Body, Mind & Spirit Articles and Latest News

Personal growth in chronic illness - a biographical case study of living with fibromyalgia.

Forsch Komplementmed. 2010;17(4):203-8

Authors: Kalitzkus V, Matthiessen PF

Chronic illness can be distressing for patients. It confronts them with the challenge of having to cope with their life and of having to adjust their self-image. Nevertheless, patients often experience that they go through a process of personal growth. Although there is empirical proof of the potential that coping with severe illness has with regard to personal growth, fairly little is known about the conditions that bring about such a development. Based on a singlecase study of fibromyalgia (FM) from Germany, the paper reveals the potential of a biographical approach for understanding the process of personal growth in chronic illness.

PMID: 20829598 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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[Pain and beliefs. On the pain regulating significance of mental processes].

Schmerz. 2010 Sep;24(5):439-40

Authors: Murken S

PMID: 20872124 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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[Dermatitis artefacta in a young girl].

Arch Pediatr. 2010 Nov;17(11):1543-5

Authors: Gil-Bistes D, Kluger N, Guillot B, Bessis D

Dermatitis artefacta is a self-inflicted skin disease during which the patient denies having produced and is not conscious of the psychological need he or she needs to satisfy through the lesions. Suggestive clinical features often include bizarre, linear, or geometric outlines of accessible parts of the body and an ambiguous history of the lesions. Dermatitis artefacta in children is often associated with familial dysfunction and/or problems at school. We report a case of acute linear purpuric lesions of the upper right limb in a 12-year-old girl.

PMID: 20880677 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Locomotion-induced hippocampal theta is independent of visual information in rats during movement through a pipe.

Behav Brain Res. 2011 Jan 20;216(2):699-704

Authors: Chen CY, Yang CC, Lin YY, Kuo TB

Behavioural correlates of the hippocampal theta rhythm have been suggested to include voluntary motor behaviours and spatial learning. The involvement of visual information during these processes is still undetermined. Therefore, our aim was to clarify the contribution of locomotion and visual information to the generation of hippocampal theta during locomotion. Forty-one Wistar-Kyoto male rats (8-9 weeks old) were separated into active or passive movement groups that travelled through a pipe, which was either lit or unlit. Animals were implanted with a bipolar electrode in the hippocampus for local field potential recording. Head and leg movements were recorded by accelerometer and leg electromyogram, respectively, and stress levels were assessed by heart rate measurement. Theta power (4-12 Hz) was divided into medium theta (MT, 6-10 Hz) and low theta (LT, 4-6 Hz) power. There was a significant effect of locomotion (p<0.001, two-way ANOVA) on theta power, MT power, and theta mean power frequency. Visual information, however, had no significant effect, nor did the interaction between locomotion and visual information. The lack of visual information effect could not be explained by differences in movement patterns or stress levels, because these two measures did not differ between the lit and unlit conditions. Our results indicate that visual information is not essential for locomotion-induced hippocampal theta, implying that theta oscillation during spatial learning does not reflect sensory processing of visual information.

PMID: 20888366 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Value-sensitive psychiatric rehabilitation.

Transcult Psychiatry. 2010 Sep;47(4):629-46

Authors: Greenberg D, Kalian M, Witztum E

Psychiatric rehabilitation contains value-laden concepts that may be unacceptable to certain cultures and many individuals. The concepts of independence and work are examined in a clash between mental health professionals in charge of national policies in psychiatric rehabilitation in Israel and a rehabilitation center for the severely mentally ill within the ultra-orthodox Jewish community. The government professionals considered that having the living quarters and work site in the same building deemed it unsuitable for rehabilitation, and too few progressed to independent living and working. As such, they ordered the center to be closed. Clients’ families turned to the Supreme Court and the claims and counter claims reveal value-laden positions. The bases for misunderstanding and lack of cooperation between the government professionals and the rehabilitation center are explained in the context of everyday life and values in the ultra-orthodox Jewish community and attitudes in the general population. Fruitful cooperation is based on appreciating core values, identifying and working with the community’s figures of authority, and accepting that the role of the mental health professional is to advise the community, within which the professional has no status.

PMID: 20940272 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Special issues in the care of ultra-orthodox Jewish psychiatric in-patients.

Transcult Psychiatry. 2010 Sep;47(4):647-72

Authors: Popovsky RM

This article reviews the literature regarding psychiatric care of ultra-orthodox Jewish patients. The discussion describes common areas of difficulty working with members of this population in an in-patient setting, including ritual observance, gender dynamics, and countertransference. It provides guidelines for mental health professionals to distinguish between culturally-appropriate and pathological behavior in an effort to avoid misdiagnosis, and offers strategies for overcoming these challenges. It suggests possible adjustments to standard treatment plans which may prove effective in this population and recommends further resources, including the involvement of trained chaplains, for especially complicated situations.

PMID: 20940273 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP4)-deficiency attenuates diet-induced obesity in rats: possible implications for the hypothalamic neuropeptidergic system.

Behav Brain Res. 2011 Jan 20;216(2):712-8

Authors: Stephan M, Radicke A, Leutloff S, Schmiedl A, Pabst R, von Hörsten S, Dettmer S, Lotz J, Nave H

The underlying mechanisms controlling food intake and satiety are thoroughly controlled, but seem to be insufficient under conditions of almost unlimited food supply. Hence, overweight and obesity are serious problems especially in industrialized countries. To assess the possible influence of CD26, exerting a dipeptidyl peptidase activity (DPP4) cleaving several energy homeostasis-relevant peptides, we investigated wild type and DPP4-deficient dark agouti rats in a model of diet-induced obesity and found a reduced weight gain in DPP4-deficient rats. When investigating the specific increase of whole body fat volume by MRI to assess the distribution pattern (subcutaneous vs. intraabdominal), there was an altered ratio under dietary conditions only in DPP4-deficient rats, which was due to lower intraabdominal fat amounts. Furthermore, we investigated the number of cells immunopositive for the leptin receptor (OB-R), the orexigenic leptin antagonist neuropeptide Y (NPY), as well as of the NPY receptors Y1, Y2, and Y5 within hypothalamic nuclei. Independent from the body weight, higher levels of NPY and all receptors were expressed in DPP4-deficent rats. Under obese conditions, hypothalamic Y2-levels were reduced in both strains. Concerning NPY and Y1, there were partly oppositional effects, with reduced hypothalamic Y1 levels only in wild types, and increased NPY levels only in DPP4-deficient rats. These effects might be responsible for unaltered food intake in DPP4-deficent rats compared to wild types, despite reduced weight gain. However, since the food intake remained unaffected, these effects suggest that DPP4 exerts its effects on intraabdominal fat also via peripheral actions.

PMID: 20887754 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Effects of behavioral therapy or pharmacotherapy on brain glucose metabolism in subjects with obsessive-compulsive disorder as assessed by brain FDG PET.

Psychiatry Res. 2010 Nov 30;184(2):105-16

Authors: Apostolova I, Block S, Buchert R, Osen B, Conradi M, Tabrizian S, Gensichen S, Schröder-Hartwig K, Fricke S, Rufer M, Weiss A, Hand I, Clausen M, Obrocki J

This prospective study investigated the effect of pharmacotherapy (PT) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) on cerebral glucose metabolism in adults with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Dynamic positron emission tomography (PET) of the brain with F-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) was performed before and after treatment in 16 subjects diagnosed for OCD for at least 2 years (PT: n=7). Pre-to-post-treatment change of scaled local metabolic rate of glucose (SLMRGlc) was assessed separately in therapy responders and non-responders. Correlation was tested between SLMRGlc change and change of OCD, depression, or anxiety symptoms. SLMRGlc increased in the right caudate after successful therapy. The increase tended to correlate with the improvement of OCD symptom severity. The finding of increased local caudate activity after successful therapy is in contrast to most previous studies. Possible explanations include effects of therapy on concomitant depression symptoms and/or the large proportion of early-onset OCD in the present sample.

PMID: 20947317 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Predictors of excessive exercise in anorexia nervosa.

Compr Psychiatry. 2010 Nov-Dec;51(6):566-71

Authors: Bewell-Weiss CV, Carter JC

The aim of the present study was to replicate and amalgamate findings from previous research into a comprehensive regression model predicting excessive exercise in individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN).

PMID: 20965301 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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Complex personality disorder in bulimia nervosa.

Compr Psychiatry. 2010 Nov-Dec;51(6):592-8

Authors: Rowe SL, Jordan J, McIntosh VV, Carter FA, Frampton C, Bulik CM, Joyce PR

Recent research has suggested a move toward a dimensional system for the classification of personality disorders (PDs). Tyrer’s dimensional model using severity as a form of categorizing PDs was used to compare eating disorder outcome in women with bulimia nervosa (BN) over 3 years.

PMID: 20965305 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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