ABSTRACT
Introduction: Psychotic symptoms are among the least prevalent and under-investigated psychiatric manifestations (PM) of Huntington's disease (HD). Case report: We herein report a case of a 31-year-old male patient who presented PM with a predominance of negative symptoms, without any significant abnormal movement. HD was diagnosed based on positive DNA analysis and family history. HD imposes longitudinal follow-up through a multidisciplinary approach in order to improve the quality of life and prognosis. Conclusion: This case report highlights the importance of comprehending the PM in the initial presentation of HD so that the diagnosis is not delayed until the onset of motor symptoms.
Introdução: Os sintomas psicóticos estão entre as manifestações psiquiátricas (MP) menos prevalentes e pouco investigadas da doença de Huntington (DH). Relado de caso: Relatamos o caso de um paciente do sexo masculino, 31 anos, que apresentou MP com predomínio de sintomas negativos, sem qualquer movimento anormal significativo. A DH foi diagnosticada com base em uma análise de DNA positiva e na história familiar. A DH impõe um acompanhamento longitudinal por meio de uma abordagem multidisciplinar, a fim de melhorar a qualidade de vida e o prognóstico. Conclusão: Este relato de caso destaca a importância da compreensão das MPs na apresentação inicial da DH, para que o diagnóstico não seja atrasado até ao aparecimento dos sintomas motores
Subject(s)
Huntington Disease , Patients , Prognosis , Psychotic Disorders , Signs and SymptomsABSTRACT
INTRODUCCIÓN: La esquizofrenia constituye un problema sanitario y social de grandes dimensiones que afecta no sólo al paciente sino a su entorno familiar y social. Dentro de las aproximaciones psicoterapéuticas dirigidas a pacientes con esquizofrenia, las terapias cognitivo conductuales (TCC) son las que cuentan con mayor evidencia de efectividad para diferentes propósitos y etapas del trastorno. OBJETIVO: Analizar las técnicas y efectos específicos sobre síntomas negativos de las principales TCC para pacientes con esquizofrenia: Psicoeducación, Entrenamiento en Habilidades Sociales, Rehabilitación Cognitiva, TCC para Síntomas Positivos y TCC orientada a la Recuperación (TCC-R). MÉTODO: Se llevó a cabo una búsqueda y análisis de literatura científica en PSYCLIT, MEDLINE, EBSCO-HOST y PROQUEST publicada entre 1990 y 2014 en revistas indexadas en inglés y español, utilizando como palabras clave los nombres de las diferentes TCC para la esquizofrenia que se cruzaron en todos los casos con el diagnóstico. Se recopiló también la literatura relevante citada en estos artículos, sobre todo en las revisiones de literatura antecedentes. RESULTADOS: A pesar de los avances que han presentado las TCC en la recuperación de pacientes con diagnóstico de esquizofrenia, los problemas generados por la sintomatología negativa no han sido resueltos por completo. DISCUSIÓN Y CONCLUSIÓN: La TCC-R se considera un estilo terapéutico prometedor para alcanzar los objetivos de recuperación de los pacientes con bajo funcionamiento psicosocial y predominio de sintomatología negativa.
INTRODUCTION: Schizophrenia is a health and social problem of great dimensions, affecting not only the patient but their family and social environment. Within the psychotherapeutic approaches for patients with schizophrenia, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has most evidence of effectiveness for different porpoises and stages of the disorder. OBJECTIVE: Analyze the specific techniques and outcome on negative symptoms of the major CBT for patients with schizophrenia: Psychoeducation, Social Skills Training, Cognitive Remediation, CBT for positive symptoms and Cognitive Behavioral Recovery Oriented Therapy (CBT-R). METHOD: A searching and analysis of scientific literature published in English and Spanish between 1990 and 2014 were performed in PSYCLIT, MEDLINE, EBSCO-HOST and PROQUEST, employing as key words the names of the different CBT for schizophrenia and the diagnosis. Relevant literature included in review articles was also included. RESULTS: Despite the advances of CBT, the problems generated by negative symptoms of patients with schizophrenia are not completely solved. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: CBT-R is considered a promising therapeutic style to achieve the objectives of recovery in patients with low psychosocial functioning and predominance of negative symptomatology.
ABSTRACT
Parece haber similitudes entre el trastorno esquizotípico de personalidad (TEP) y las experiencias paranormales. De hecho, algunos de los síntomas en el TEP en el Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) coinciden con un número de experiencias anómalo/paranormales. La esquizotipia positiva, que incluye pensamiento mágico, alucinaciones y otras experiencias perceptuales inusuales, también ha estado relacionada con experiencias y creencias paranormales. Sin embargo, las experiencias paranormales difieren de las experiencias psicóticas en la población no clínica. Para examinar diferencias en síntomas positivos y negativos de esquizotipia se comparó un grupo de individuos interesados en temas paranormales (N = 121) con uno de estudiantes universitarios (N = 588). Como estaba previsto en las hipótesis, las personas interesadas en temas paranormales puntuaron más alto en el subtotal de síntomas positivos de esquizotipia en comparación con los estudiantes, sin diferencias en síntomas negativos. Los síntomas positivos se presentan también en estudiantes que indican tener experiencias paranormales en comparación con aquellos sin experiencias, con una diferencia marginalmente significativa en los síntomas negativos entre ambos grupos.
There seems to be similarities between schizotypal personality and paranormal experiences, in fact, some of the symptoms of PTSD in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) match a number of anomalous/paranormal experiences. Positive schizotypy, including magical thinking, hallucinations and other unusual perceptual experiences, has also been associated with paranormal experiences and beliefs. However, paranormal experiences differ from psychotic experiences in nonclinical populations. In order to establish differences between positive and negative symptoms of schizotypy, we compared a group of believers in the paranormal (N = 121) and a sample of undergraduate students (N = 588). The hypothesis that believers would have higher scores in schizotypy positive symptoms was confirmed. There was a significant difference in positive symptoms of schizotypy among the group of students with and no experiences, although not significant for negative symptoms.
ABSTRACT
Schizophrenia is one of the most studied diseases in psychiatry and different dysfunctions of thinking, emotions, perception, movement, and behavior converge in it. These dysfunctions affect the quality of life of the patients in different ways. It is a disease that has been observed in the whole world, with a 0.5 to 1.5% prevalence among adults. Although the biological basis of schizophrenia is not clear enough, the dopaminergic hypothesis is preponderant in our understanding of the symptoms of the disease. A mesolimbic pathway hyperactivity is related to a positive symptomathology, while a prefrontal dopaminergic hypofunction relates to negative symptoms. It has been observed that using serotoninergic antagonists, which promote dopaminergic activity in the prefrontal cortex, translates in to a reduction of the intensity of negative symptoms. This negative syndrome includes a difficulty to initiate new activities (apathy), speech and creativity impoverishment (alogia), alterations in emotional expression, and a lack of capacity to experiment joy. Patients with negative symptoms present gray and white matter loss in left-sided cerebral structures, including temporal lobe, anterior cingulated, and medial frontal cortex. Such a loss seems to be more evident in prefrontal regions, such as the dorsolateral prefrontal region, which connects with anterior temporal structures. Persistent negative symptomathology is a concept proposed by Buchanan, which must fulfill the following criteria: symptoms are primary to the disease or secondary but have not responded to current treatment; interfere with the patient's capacity to accomplish normal functioning; persist during periods of clinical stability, and represent an unresolved therapeutic need. They must be measurable by clinical scales and persist, at least, six months. The Food and Drug Administration has recently considered negative symptoms as an investigation target or new treatments due to their prevalence and high negative impact in the life of the schizophrenic population. Nowadays, the current treatments available for such an entity are second generation antipshycotics and glutamatergic agents -such as d-cycloserine and glicine-, amisulpiride and seleginine, even though their efficacy is limited. Dysfunction of the human prefrontal cortex is considered to be implicated in the pathophisiology of negative symptoms. This cerebral region is essential in the regulation of emotions and cognition. Multiple neural networks begin in the prefrontal cortex and go towards other cortical association areas, to insular region, thalamic structures, basal ganglia and limbic system. It regulates dopaminergic mesencephalic activity through activating and inhibitory pathways, allowing a precise regulation of dopaminergic activity. This double modulation model of dopaminergic pathways has been recently sustained by studies which prove that extracellular dopaminergic concentration in nucleus accumbens increases or reduces after a high or low frequency stimulation of the prefrontal cortex, respectively. A prefrontal cortex lesion causes a syndrome similar to the negative symptomathology in schizophrenia. Transcraneal magnetic stimulation (TMS) could be effective in the treatment of negative symptoms by activating the prefrontal cortex, maybe by stimulating the liberation of dopamine in the mesolimbic and mesoestriatal pathways which have a crucial role in the pathogenesis of negative symptoms such as apathy and anhedonia. TMS was introduced in 1985 and since the early 90's its potential as a treatment has been tested in numerous neurological and psychiatric conditions. It is a noninvasive means of stimulating nervous cells in superficial areas of the brain. During a TMS procedure, an electrical current passes through a wire coil placed over the scalp. This induces a magnetic field that can produce a substantive electrical field in the brain. This electrical field produces in turn a depolarization of nervous cells resulting in the stimulation or disruption of brain activity. TMS may be applied as a single stimulus or repeated many times per second (repetitive TMS), with variations in the intensity, site, and orientation of the magnetic field. Most research and interest has focused on the potential application of repetitive TMS (rTMS) in the treatment of depression. In addition, in recent years an increasing number of open and double-blinded studies of rTMS were conducted in patients with schizophrenia. Most investigators have chosen to focus on the treatment of specific refractory symptoms or syndromes within the disorder such as refractory auditory hallucinations or persistent negative symptoms. TMS has become widely used in research, especially as a method to probe normal and abnormal brain function, motor cortical physiology, and cognition. Regarding negative symptoms in schizophrenia, eleven studies using TMS were carried out until 2006, with a total of 172 patients studied. These studies are difficult to compare because they used different stimulation parameters and the symptoms described were heterogenic. Six studies were blind and five were open, using high frequency TMS in all of them (frequencies above 1 Hz), which is the type of stimulation most commonly used in treatment studies. Six of these studies found a reduction in the severity of the symptoms, but the reduction was not significant in two of them. Ten were the maximum number of sessions included in every study, except for one, in which 20 sessions of TMS were given. In this study, the score of negative subscale of the PANSS was reduced in 33%, which is considered a significant response, and this result was sustained within the next month. In one of these studies, researchers compared 3- and 20-Hz stimulation with sham stimulation and stimulation provided at the patient's individual alpha frequency. Alpha-frequency stimulation was calculated as the patient's peak alpha frequency from five frontal EEG leads. Stimulation of alpha frequency resulted in a significantly greater reduction in negative symptoms than the other conditions. This finding could suggest that negative symptoms may specifically relate to alpha EEG oscillations, which is interesting and requires further exploration and confirmation. Another two studies were conducted in 2007; in the first one, no improvement in negative, positive of affective symptoms was found. The second one, which was a double-blinded clinical trial, found a significant reduction in the intensity of negative, positive, and general symptoms with the active TMS. We should remark that TMS produces changes in the cortical activity in ventral and dorsoestratial regions, but other cerebral regions could be stimulated too, since some activation abnormalities in the left globus palidus, bilateral caudate nucleus, prefrontal, and temporal right cortex have been found and are associated with the etiology of the negative syndrome. In addition, it will be interesting to see whether changes in subcortical dopamine release, which were shown with rTMS in normal volunteers, can be demonstrated in clinical populations, such as patients with schizophrenia, and how this may relate to response to treatment. There is still a need for a larger number of controlled studies, with larger samples, longer periods of evaluation, and constant stimulation parameters, so they can be compared between them and the exact efficacy of TMS as a treatment for negative symptoms can be established.
La estimulación magnética transcraneal (EMT) es un método no invasivo que utiliza campos magnéticos alternantes para inducir corrientes eléctricas en el tejido cortical en diferentes áreas cerebrales. Se considera una forma de tratamiento para diferentes trastornos psiquiátricos, especialmente en la depresión, adicciones y esquizofrenia. Está técnica terapéutica ofrece una vía innovadora para estudiar la excitabilidad de la corteza, la conectividad regional cortical, la plasticidad de las respuestas cerebrales y las funciones cognitivas en el estado del enfermo. Aunque se han documentado resultados positivos en la estimulación de la CPF izquierda y en la CPF derecha, se sugiere que puede ejercer su acción beneficiosa a través de diversos mecanismos de acción aún no comprendidos en su totalidad. La corteza prefrontal humana es esencial en el control e integración de las emociones, la cognición y la regulación del Sistema Nervioso Autónomo. Numerosas conexiones neuronales bidireccionales se originan en la CPF y se extienden al resto de las áreas de asociación cortical, región insular, sistema límbico y los ganglios basales. La CPF modula la actividad dopaminérgica mesencefálica mediante una vía activadora y otra inhibidora, lo que permite una regulación sumamente fina de la actividad dopaminérgica. La vía activadora funciona por medio de proyecciones glutamatérgicas directas e indirectas a las células dopaminérgicas. La vía inhibitoria hace lo propio mediante eferencias glutamatérgicas prefrontales a las interneuronas GABAérgicas mesencefálicas y a las neuronas GABAérgicas estriatomesencefálicas. El modelo de la doble modulación del sistema dopaminérgico mesolímbico demuestra que la concentración dopaminérgica extracelular en el núcleo accumbens disminuye o aumenta después de la estimulación de la corteza prefrontal a baja o alta frecuencia, respectivamente. Dentro de los estudios que utilizan la EMT en la esquizofrenia, se ha encontrado que, tras una EMT de alta frecuencia (>1Hz) o repetititiva (EMTr), hay un aumento de la excitabilidad en varias áreas cerebrales, mientras que la excitabilidad cortical disminuye tras una EMT de baja frecuencia (<1Hz). La excitabilidad cortical también depende de la intensidad y duración de la estimulación, lo que quiere decir que a intensidades más altas habrá mayor actividad cortical y a trenes prolongados habrá cambios duraderos en la excitabilidad cortical. Una gama de síntomas de difícil tratamiento en la esquizofrenia son los síntomas negativos persistentes, donde se ha demostrado una disminución de la actividad en la CPF, por lo que la EMT se ha utilizado para revertir dicha hipoactividad y disminuir los síntomas. De forma contraria, los síntomas positivos, como las alucinaciones, se asocian con una hiperactividad de las áreas témporo-parietales y por tanto debería resultar beneficiosa la aplicación de EMT de baja frecuencia en dichas áreas. La EMT de alta frecuencia también se ha utilizado para tratar a sujetos con síntomas catatónicos prominentes y se ha logrado una mejoría con el tratamiento. El objetivo de esta revisión es que se comprendan mejor la EMT y el uso que se le puede dar para tratar diversos síntomas en la esquizofrenia.
ABSTRACT
El tratamiento de los síntomas negativos de la esquizofrenia constituye aún un desafío para la Neuropsicofarmacología, dada su persistencia en la evolución de los pacientes en la clínica. El objetivo fue analizar la evolución de los síntomas negativos en pacientes ambulatorios, con diagnóstico de esquizofrenia, de ambos sexos, tratados con neurolépticos. La población estudiada consistió en pacientes ambulatorios de 18 a 65 años de edad, 35 mujeres y 25 varones, con diagnóstico de esquizofrenia paranoide (295.30) con la presencia de síntomas negativos, medicados con risperidona 1 mg/día, haloperidol 5 mg/día, aripiprazol y olanzapina. Se efectuó una entrevista clínica realizada por profesionales que incluyó la administración de la escala PANSS. Los resultados mostraron una mejoría siginifictiva estadísticamente de los síntomas negativos en su conjunto entre el comienzo del tratamiento y el primer mes, el comienzo y el tercer mes y entre el comienzo y el sexto mes. Los pacientes que recibían risperidona mostraron una mejoría de los síntomas negativos durante el tratamiento y aquellos tratados con haloperidol mejoraron al primer y al tercer mes, pero no al sexto. No se analizaron los otros fármacos debido al tamaño de la muestra. Surge la necesidad de continuar y profundizar las investigaciones a fin de lograr una mejoría sustancial en los síntomas negativos de la esquizofrenia, que pueden originar estados invalidantes.
The treatment of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia remains a challenge to Neuropsychopharmacology, given their persistence in the evolution of outpatients. The aim was to analyse the evolution of negative symptoms in ambulatory patients, male and female, diagnosed with schizophrenia and treated with neuroleptics. The studied population consisted in ambulatory patients aged 18 to 65 years-old, of which 35 were women and 25 were men, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia (295.30) and who displayed negative sympotoms, that were treated with 1 mg/day risperidone, 5 ml/day haloperidol, aripiprazol and olanzanie. A clinical interview designed by professionals, which included the administration of the PANSS Scale, was performed. The outcomes demonstrated a statistically significant imporvement of negative sympotoms as a whole, between the beginning of treatment and the first month, the beginning of treatment and the third month, and between the beginning of treatment and the sixth month. Patients receiving risperidone showed improved in the first and the third month, but not in the sixth month. No further pharmacological drugs were assessed, due to the sample size. In order to achieve significant improvement in the negative sympotoms of schizophrenia which may lead to a disabling condition, it is necessary to continue with and to emphasize investigations.