Autism AND abuse

Genetics plays an important role in alcohol abuse/dependence. Its heritability has been estimated as 45-65%. Rare copy number variations (CNVs) have been confirmed as relevant genetic factors in other neuropsychiatric disorders, such as autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, epilepsy, or Tourette syndrome. In the present study, we analyzed the role of rare CNVs affecting exons of coding genes in a sample from Northwest Spain genotyped using the Illumina Infinium PsychArray Beadchip. After rigorous genotyping quality control procedure, 712 patients with alcohol abuse or dependence and 804 controls were used for CNV detection...

Long-lasting changes of brain function in response to experience rely on diverse forms of activity-dependent synaptic plasticity. Chief among them are long-term potentiation and long-term depression of neurotransmitter release, which are widely expressed by excitatory and inhibitory synapses throughout the central nervous system and can dynamically regulate information flow in neural circuits. This review article explores recent advances in presynaptic long-term plasticity mechanisms and contributions to circuit function...

This case report draws attention to the potential relevance of undetected autism spectrum symptoms in a bipolar patient with high work functioning showing a peculiar addictive profile with impulsive and antisocial behaviors. A 23-year-old man with a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder (BD) and Substance Use Disorder (SUD) was hospitalized at the Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Pisa for diuretics and β -2 adrenergic agonist abuse in a remission phase of benzodiazepines and substance abuse. He reported a history of behavioral addictions in the framework of a global high work functioning with particular skills in computer science...

In a Swedish sample of persons eligible for disability services and aged 55 years or older in 2012, persons (n = 601) with autism spectrum disorder diagnoses registered in specialist care were identified. Register data concerning diagnoses of other psychiatric disorders, psychiatric care, and psychiatric medication were reviewed. More than 60% had been in contact with psychiatric care. The majority had no intellectual disability (ID) diagnosis recorded during the study period. Apart from ID, affective disorders, anxiety and psychotic disorders were most commonly registered; alcohol/substance abuse disorders were uncommon...

Objective: To consider whether the concepts of tolerance and withdrawal to stimulant medications apply to a preadolescent female, affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and treated for associated attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Methods: We describe the case history and review scientific English language literature pertaining to acute withdrawal effects associated with methylphenidate and amphetamine derivatives in children. Results: An 11-year-old female with ASD and ADHD referred to our clinic experienced vomiting, headaches, and light sensitivity following abrupt discontinuation of methylphenidate; she subsequently presented with migraines and marked malaise immediately after a dose reduction in lisdexamfetamine...

BACKGROUND: Probands with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at increased risk for several psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. The risk of these disorders among the siblings of probands has not been thoroughly assessed in a population-based cohort. METHODS: Every child born in Finland in 1991-2005 and diagnosed with ADHD in 1995-2011 were identified from national registers. Each case was matched with four controls on sex, place, and date of birth...

Pain is the quintessential symptom for individuals suffering from sickle cell disease (SCD). Although the degree of suffering and the cost of treatment are staggering, SCD continues to be grossly understudied, including a lack of data for pain-related genes and prevalence of polymorphisms in this population. This lack of data adds to the inadequacy of pain therapy in this population. Pain genetics investigators have recently examined allele frequencies of single-nucleotide polymorphisms from candidate genes in people who have SCD...

BACKGROUND: Despite discrete autism-related dimensions, such as deficits in communication, empathy and mentalizing are likely to affect the development of personality and despite they actually frequently occur in borderline patients, no research has so far investigated the relationship between autistic traits and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). The objective of this study is to investigate the clinical significance of autistic traits in subjects with BPD. METHODS: The sample included 50 patients with a clinical diagnosis of BPD and 69 healthy controls...

BACKGROUND: Opioids are commonly used after posterior spinal instrumented fusion (PSIF) for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS). Prescription opioids use can potentially lead to misuse, abuse, dependence, and overdose death. Prolonged opioid use has not been extensively studied in the postoperative AIS population. The purpose of this study is to identify risk factors associated with prolonged opioid use after PSIF for AIS. METHODS: A large insurance database was queried for AIS patients undergoing PSIF...

BACKGROUND: Many studies reported the high prevalence of problematic internet use (PIU) among adolescents (13-50%), and PIU was associated with various psychiatric symptoms. In contrast, only a few studies investigated the prevalence among the adult population (6%). This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of PIU and psychiatric co-morbidity among adult psychiatric patients. METHODS: Three hundred thirty-three adult psychiatric patients were recruited over a 3-month period...

This narrative review based on a literature search in PubMed and PsycInfo on the two terms prenatal and antenatal depression includes empirical studies, reviews and meta-analyses that have been published during the last 5 years on risk factors, developmental effects and interventions for prenatal depression. Risk factor studies that met criteria feature demographic measures (lower socioeconomic status, less education, non-marital status, non-employment, less social support and health locus of control, unintended pregnancy, partner violence and history of child abuse) and physiological variables (cortisol, amylase, and pro-inflammatory cytokines and intrauterine artery resistance)...

BACKGROUND: Network analyses on psychopathological data focus on the network structure and its derivatives such as node centrality. One conclusion one can draw from centrality measures is that the node with the highest centrality is likely to be the node that is determined most by its neighboring nodes. However, centrality is a relative measure: knowing that a node is highly central gives no information about the extent to which it is determined by its neighbors. Here we provide an absolute measure of determination (or controllability) of a node - its predictability...

The objective of this study was to examine how behavioral manifestations of trauma due to abuse are expressed in youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) compared outcomes between patients with a caregiver reported history of abuse and those without. Findings indicate that patients with ASD and reported abuse (i.e. physical, sexual, and/or emotional) have more intrusive thoughts, distressing memories, loss of interest, irritability, and lethargy than those without reported maltreatment...

How do joint measures of premorbid cognitive ability and familial cognitive aptitude (FCA) reflect risk for a diversity of psychiatric and substance use disorders? To address this question, we examined, using Cox models, the predictive effects of school achievement (SA) measured at age 16 and FCA-assessed from SA in siblings and cousins, and educational attainment in parents-on risk for 12 major psychiatric syndromes in 1 140 608 Swedes born 1972-1990. Four developmental patterns emerged. In the first, risk was predicted jointly by low levels of SA and high levels of FCA-that is a level of SA lower than would be predicted from the FCA...

Maternal experience of childhood abuse has been associated with offspring autism. To explore whether familial tendency towards autistic traits-presumably related to genetic predisposition-accounts for this association, we examined whether women who experienced childhood abuse were more likely to select mates with high levels of autistic traits, and whether parental autistic traits accounted for the association of maternal abuse and offspring autism in 209 autism cases and 833 controls. Maternal childhood abuse was strongly associated with high paternal autistic traits (severe abuse, OR = 3...

The striatum is key for action-selection and the motivation to move. Dopamine and acetylcholine release sites are enriched in the striatum and are cross-regulated, possibly to achieve optimal behavior. Drugs of abuse, which promote abnormally high dopamine release, disrupt normal action-selection and drive restricted, repetitive behaviors (stereotypies). Stereotypies occur in a variety of disorders including obsessive-compulsive disorder, autism, schizophrenia and Huntington's disease, as well as in addictive states...

The endogenous opioid system is well known to relieve pain and underpin the rewarding properties of most drugs of abuse. Among opioid receptors, the μ receptor mediates most of the analgesic and rewarding properties of opioids. Based on striking similarities between social distress, physical pain and opiate withdrawal, μ receptors have been proposed to play a critical role in modulating social behaviour in humans and animals. This review summarizes experimental data demonstrating such role and proposes a novel model, the μ opioid receptor balance model, to account for the contribution of μ receptors to the subtle regulation of social behaviour...

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: Childhood maltreatment (CM) is strongly associated with psychiatric disorders in childhood and adulthood. Previous findings suggest that the association between CM and psychiatric disorders is partly causal and partly due to familial confounding, but few studies have investigated the mechanisms behind the association between CM and neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). Our objective was to determine whether maltreated children have an elevated number of NDDs and whether CM is a risk factor for an increased NDD 'load' and increased NDD symptoms when controlling for familial effects...

Glucocorticoid hormones (GCs) released from the fetal/maternal glands during late gestation are required for normal development of mammalian organs and tissues. Accordingly, synthetic glucocorticoids have proven to be invaluable in perinatal medicine where they are widely used to accelerate fetal lung maturation when there is risk of pre-term birth and to promote infant survival. However, clinical and pre-clinical studies have demonstrated that inappropriate exposure of the developing brain to elevated levels of GCs, either as a result of clinical over-use or after stress-induced activation of the fetal/maternal adrenal cortex, is linked with significant effects on brain structure, neurological function and behaviour in later life...