delay, and ultimately ameliorate, illness onset. This article summarizes the literature on individuals in the putatively prodromal phase of psychosis/deemed at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis onset. Standardized measurement and manifestation of the CHR syndromes are discussed, followed by empirical findings that highlight the psychological deficits and biological abnormalities seen in CHR syndromes and psychotic disorders.

The development of psychotic disorders in adolescence: a potential role for hormones.

This article is part of a Special Issue "Puberty and Adolescence". The notion that adolescence is characterized by dramatic changes in behavior, and often by emotional upheaval, is widespread and longstanding in popular western culture. In recent decades, this notion has gained increasing support from empirical research showing that the peri- and post-pubertal developmental stages are associated with a significant rise in the rate of psychiatric symptoms and syndromes.

Cortisol levels and risk for psychosis: initial findings from the North American prodrome longitudinal study.

Background: Studies of biomarkers of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal activity indicate that psychotic disorders are associated with elevated cortisol. This study examined cortisol levels in healthy control subjects and individuals who met clinical high-risk (CHR) criteria for psychosis. It was hypothesized that cortisol levels would be 1) elevated in the CHR group relative to control subjects, 2) positively correlated with symptom severity, and 3) most elevated in CHR patients who transition to psychotic level severity.

Stress and the prodromal phase of psychosis.

Stress plays a role in most conceptualizations of the etiology of psychotic disorders. This is based on extensive research showing an association between the incidence of psychosis and psychosocial stress exposure (e.g.

The 2nd Schizophrenia International Research Society Conference, 10-14 April 2010, Florence, Italy: summaries of oral sessions.

The 2nd Schizophrenia International Research Society Conference, was held in Florence, Italy, April 10-15, 2010. Student travel awardees served as rapporteurs of each oral session and focused their summaries on the most significant findings that emerged from each session and the discussions that followed. The following report is a composite of these reviews.

Impaired insight in patients with newly diagnosed nonaffective psychotic disorders with and without deficit features.

Patients with schizophrenia who have primary, enduring negative symptoms, or the deficit syndrome, have poorer psychosocial functioning but lesser clinical distress compared with nondeficit patients. Poor awareness of impairment in patients with deficit schizophrenia may contribute to this seeming contradiction. We hypothesized that poor insight would be present early in the course of illness in deficit patients, and that those with deficit features would have greater impairment in insight than those without deficit features.

Catechol-O-methyltransferase modulation of cortisol secretion in psychiatrically at-risk and healthy adolescents.

Objective: Recent research implicates the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) ValMet polymorphism in stress sensitivity, through modulation of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) function. In healthy samples, Met homozygosity has been associated with greater HPA activity (i.e.

The impact of a family history of psychosis on age-at-onset and positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia: a meta-analysis.

The results of research on the relation of family history (FH) of psychosis with clinical presentation in schizophrenia have been mixed. To date, there have been no comprehensive reviews that have examined this body of research. The current review quantitatively evaluates research on the relation of FH with two aspects of schizophrenia, age-at-onset and symptom presentation.

Childhood and current autistic features in adolescents with schizotypal personality disorder.

The diagnostic boundaries between autistic- and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders have varied over the years, and some overlap in diagnostic criteria persists. The present study examined childhood and current signs of autistic disorder (AD) in adolescents with schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) or other personality disorders, as well as healthy controls. A structured interview was administered to rate participants' current symptoms.

Gesture behavior in unmedicated schizotypal adolescents.

Schizotypal personality disorder is characterized by interpersonal and verbal communication deficits. Despite the important role of gesture in social communication, no published reports examine the use of gesture by individuals with SPD. In this study, raters code gesture from videotaped interviews of unmedicated adolescents with SPD, other personality disorders, or no Axis II disorder.