Influence of Sex and Diagnosis on Clinical Variables and Neurocognitive Performance in Severe Mental Illness. Results From the PsyCourse Study.

Introduction: Bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenia (SZ) are serious mental illnesses (SMI) with overlapping symptoms but distinct differences in onset and course. Sex differences are an area of growing interest in SMI. This study aims to examine potential interactions between sex and diagnosis across a broad range of variables, to compare males and females within SZ and BD, and to investigate sex-specific group differences.

Efficacy of pharmacogenetic (PGx)-guided antidepressant treatment on functional outcomes and quality of life in adults with anxiety and affective disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to estimate the efficacy of pharmacogenetic (PGx)-guided antidepressant treatment compared to treatment as usual (TAU) on functional outcomes and quality of life (QoL) in people with anxiety and affective disorders. A PRISMA-compliant systematic search was performed up to 26/06/2025 to identify relevant prospective, randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in seven databases. The revised tool for Risk of Bias (RoB2) was used to assess the methodological qualities of the included studies (PROSPERO CRD42024518683).

Unravelling the Link Between Body Mass Index and Cognitive Performance in Individuals With Bipolar Disorder and Exploration of PRS Moderation Effect: Findings From the PsyCourse Study.

Introduction: Bipolar disorder (BD) is a severe mental disorder characterized by extreme mood swings, often accompanied by metabolic comorbidities, such as cardiovascular disease, which increase mortality and reduce quality of life. Both metabolic dysfunctions and BD are associated with cognitive dysfunction. Body mass index (BMI) is closely linked to metabolic health and cognitive performance.

Pathway-Specific Polygenic Scores for Predicting Clinical Lithium Treatment Response in Patients With Bipolar Disorder.

Background: Polygenic scores (PGSs) hold the potential to identify patients who respond favorably to specific psychiatric treatments. However, their biological interpretation remains unclear. In this study, we developed pathway-specific PGSs (PS) for lithium response and assessed their association with clinical lithium response in patients with bipolar disorder.

Body size and intracranial volume interact with the structure of the central nervous system: A multi-center in vivo neuroimaging study.

Clinical research emphasizes the implementation of rigorous and reproducible study designs that rely on between-group matching or controlling for sources of biological variation such as subject's sex and age. However, corrections for body size (i.e.