Psychiatric comorbidities are shown to be very prevalent in patients diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), up high to 53% for mood, 50% anxiety and 43% for ADHD disorders in an European cohort of adults with HFA. Using a new approach, our study proposes to explore aspects of comorbidities in the largest French cohort of HFA adults (C0733/InfoR) by implying qualitative and quantitative clinical tools.

To explore: (1) the prevalence rates of psychiatric comorbidities; (2) the interplay between comorbidities and the ASD symptoms.

Diagnosis was made according to DSM 5 criteria. Dimensional evaluation used Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS), Systemizing Quotient (SQ) and Empathy Quotient (EQ). We used T-test, Mann–Whitney test and linear regression models.

We included 103 patients (mean age 29.3, sex ratio M/F: 3.4:1). Lifetime prevalence rates of 53.5% for depressive disorder 73.5% for anxiety disorders and 37.5% for ADHD were found. Subjects with psychotic co-morbid symptoms had a more severe social deficit (SRS score 66.2 vs 77.9 P < 0.05); patients with ADHD, lower cognition (mean IQ total 107.7 vs 99.0 P < 0.05). SQs (P < 0.05) were significantly higher in patients with co-morbid psychosis, dysthymia, suicide attempts, and depressive disorders and directly correlated with age (β = 0.35, P < 0.05). SQ and EQ were inversely correlated.

The results reproduce the high prevalence of comorbidities in other studies and explore its association with social functioning and cognition. Identification of associated psychiatric conditions in subjects with HFA is therefore a crucial clinical issue potentially guiding the treatment.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

The diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are based on a phenotype, characterized by impaired social interaction and communication and by repetitive and restricted interests. However, this might not represent a single clinical entity, but a behavioral manifestation of different neurodevelopmental deficits with a multifactorial etiology. Small studies have shown elevated levels of oxidative stress and lower levels of anti-oxidants in patients with ASD, and correlations with the severity of ASD. Therapies targeting oxidative stress have shown improvements regarding behavior, social interaction and verbal communication in patients with ASD, supporting the oxidative stress theory.

To evaluate the importance of oxidative stress in the neurobiology of adults with ASD.

There is a need to understand the neurobiology of ASD, therefore this study analyzes the level of oxidative stress in a larger cohort of patients with ASD and compares to controls.

The study includes 350 patients over 18 years of age diagnosed with ICD-10 diagnoses F84.0, F84.1, F84.5 or F84.8 and compared to gender and age matched neurotypical controls. The included probands will have their serum and plasma analyzed for levels of oxidative stress (superoxide dismutase 1 and 2, catalase, glutathioneperoxidase, malonialdehyde, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances and xanthinoxidase).

The preliminary results will be presented at the EPA in March 2016 in Madrid.

With this study we aim to elucidate some of the neurobiology in ASD. This could lead to new potential targets for treatment and prevention of the disorders.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Suicide Prevention is an ongoing task for mental health services. This article describes a pilot program for suicide prevention that took place in two districts in Israel from 2009 to 2012. The program targeted specific population, patients in high-risk for suicide, without major mental illness or previous association with the mental health system. In that group many suicide attempts were due to stressful life events.

Patients who performed a suicide attempt or were considered high-risk for suicide were referred to the project. The first contact took place up to 24 h after the referral and included a phone call with suggestion for further intervention. If he was willing, the patient was invited to a serious of 8–12 meetings with a therapist that focused on “crisis intervention” techniques.

212 subjects were referred to the project. Three quarters of the referrals were females. Most of them were of Jewish nationality, however, the percentage of Druze in the program’s population was higher than their percentage of general population. Only 137 continued participation after the initial phone call, people of Jewish nationality were more willing to continue the intervention. During the intervention there was a decline in suicide rates in the participating districts.

The pilot program exhibits promising preliminary results, it is interesting to examine the difference in participation between different ethnic groups. Since the sample size is small, there is a need to continue the program on a larger scale.

The devastating effects of the current pandemic are profoundly affecting peoples’s physical and psychological health. Numerous studies on the effects of previous infectious outbreaks have been published. Similarly, an increasingly growing body of research on COVID-19 has been developed and released, reporting a substancial psychological impact of both the outbreak and the response, suggesting that the population may express high levels of psychological symptoms.

This presentation aims to synthesize existent literature that reports on the effects of COVID-19 on psychological outcomes of the general population, groups with higher vulnerability and its associated risk factors.

Bibliographic research was made through scientific databases such as PubMed and EMBASE. No time limit was used. Pertinent articles were carefully reviewed for additional relevant citations.

Generally, there is a higher prevalence of symptoms of adverse psychiatric outcomes among the public when compared to the prevalence before the pandemic. Psychological reactions to pandemics include maladaptive behaviours, emotional distress and symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression, and avoidance behaviors. The groups known to be at higher risk for mental health problems during the pandemic are: women, healthcare workers, people under 40 years old and with chronic diseases. Other risk factors are: frequent exposure to social media/news relating to COVID-19, poor economic status, lower education level, and unemployment.

The COVID-19 pandemic represents an unprecedented threat to mental health. In addition to flattening the curve of viral transmission, special attention needs to be paid to the challenges it poses to the mental health of the population at a global scale.

Although much has been written about the health status of adolescents, little is known about adolescents’ perception of their own educational health needs. The purpose of this article is to describe the educational health needs of female adolescents to plan support services.

This qualitative study was conducted in Mazandaran province, a province in the north of Iran. 67 female adolescents between 12–19 years of age participated in 8 focus group discussion. Inaddittion, semi structured interviews were done with 11 key informants including:5 parents,3 teachers and school counselors,2 obstetricians and one midwife. Participants were selected based on purposeful sampling and with maximum variety. All tape-recorded data was fully transcribed and thematic analysis was done.

Findngs of this research around the adolescents’ health-information needs emphasized on 5 overarching themes including necessary for education, need for appropriate content, need for suitable methods, need for suitable sources and appropriate age for education.

The results show that promotion of female adolescents’ knowledges about reproductive health and life skills is one of the most important health needs of them. Education of this issues via parents, schools and health care providers could promote the health status of adolescents.

Personality was shown to play an important role for well being under academic stress. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate how temperament and character traits predict academic burnout in Korean medical students.

One hundred and seventy-eight Korean medical students completed the Cloninger's temperament and character inventory (TCI) at the beginning of semester and Maslach burnout inventory-student survey (MBI-SS) was also measured around the final exam when academic stress and burnout is at the highest. The correlation between TCI and MBI-SS was examined and stepwise regression analysis was performed to measure how well personality traits predict academic burnout level.

The MBI-SS total burnout score was correlated positively with harm-avoidance (r = 0.247, P < 0.05) and negatively with self-directedness (r = -0.296, P < 0.001) and Cooperativeness (r = -0.169, P < 0.05) scores. The regression analysis showed that the harm-avoidance (β = 0.269, P < 0.001) accounted for exhaustion score and the self-directedness explained the Total burnout score (β = -0.296, P < 0.001) and Inefficacy score (β = -0.284, P < 0.001). The Cynicism score was accounted for high Novelty-Seeking (β = 0.150, P < 0.05) and low Cooperativeness (β = -0.182, P < 0.05).

This study showed that the Cloninger's temperament and character might explain the burnout level from the stressful medical education. The temperament of novelty-seeking and harm-avoidance could provide the susceptibility to the academic burnout and the character of self-directedness and cooperativeness might determine the resilience to the negative influence of academic stress.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

The purpose of this study was to investigate relationship between personality traits and mental health in athlete students. This study was a descriptive and correlation design.

Sixty athletes students were randomly selected and responded to NEO-PIR inventory and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ 28). NEO assesses five personality traits: Neuroticism (N), Extroversion (E), Agreeableness (A), Openness to new experience (O) and Conscientiousness (C), and GHQ assesses four dimensions: Somatic symptoms (A), Anxiety (B), Social withdrawal (C) and Depression (D). NEO assesses five personality traits: Neuroticism, Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness to experience. The data were analyzed with Pearson correlation test.

The findings showed that there was positive significant correlation between neuroticism with somatic symptoms and depression, and negative significant correlation between extroversion, agreeableness, openness to new experience and conscientiousness with depression.

Based on findings, it is concluded that physical exercises and sport plans have positive effects on mood and affect of students, and decrease physical and mental diseases in athletes students.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Meditation is frequently applied in Western as well as non-Western countries for different purposes; we know little about adverse events. The symptomatology of a meditation-related psychosis appears to show similarities with that we call “bouffée delirante”.

A female patient is described who developed an acute and transient psychosis with polymorphic symptomatology after meditating (Bikram-yoga). We made a literature search for psychotic states related to meditation.

There are some case reports of psychosis disorder induced by meditation. Some cultural syndromes like Qi-gong appear on DSM-IV as psychotic reaction. In this case, the syndrome is not culture bound.

Meditation can act as a stressor in vulnerable patients who may develop a transient psychosis with polymorphic symptomatology (confusion, pananxiety, mood swings and mood dystonic psychotic symptoms) with a short duration.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

The high prevalence of smoking in individuals who are at ultra-high risk (UHR) for psychosis is well known and moderate cognitive deficits have also been found in UHR. However, the association between smoking and cognition in UHR is unknown and longitudinal studies are lacking.

A cohort study with 330 UHR individuals and 66 controls was conducted, as part of the European network of national schizophrenia networks studying gene–environment interactions (EU-GEI). At baseline and after 6, 12, and 24 months, smoking behavior was assessed with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview and cognitive functioning with a comprehensive test battery. Linear mixed-effects analyses were used to examine the multicross-sectional and prospective associations between (change in) smoking behavior and cognitive functioning, accounting for confounding variables.

At baseline, 53% of UHR and 27% of controls smoked tobacco. Smoking UHR and controls did not significantly differ from nonsmoking counterparts on the tested cognitive domains (speed of processing, attention/vigilance, working memory, verbal learning, or reasoning/problem solving) across different assessment times. Neither smoking cessation nor initiation was associated with a significant change in cognitive functioning in UHR.

No associations were found between smoking and cognitive impairment in UHR nor in controls. However, the fact that one in every two UHR individuals report daily use of tobacco is alarming. Our data suggest that UHR have fewer cognitive impairments and higher smoking cessation rates compared to patients with first-episode psychosis found in literature. Implications to promote smoking cessation in the UHR stage need further investigation.

There are two edifices left to represent one of the most impressive cultural monuments of mental homes in Middle-Europe. the destruction of these historical buildings is intended to establish a modern “Translational Research Centre”.

To outline the significance of the asylum in the history of psychiatric architecture.

To appreciate the first Bavarian mental home.

Study of literature.

The British philosopher Jeremy Bentham is considered to be the founder of the panoptical (“invisible from all around”) concept in architecture. Several panoptical asylums have been built in Great Britain. in France, Italy and Germany a unique exemplar was realized. as the entire ward could be checked from a central room, the possibility of optimal surveillance of the patients was given and the minimisation of staff was enabled. in contrast to the emergent industrial cities (e.g. Nürnberg, Fürth, Schwabach) Erlangen disposed of enough building ground. There, J.M. Leupold (1794-1874) gave a lecture on the new establishing medical department of psychiatry. Thanks to his advice the project of the first Bavarian mental home could be completed within 12 years. the cruciform floor plan was supplemented by cross buildings, which constituted a relevant modification of the panoptical system. Concerning the extension of buildings (1874-1879) the internationally appreciated “system of pavillons” was realized and could be used by university since 1903.

As the TRC-project may serve as a document for future medical progress, it is important to remember the “Kreis-Irrenanstalt Erlangen” as a milestone in the evolution of psychiatric architecture.

Genetic approaches are increasingly advantageous in characterizing treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS). We aimed to identify TRS-associated functional brain proteins, providing a potential pathway for improving psychiatric classification and developing better-tailored therapeutic targets.

TRS-related proteome-wide association studies (PWAS) were conducted on genome-wide association studies (GWAS) from CLOZUK and the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC), which provided TRS individuals (n = 10,501) and non-TRS individuals (n = 20,325), respectively. The reference datasets for the human brain proteome were obtained from ROS/MAP and Banner, with 8,356 and 11,518 proteins collected, respectively. We then performed colocalization analysis and functional enrichment analysis to further explore the biological functions of the proteins identified by PWAS.

In PWAS, two statistically significant proteins were identified using the ROS/MAP and then replicated using the Banner reference dataset, including CPT2 (PPWAS-ROS/MAP = 4.15 × 10−2 and PPWAS-Banner = 3.38 × 10−3) and APOL2 (PPWAS-ROS/MAP = 4.49 × 10−3 and PPWAS-Banner = 8.26 × 10−3). Colocalization analysis identified three variants that were causally related to protein expression in the human brain, including CCDC91 (PP4 = 0.981), PRDX1 (PP4 = 0.894), and WARS2 (PP4 = 0.757). We extended PWAS results from gene-based analysis to pathway-based analysis, identifying 14 gene ontology (GO) terms and the only candidate pathway for TRS, metabolic pathways (all P < 0.05).

Our results identified two protein biomarkers, and cautiously support that the pathological mechanism of TRS is linked to lipid oxidation and inflammation, where mitochondria-related functions may play a role.