Suicide remains a leading cause of premature mortality worldwide. Current treatments are limited by delayed onset, durability, or poor tolerability. This narrative review, informed by a structured literature search, summarises the last decade of evidence on pharmacological and neuromodulation interventions for suicidal ideation (SI) or suicide attempt (SA) that are not approved for these...
The introduction of ketamine and its S-enantiomer, esketamine, has been one of the most consequential advances in treatment-resistant depression (TRD) in recent decades, demonstrating that rapid and clinically meaningful antidepressant effects can occur within hours, even in patients who have not responded to conventional treatments.However, this advance has not resolved the clinical problem of...
Depression is increasingly conceptualized as a disorder of impaired synaptic plasticity and excitation-inhibition imbalance within corticolimbic circuits. Two rapid-acting therapeutic classes, NMDA receptor modulators (ketamine, esketamine) and neuroactive-steroid GABA-A positive allosteric modulators (brexanolone, zuranolone), offer complementary approaches to restore circuit function....
Abstract Background The brain’s default mode network (DMN) plays a role in social cognition, with altered DMN function being associated with social impairments across various neuropsychiatric disorders. However, the genetic basis linking sociability with DMN function remains underexplored. This study aimed to elucidate the shared genetics and causal relationship between sociability and...
Postpartum depression (PPD) is an increasingly prevalent but still poorly characterized disorder. Causal and modulating factors include hormones fluctuations, such as estrogen, progesterone, and allopregnolone, pathways imbalances, such as oxytocin and kynurenine, chronobiological factors, and brain imaging alterations. Treatment may differ from the traditional major depression management,...
Abstract Anhedonia is a transdiagnostic domain that leads to poor disorder outcome and low remission rates. This narrative review describes a broad range of interventions targeting anhedonia, including pharmacological, neuromodulatory, behavioral, and lifestyle‐based approaches. Drugs such as vortioxetine, agomelatine, bupropion, ketamine, and brexpiprazole show promising anti‐anhedonic...
The revival of psilocybin in psychopharmacological research heralds a potential paradigm shift for treating mood and anxiety disorders, and other psychiatric conditions beyond the psychotic spectrum. This critical review evaluates current evidence on psilocybin's efficacy, juxtaposing potential benefits with the practical aspects of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy (PAP) and the...
For the first time after many decades, many new antidepressants have been approved and many more are under various stages of development and will soon be available in the market. The new drugs present a range of new mechanisms of action with benefits in terms of speed of action, tolerability and range of treatable disorders. Neurosteroids have been recently approved and their rapid benefit may...
Mood disorders are recurrent/chronic diseases with variable clinical remission rates. Available antidepressants are not effective in all patients and often show a relevant response latency, with a range of adverse events, including weight gain and sexual dysfunction. Novel rapid agents were developed with the aim of overcoming at least in part these issues. Novel drugs target glutamate,...
Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) showed efficacy for currently depressed patients. However, most of the available studies suffer from important methodological shortcomings, including the lack of adequate control groups. The present study aims to compare MBCT with a psycho-educational control group designed to be structurally equivalent to the MBCT program but excluding the main...
The occurrence of psychotic symptoms in narcolepsy type 1 (NT1) has been reported as responsible for delayed diagnosis due to the misdiagnosis of schizophrenia. This study aimed to identify shared and distinctive clinical characteristics between NT1 and schizophrenia, with the focus on psychotic symptoms. A total of 28 NT1 and 21 schizophrenia patients were included. Hallucination...
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Chiesa A, Brambilla P, Serretti A. Functional neural correlates of mindfulness meditations in comparison with psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy and placebo effect. Is there a link? Mindfulness meditations (MM) are a group of meditation practices which are increasingly receiving attention. The aim of the present work is to review current findings about the neural correlates of MM and compare such...
Objective Mindfulness meditations (MM) are an important group of meditative practices which have received growing attention. The aim of the present paper is to systematically review current evidence on the neurobiological changes and on the clinical benefits related to MM practice in psychiatric disorders, physical illnesses and in healthy subjects. Methods A literature search was undertaken...
ObjectiveMindfulness based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is a standardized meditation program which has been proposed as a therapeutic option for the prevention of relapses in patients suffering from major depression (MD). The aim of the present review and meta-analysis is to provide an estimate of the efficacy of MBCT for MD patients.MethodsA literature search was undertaken using MEDLINE, ISI web...
BACKGROUND: Mindfulness meditation (MM) practices constitute an important group of meditative practices that have received growing attention. The aim of the present paper was to systematically review current evidence on the neurobiological changes and clinical benefits related to MM practice in psychiatric disorders, in physical illnesses and in healthy subjects. METHOD: A literature search was...
BACKGROUND: Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is a clinically standardized meditation that has shown consistent efficacy for many mental and physical disorders. Less attention has been given to the possible benefits that it may have in healthy subjects. The aim of the present review and meta-analysis is to better investigate current evidence about the efficacy of MBSR in healthy...
Recently, an association between serotonin 1A receptor binding potential and self-transcendence scores at the temperament and character inventory (TCI) has been reported. We tested involvement of 5-HT(1A) gene in this trait, in a sample of 40 remitted mood disorder patients. Subjects with the 5-HT(1A)*C/C genotype showed significantly lower scores at the total self-transcendence and at the...
The brain's default mode network (DMN) plays a role in social cognition, with altered DMN function being associated with social impairments across various neuropsychiatric disorders. In the present study, we examined the genetic relationship between sociability and DMN-related resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) traits. To this end, we used genome-wide association...