Current Psychiatry Reviews - Volume 3, Issue 2, 2007

Since the seminal paper by Bremner et al. in 1995 reporting the findings of reduced hippocampal volumes in Vietnam combat veterans, other groups have examined brain morphology in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, it is often difficult to compare these studies directly because of differences in types of trauma, length of trauma exposure, age of trauma exposure, and sex. Despite these limitations, man Read More

Social anxiety disorder (social phobia, SAnD) is a chronic, impairing disorder characterised by embarrassment and fear relating to public scrutiny and social performance. In its generalised form it may seem to be a type of extreme shyness or variant of avoidant personality disorder and thus enduring and resistant to change. A discrete subtype has been seen as akin to simple phobia and potentially responsive to behavioural t Read More

Objectives: Depressed patients often have insomnia, daytime sleepiness, and/or changes in sleep architecture. These sleep/wake changes are associated with diminished quality of life, impaired function, diminished treatment response and greater risk of relapse. Antidepressants may cause, exacerbate, or ameliorate these sleep/wake alterations. The sleep/wake effects of bupropion, a norepinephrine/ dopamine reupta Read More

Compared to the animal literature, the human literature on genetic, hormonal and neural mechanisms underlying the initiation, establishment and maintenance of maternal behaviour is small. While there are obvious parallels in the behaviour itself between human mothers and other mammals, there is little evidence for the primacy of biological mechanisms as opposed to cultural and experiential factors. In particular the concep Read More

Schizophrenia is characterised by disturbances in language and thought. Semantic priming paradigms have been frequently employed to investigate language function in schizophrenia. The semantic priming effect is the reaction time advantage that is achieved by priming a target to which a participant is responding with a semantically or associatively related word. In schizophrenia, this area of research has produced Read More

In the last few years the correlation between personality and genetics has been largely investigated. Harm Avoidance seems to be strongly associated with the serotonin transporter gene. The 5-HT1A and the 5-HT3A serotonin receptors and the D2 and D4 dopamine receptors, seem to be also involved, even if results are less unequivocal. Novelty Seeking seems to be associated with dopamine D4 receptor gene, but also Read More