Establishment of a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Network for Individuals with TBI and Neuropsychiatric Symptoms.

Aims: The overarching goal of this project was to establish a group comprised of a variety of TBI stakeholders for the purpose of: (1) determining facilitators and barriers in management of neuropsychiatric symptoms after TBI; (2) identifying strategies for maintaining a TBI PCOR network; (3) enumerating research topics related to TBI neuropsychiatry; and (4) highlighting policy changes related to TBI neuropsychiatry.Methods: Twenty-nine TBI stakeholders participated in focus group discussions. Qualitative analyses were conducted both manually and using Dedoose software.Results: Participant-identified barriers included stigma associated with experiencing neuropsychiatric symptoms and poor insurance coverage. Facilitators included treatment focused on education of neuropsychiatric symptoms after TBI and having a comprehensive caregiver plan. Best strategies for maintaining TBI PCOR network included having a well-defined project, continued regular meetings, and on-going education of network members. Pertinent research topics included TBI and aging, factors influencing outcomes after TBI, substance use disorders related to TBI, and effectiveness of telemental health services. Needed policy changes included making TBI neuropsychiatry education accessible to stakeholders and improving accessibility of TBI neuropsychiatric care.Conclusion: TBI stakeholders identified several facilitators of care for neuropsychiatric symptoms after TBI and suggested research topics and best practices for conducting PCOR in this area.

A perspectives approach to suicide after traumatic brain injury: case and review.

BACKGROUND: Suicidal behavior after traumatic brain injury (TBI) is an increasingly recognized phenomenon. Both TBI and suicide are major public health problems and leading causes of death. The interaction between both of them is complex, and understanding it requires a multifaceted approach. Epidemiologic studies have shown a markedly higher incidence of suicide in individuals with TBI as compared with the general population, but imprecise definitions of suicide and suicidality as well as sample characteristics caution conclusive interpretation. Risk factors for suicide after TBI include male gender, presence of substance abuse or psychiatric disorders, and the severity of the injury. Evaluation of a suicidal patient with previous TBI currently relies on careful clinical examination. Established assessment tools can be useful but have not all been validated in this population. Intervention strategies should stress a multidimensional approach incorporating neurologic, behavioral, psychologic, pharmacotherapeutic, and psychosocial factors. OBJECTIVE: This article serves to review the currently available literature on suicidal behavioral after TBI. METHODS: It uses a case to illustrate how one might conceptualize this complex problem. CONCLUSION: It is hoped that this review stimulates further research in an area where there are still large gaps in our knowledge of this very important problem.

Gray-matter abnormalities in deficit schizophrenia.

Deficit schizophrenia (D-SZ) has been proposed as a putative disease subtype defined by prominent, primary negative symptoms that endure as trait-like features during periods of clinical stability. In this study, we acquired magnetic resonance images of the whole brain using a 1.5 T scanner in 19 outpatients with D-SZ, 31 with non-deficit schizophrenia (ND-SZ), and 90 healthy adults. Voxel-based morphometry was used to investigate differences in regional gray-matter volume (GMV) between outpatients with D-SZ and ND-SZ, and between the combined patient subgroups and healthy adults. Compared to healthy adults outpatients with schizophrenia showed GMV reductions, especially in left frontal and temporal cortices and in the left insula. The D-SZ subgroup showed reduced GMV in the insula bilaterally and in the left superior frontal, middle temporal and occipital gyri. Regions in which GMV reductions best distinguished D-SZ from ND-SZ patients included the superior frontal gyrus (Brodmann area 8) and superior temporal gyrus (Brodmann areas 22, 38) bilaterally, the left supplementary motor area (Brodmann area 6), left anterior cingulate, left cuneus and right putamen. These results suggest that patients with deficit schizophrenia have brain abnormalities that differ from those of patients with non-deficit schizophrenia. Further, the neuroanatomic differences between these two putative subtypes of schizophrenia involve brain regions that appear to be associated with the negative symptoms that define the deficit syndrome of schizophrenia.

Neuropsychological impairment in deficit vs. non-deficit schizophrenia.

This study aimed to assess the severity and specificity of cognitive impairments that affect individuals with deficit versus non-deficit schizophrenia. We compared 26 patients with the deficit subtype of schizophrenia (SZ-D) and 79 with non-deficit schizophrenia (SZ-ND) to 316 healthy adults (NC). All study participants completed a battery with 19 individual cognitive measures. After adjusting their test performance for age, sex, race, education and estimated premorbid IQ, we derived regression-based T-scores for each measure and the six derived cognitive domains including attention, psychomotor speed, executive function, verbal fluency, visual memory, and verbal memory. Multivariate analyses of variance revealed significant group effects for every individual measure and domain of cognitive functioning (all ps<0.001). Post hoc comparisons revealed that patients with SZ-D performed significantly worse than NCs in every cognitive domain. They also produced lower scores than the SZ-ND group in every domain, but only the difference for verbal fluency reached statistical significance. The correlations of the effect sizes shown by the SZ-D and SZ-ND patients were of intermediate magnitude for the individual tests (r=0.56, p<0.01) and higher, but not statistically significant for the cognitive domains (r=0.79, p=0.06). Patients with SZ-D demonstrate cognitive deficits that are both common and distinct from those shown by patients with SZ-ND. Their impairment of verbal fluency is consistent with the observation that poverty of speech is a clinically significant feature of patients with SZ-D.

Neuropsychological functioning in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

BACKGROUND: Some patients with bipolar disorder (BD) demonstrate neuropsychological deficits even when stable. However, it remains unclear whether these differ qualitatively from those seen in schizophrenia (SZ). METHODS: We compared the nature and severity of cognitive deficits shown by 106 patients with SZ and 66 patients with BD to 316 healthy adults (NC). All participants completed a cognitive battery with 19 individual measures. After adjusting their test performance for age, sex, race, education, and estimated premorbid IQ, we derived regression-based T-scores for each measure and the six cognitive domains. RESULTS: Both patient groups performed significantly worse than NCs on most (BD) or all (SZ) cognitive tests and domains. The resulting effect sizes ranged from .37 to 1.32 (mean=.97) across tests for SZ patients and from .23 to .87 (mean=.59) for BD patients. The Pearson correlation of these effect sizes was .71 (p<.001). CONCLUSIONS: Patients with bipolar disorder suffer from cognitive deficits that are milder but qualitatively similar to those of patients with schizophrenia. These findings support the notion that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder show greater phenotypic similarity in terms of the nature than severity of their neuropsychological deficits.