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Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2022 Jun 24:104751. Epub 2022 Jun 24.

Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK. Electronic address:

Elevated responsiveness to verbal suggestions is hypothesized to represent a predisposing factor for dissociative disorders (DDs) and related conditions. However, the magnitude of this effect has not been estimated in these populations nor has the potential moderating influence of methodological limitations on effect size variability across studies. This study assessed whether patients with DDs, trauma- and stressor-related disorders (TSDs), and functional neurological disorder (FND) display elevated hypnotic suggestibility. Read More

Epilepsy Behav 2022 Jun 23:108780. Epub 2022 Jun 23.

Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada; Department of Medical Imaging, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada; Department of Psychology, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.

Objective: Comorbid epilepsy and psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) occur in 12-22% of cases and the diagnosis of both simultaneous disorders is challenging. We aimed to identify baseline characteristics that may help distinguish patients with PNES-only from those with comorbid epilepsy.

Methods: We performed a longitudinal cohort study on those patients diagnosed with PNES in our epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU) between May 2001 and February 2011, prospectively followed up until September 2016. Read More

Psychol Med 2022 Jun 23:1-16. Epub 2022 Jun 23.

Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychological Therapies, Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, Norfolk, UK.

The dissociative subtype of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD-DS) was introduced in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), and is characterised by symptoms of either depersonalisation or derealisation, in addition to a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This systematic review and meta-analysis sought to estimate the point prevalence of current PTSD-DS, and the extent to which method of assessment, demographic and trauma variables moderate this estimate, across different methods of prevalence estimation. Studies included were identified by searching MEDLINE (EBSCO), PsycInfo, CINAHL, Academic Search Complete and PTSDpubs, yielding 49 studies that met the inclusion criteria ( = 8214 participants). Read More

Am J Psychiatry 2022 Jun 22:appiajp21090911. Epub 2022 Jun 22.

Division of Depression and Anxiety Disorders (Lebois, Harnett, Ravichandran, Dumornay, Finegold, Merker, Pizzagalli, Ressler), Institute for Technology in Psychiatry (Germine, Rauch), and Department of Psychiatry (Rauch), McLean Hospital, Belmont, Mass.; Department of Psychiatry (Lebois, Harnett, Ravichandran, Germine, Rauch, Pizzagalli, Ressler), Department of Emergency Medicine (Sanchez), and Department of Health Care Policy (Kessler), Harvard Medical School, Boston; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (van Rooij, Ely, Stevens), Department of Biomedical Informatics (Clifford), and Department of Emergency Medicine (Hudak), Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences (Jovanovic) and Department of Emergency Medicine (Pearson, O'Neil), Wayne State University, Detroit; Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis (Bruce); Department of Emergency Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis (House); Department of Psychology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb (Hill); McLean Hospital, Belmont, Mass. (Phillips); Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore (Phillips); Department of Emergency Medicine and Department of Health Services, Policy, and Practice, Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Rhode Island Hospital, and Miriam Hospital, Providence, R.I. (Beaudoin); Institute for Trauma Recovery (An, Linnstaedt, McLean), Department of Anesthesiology (An, Linnstaedt), Department of Psychiatry (McLean), and Department of Emergency Medicine (McLean), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco (Neylan); Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Emory University, Atlanta (Clifford); Many Brains Project, Belmont, Mass. (Germine); Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester (Haran); Department of Emergency Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tenn. (Storrow); Department of Emergency Medicine, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit (Lewandowski); Department of Emergency Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis (Musey); Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville (Hendry, Sheikh); Department of Emergency Medicine, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, Camden, N.J. (Jones); Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, and College of Nursing, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati (Punches); Department of Emergency Medicine, Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine, Rochester, Mich. (Swor); Department of Emergency Medicine, Boston Medical Center, Boston (McGrath); Department of Surgery and Department of Neurosurgery (Pascual), Department of Surgery, Division of Traumatology, Surgical Critical Care and Emergency Surgery (Seamon), and Perelman School of Medicine (Pascual, Seamon), University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Department of Emergency Medicine, Einstein Healthcare Network, Philadelphia (Datner); Department of Emergency Medicine, Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia (Datner); Department of Emergency Medicine, Jefferson University Hospitals, Philadelphia (Chang); Department of Emergency Medicine, Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital, Ypsilanti, Mich. (Domeier); Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School-Baystate, Springfield (Rathlev); Department of Emergency Medicine, McGovern Medical School, University of Texas Health, Houston (Sergot); Department of Emergency Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston (Sanchez); National Center for PTSD, Behavioral Science Division, VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston (Miller); Department of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston (Miller); National Center for PTSD, Clinical Neurosciences Division, VA Connecticut Healthcare System, West Haven (Pietrzak); Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn. (Pietrzak); Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. (Joormann); Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis (Barch); Department of Biosciences and Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research, OSU Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, Ohio (Sheridan); Department of Psychiatry, Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston (Smoller); Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Mass. (Smoller); Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh (Luna); Department of Anesthesiology and Department of Internal Medicine-Rheumatology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor (Harte); Kolling Institute of Medical Research, University of Sydney, St Leonards, New South Wales, Australia (Elliott); Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Northern Sydney Local Health District, New South Wales, Australia (Elliott); Physical Therapy and Human Movement Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago (Elliott); Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston (Koenen); Lurie Center for Autism, Lexington, Mass. (Ravichandran).

Objective: Dissociation, a disruption or discontinuity in psychological functioning, is often linked with worse psychiatric symptoms; however, the prognostic value of dissociation after trauma is inconsistent. Determining whether trauma-related dissociation is uniquely predictive of later outcomes would enable early identification of at-risk trauma populations. The authors conducted the largest prospective longitudinal biomarker study of persistent dissociation to date to determine its predictive capacity for adverse psychiatric outcomes following acute trauma. Read More

Front Psychiatry 2022 26;13:925983. Epub 2022 May 26.

Department of Psychiatry, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Pondicherry, India.

Dissociative disorders are an important group of trauma-related disorders associated with significant disability. The co-occurrence of dissociative disorders (DD) and symptoms (DS) in bipolar disorder has been relatively understudied, but there is some evidence that this comorbidity may have significant mechanistic and clinical implications. This paper presents the results of a scoping review of the frequency and correlates of DS and DD in bipolar disorder. Read More

J Pediatr 2022 Jun;245:101

Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Front Behav Neurosci 2022 30;16:862192. Epub 2022 May 30.

Department of Psychiatry, Western University, London, ON, Canada.

Background: Increasing evidence points toward the need to extend the neurobiological conceptualization of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to include evolutionarily conserved neurocircuitries centered on the brainstem and the midbrain. The reticular activating system (RAS) helps to shape the arousal state of the brain, acting as a bridge between brain and body. To modulate arousal, the RAS is closely tied to the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Read More

Case Rep Neurol 2022 May-Aug;14(2):223-230. Epub 2022 May 3.

IRCCS Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi-ONLUS, Florence, Italy.

Sudden retrograde memory loss, in the absence of neurological causes, is usually referred to as a dissociative symptom. Dissociative amnesia, defined in the DSM-V as an inability to remember important autobiographical experiences, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature, is however a controversial phenomenon. Few cases with this pattern are described in the scientific literature and still fewer regarding adolescents. Read More

J Trauma Dissociation 2022 Jun 14:1-34. Epub 2022 Jun 14.

Division of Psychiatry, University College London, London, UK.

Depersonalization-Derealization disorder (DDD) is a psychiatric condition characterized by persistent feelings of detachment from one's self and of unreality about the outside world. This review aims to examine the prevalence of DDD amongst different populations. A systematic review protocol was developed before literature searching. Read More

Riv Psichiatr 2022 May-Jun;57(3):141-157

Scuola di Psicoterapia Cognitiva, Rome, Italy.

Complex dissociative disorders (CDD) include dissociative identity disorder (DID) and the most common other specified dissociative disorder (OSDD, type 1). While consensus-based treatments for CDD are lacking in several international guidelines, patients suffering from CDD show high levels of impairment, treatment utilization and costs. Migrants and refugees often present risk factors for trauma-related and dissociative disorders and need effective and culturally adapted treatments. Read More

Dela J Public Health 2022 May 31;8(2):78-84. Epub 2022 May 31.

Widener University Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology.

Trauma-related dissociation is a major public health risk warranting the attention of the healthcare professions. Severe dissociative pathology or dissociative disorders (DDs) are more prevalent than some commonly assessed psychiatric disorders (e.g. Read More

Front Hum Neurosci 2022 24;16:893830. Epub 2022 May 24.

Praxis Dr. med. Regula Spreyermann, Basel, Switzerland.

The practical use of a combination of trauma psychotherapy and neurofeedback [infra-low-frequency (ILF) neurofeedback and alpha-theta training] is described for the treatment of patients diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD). The indication for this combined treatment is the persistence of symptoms of a hyper-aroused state, anxiety, and sleep disorders even with adequate trauma-focused psychotherapy and supportive medication, according to the Guidelines of the German Society of Psycho-Traumatology (DeGPT). Another indication for a supplementary treatment with neurofeedback is the persistence of dissociative symptoms. Read More

BMC Psychiatry 2022 06 7;22(1):383. Epub 2022 Jun 7.

I Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Early Intervention, Medical University of Lublin, Głuska 1 Street, 20-439, Lublin, Poland.

Background: Sleep paralysis (SP) is a transitional dissociative state associated with the REM sleep phase that affects approximately 28.3% of the student population during their lifetime. The reasons for the high prevalence of SP in the student population are not entirely clear. Read More

BMJ Case Rep 2022 Jun 7;15(6). Epub 2022 Jun 7.

Department of Internal Medicine, Regional Hospital of Bellinzona and Valleys, Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale, Bellinzona, Ticino, Switzerland.

Burning mouth syndrome (BMS) is a rare but serious medical condition with important psychiatric comorbidity and specific psychological correlates. Psychopathology related with BMS represents a real challenge for clinical decision-making. In this case, depression is the leading psychiatric diagnosis associated with patient's BMS somatic pain and is driven by anxiety and a dissociative functioning. Read More

Prog Brain Res 2022 14;272(1):143-151. Epub 2022 May 14.

Department of Neurosurgery, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, United States. Electronic address:

Patients who display the neurological phenomena variously referred to as pseudoseizures, dissociative seizures, or psychogenic non-epileptic seizures present an important problem in the treatment of epilepsy. Their convulsive or non-convulsive episodes show no epileptiform activity on electroencephalography but are distressing and debilitating to patients so afflicted, and can be difficult to distinguish from classical epilepsy. It is important to make this distinction, as the treatment for pseudoseizures is typically cognitive behavioral therapy rather than anticonvulsant medication. Read More

Games Health J 2022 May 31. Epub 2022 May 31.

Department of Physiology, Centro Cardiovascular da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.

The use of virtual reality (VR) has been increasing worldwide, as devices are becoming more sophisticated and provide an escape from reality during the COVID-19 lockdown. This recent rise in the use of VR leads to new side effects being reported, such as dissociative symptoms that may or may not constitute a mental health concern. This retrospective study investigated the prevalence and intensity of dissociative symptoms in VR users, as well as some potential predisposing conditions that may trigger them, and their impact on the subjects' wellbeing. Read More

Genes (Basel) 2022 May 8;13(5). Epub 2022 May 8.

Department of Psychiatry, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Puducherry 605 006, India.

Dissociative disorders are a common and frequently undiagnosed group of psychiatric disorders, characterized by disruptions in the normal integration of awareness, personality, emotion and behavior. The available evidence suggests that these disorders arise from an interaction between genetic vulnerability and stress, particularly traumatic stress, but the attention paid to the underlying genetic diatheses has been sparse. In this paper, the existing literature on the molecular genetics of dissociative disorders, as well as of clinically significant dissociative symptoms not reaching the threshold of a disorder, is reviewed comprehensively across clinical and non-clinical samples. Read More

J Psychiatr Res 2022 Jul 10;151:476-496. Epub 2022 May 10.

Mood Disorders Psychopharmacology Unit, Poul Hansen Family Centre for Depression, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; Canadian Rapid Treatment Center of Excellence, Mississauga, ON, Canada; Brain and Cognition Discovery Foundation, Toronto, ON, Canada; Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. Electronic address:

While ketamine has been used clinically over the past decades, it has only been recently shown to be a promising therapy for treatment-resistant depression (TRD). However, ketamine and related dissociative agents may also be misused recreationally, creating significant concerns for abuse liability when prescribed for depression. Although the abuse potential of ketamine is widely recognized, there is limited evidence on the differential abuse liability of ketamine enantiomers, (S)-ketamine and (R)-ketamine. Read More

J Trauma Dissociation 2022 May 26:1-21. Epub 2022 May 26.

Department of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA.

We investigated cognition in depersonalization-spectrum dissociative disorders without comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder to explore evidence for emotionally avoidant information processing. Forty-eight participants with DSM-IV dissociative disorder (DD) (Depersonalization Disorder - 37, Dissociative Disorder NOS -11), 36 participants with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and 56 healthy controls (HC) were administered the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (WAIS); the Weschler Memory Scale-III (WMS); and three Stroop tasks: the Standard Stroop, a selective-attention Emotional Stroop using neutral, dissociation, and trauma-related word categories, and a divided-attention Emotional Stroop using comparable words. Participants were also administered a paired-associates explicit and implicit memory test using emotionally neutral and negative words, before and after the Trier Social Stress Test. Read More

J Child Adolesc Trauma 2022 Jun 5;15(2):365-374. Epub 2022 Apr 5.

Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, UKE - Kore University of Enna, Enna, Italy.

Although impairments in mentalizing and dissociation have been linked to the onset of eating disorders, there is still a paucity of studies investigating their relationships among adolescents. This study aimed at investigating the role of failures in reflective functioning and dissociation in predicting the risk of eating disorders during adolescence. The Eating Disorder Inventory-3 (EDI-3), the Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (RFQ), and the Adolescent Dissociative Experiences Scale (A-DES) were administered to a sample of 427 adolescents between 13 and 20 years old. Read More

Seizure 2022 07 8;99:43-47. Epub 2022 May 8.

Department of Clinical Neurophysiology and Epilepsies, Guys and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK. Electronic address:

BMC Psychiatry 2022 05 16;22(1):338. Epub 2022 May 16.

Section for clinical addiction research, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway.

Background: Patients with complex dissociative disorders (CDD) report high levels of childhood- abuse experiences, clinical comorbidity, functional impairment, and treatment utilization. Although a few naturalistic studies indicate that these patients can benefit from psychotherapy, no randomized controlled trials have been reported with this patient-group. The current study evaluates a structured protocolled group treatment delivered in a naturalistic clinical setting to patients with CDD, as an add-on to individual treatment. Read More

Front Psychiatry 2022 28;13:804491. Epub 2022 Apr 28.

Radboud University Medical Center, Radboud Institute for Health Sciences, IQ Healthcare, Nijmegen, Netherlands.

Background: Patients with severe mental illness with repeated interpersonal trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have a negative illness progression. Traumas are often not treated because of their vulnerability. Narrative exposure therapy (NET) is an effective trauma therapy. Read More

Front Pharmacol 2022 27;13:856672. Epub 2022 Apr 27.

Université Paris Cité, INSERM, CNRS, T3S, Paris, France.

Substance use disorders (SUD) may emerge from an individual's attempt to limit negative affective states and symptoms linked to stress. Indeed, SUD is highly comorbid with chronic stress, traumatic stress, or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and treatments approved for each pathology individually often failed to have a therapeutic efficiency in such comorbid patients. The kappa-opioid receptor (KOR) and its endogenous ligand dynorphin (DYN), seem to play a key role in the occurrence of this comorbidity. Read More

Psychiatr Pol 2022 Feb 27;56(1):63-75. Epub 2022 Feb 27.

Warszawski Uniwersytet Medyczny, Katedra i Klinika Psychiatryczna.

Ganser syndrome (GS) is one of afew eponyms that have survived in psychiatry until the present day. GS is a little-known and rare disorder. It is most often described as a response to a stressor (e. Read More

Front Psychiatry 2022 25;13:863552. Epub 2022 Apr 25.

Private Practice of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Solothurn, Switzerland.

The Swiss Federal Act on Narcotics allows for the restricted medical use of scheduled psychotropic drugs in cases of resistance to standard treatment, and preliminary evidence of efficacy of the scheduled drug for the particular condition. Since 2014, the authors have obtained 50 licenses on a case-by-case basis and developed a psychedelic-assisted group therapy model utilizing MDMA and LSD. The majority of the patients taking part in the psychedelic group therapy suffered from chronic complex post-traumatic stress disorder (c-PTSD), dissociative, and other post-traumatic disorders. Read More

Br J Clin Pharmacol 2022 May 4. Epub 2022 May 4.

Faculty of Health, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK.

There is a growing interest in the psychiatric properties of the dissociative anaesthetic ketamine, as single doses have been shown to have fast-acting mood-enhancing and anxiolytic effects, which persist for up to a week after the main psychoactive symptoms have diminished. Therefore, ketamine poses potential beneficial effects in patients with refractory anxiety disorders, where other conventional anxiolytics have been ineffective. Ketamine is a noncompetitive antagonist of the N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) glutamate receptor, which underlies its induction of pain relief and anaesthesia. Read More

Discov Ment Health 2022 15;2(1). Epub 2022 Apr 15.

Experimental Therapeutics and Pathophysiology Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health [NIMH-NIH], 10 Center Dr, Room 7-5545, Bethesda, MD 20814 USA.

This manuscript reviews the clinical evidence regarding single-dose intravenous (IV) administration of the novel glutamatergic modulator racemic ()-ketamine (hereafter referred to as ketamine) as well as its -enantiomer, intranasal esketamine, for the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD). Initial studies found that a single subanesthetic-dose IV ketamine infusion rapidly (within one day) improved depressive symptoms in individuals with MDD and bipolar depression, with antidepressant effects lasting three to seven days. In 2019, esketamine received FDA approval as an adjunctive treatment for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) in adults. Read More

Mindfulness (N Y) 2022 27;13(6):1479-1489. Epub 2022 Apr 27.

Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University, 1165 Morris Park Avenue, Bronx, NY 10461 USA.

Objectives: Although depersonalization has been described as the antithesis of mindfulness, few studies have empirically examined this relationship, and none have considered how it may differ across various facets of mindfulness, either alone or in interaction. The present study examined the relationship between symptoms of depersonalization and facets of dispositional mindfulness in a general population sample.

Methods: A total of 296 adult participants (139 male, 155 female, 2 other) were recruited online via Qualtrics and completed the Cambridge Depersonalisation Scale; Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale; and Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire. Read More