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Psychol Med 2021 Jun 24:1-9. Epub 2021 Jun 24.

Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.

Background: Little is known about the neural correlates of dissociative amnesia, a transdiagnostic symptom mostly present in the dissociative disorders and core characteristic of dissociative identity disorder (DID). Given the vital role of the hippocampus in memory, a prime candidate for investigation is whether total and/or subfield hippocampal volume can serve as biological markers of dissociative amnesia.

Methods: A total of 75 women, 32 with DID and 43 matched healthy controls (HC), underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Read More

Chem Sci 2021 Jan 6;12(9):3270-3281. Epub 2021 Jan 6.

Institut für Anorganische und Analytische Chemie, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster Corrensstraße 28/30 D-48149 Münster Germany

In this work, we describe the synthesis, structural and photophysical characterization of four novel Pd(ii) and Pt(ii) complexes bearing tetradentate luminophoric ligands with high photoluminescence quantum yields () and long excited state lifetimes () at room temperature, where the results were interpreted by means of DFT calculations. Incorporation of fluorine atoms into the tetradentate ligand favors aggregation and thereby, a shortened average distance between the metal centers, which provides accessibility to metal-metal-to-ligand charge-transfer (MMLCT) excimers acting as red-shifted energy traps if compared with the monomeric entities. This supramolecular approach provides an elegant way to enable room-temperature phosphorescence from Pd(ii) complexes, which are otherwise quenched by a thermal population of dissociative states due to a lower ligand field splitting. Read More

J Forensic Sci 2021 Jun 22. Epub 2021 Jun 22.

The Forensic Panel, New York, NY, USA.

Fifteen cases of Fetal Abduction by Maternal Evisceration (FAMAE) reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children during 1987-2011 outline the findings from a review of the forensic psychiatric considerations and legal course of each of the cases. Most offenders confessed to law enforcement within a short time of being placed under arrest in statements reflecting a continued effort to manage impressions and minimize culpability. Psychiatric assessment is invariably central to the legal disposition of FAMAE cases, as the defendant's goal is to diminish the perception of culpability/criminal responsibility and mitigate sentencing. Read More

J Phys Chem A 2021 Jun 21. Epub 2021 Jun 21.

Department of Chemical and Geological Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, via G. Campi 103, Modena 41125, , Italy.

Ceria (CeO) is a well-known catalytic oxide with many environmental, energy production, and industrial applications, most of them involving water as a reactant, byproduct, solvent, or simple spectator. In this work, we parameterized a Ce/O/H ReaxFF for the study of ceria and ceria/water interfaces. The parameters were fitted to an training set obtained at the DFT/PBE0 level, including the structures, cohesive energies, and elastic properties of the crystalline phases Ce, CeO, and CeO; the O-defective structures and energies of vacancy formation on CeO bulk and CeO (111) surface, as well as the absorption and reaction energies of H and HO molecules on CeO (111). Read More

Curr Neuropharmacol 2021 Jun 9. Epub 2021 Jun 9.

McGill University; SMBD-Jewish General Hospital; Institute of Community and Family Psychiatry, Montreal. Canada.

Background: Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) manifest affective and behavioural symptoms causing personal distress, relationship difficulties, and reduced quality of life with global functioning impairment, mainly when the disease takes an unfavourable course. A substantial amount of healthcare costs is dedicated to addressing these issues. Many BPD patients receive medications, mostly those who do not respond to psychological interventions. Read More

Bull Emerg Trauma 2021 Apr;9(2):73-79

Prehospital and Hospital Emergency Research Center, Department of Emergency Medicine, Imam Khomeini Hospital Complex, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

Objective: To compare the ketamine efficacy at a sub-dissociative morphine dose to reduce pain in isolated limb traumatic injuries.

Methods: A double-blind randomized clinical trial study was carried out on patients referred to emergency departments (EDs) due to isolated limb traumatic injuries. Eligible patients were divided into two groups which one group received 0. Read More

Sleep 2021 Jun 18. Epub 2021 Jun 18.

National Institute of Mental Health, Klecany, Czech Republic.

Study Objectives: Recurrent isolated sleep paralysis (RISP) is a rapid eye movement (REM) parasomnia characterized by a dissociative state with characteristics of REM sleep and wakefulness. Pathophysiology has not yet been clarified and very little research has been performed using objective polysomnographic measures with inconsistent results. The main aim of our study was to find whether higher REM sleep fragmentation is consistent with the theory of state dissociation or whether signs of dissociation can be detected by spectral analysis. Read More

Sci Prog 2021 Apr-Jun;104(2):368504211025873

NGO AXIO Research and Development Center, Bucharest, Romania.

The coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused dramatic changes in the daily lives of Romanians, affecting their mental health. The COVID-19 pandemic has evolved at three significant peaks, which sequentially occurred on: April 29, 2020; September 18, 2020; and the third wave registered the highest severity on November 27, 2020. Little is known about the mental health changes during this phase of this pandemic. Read More

J Neurol 2021 Jun 18. Epub 2021 Jun 18.

Center of Internal Medicine and Dermatology, Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, corporate member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Charitéplatz 1 (Sauerbruchweg 5, 2. Ebene), Campus Charité Mitte, 10117, Berlin, Germany.

Objective: Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES), a common phenomenon in neurological settings, are regarded as a paroxysmal type of functional neurological disorder (FND). In a substantial proportion, PNES are disabling with poor long-term outcomes and high economic costs. Despite the clinical and financial consequences of PNES, there is still a lack of controlled clinical trials on the treatment of this challenging disorder. Read More

Front Psychol 2021 1;12:648691. Epub 2021 Jun 1.

Department of Anesthesiology, Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.

Background: There is growing interest in glutamatergic agents as a treatment for depression, especially intranasal ketamine, which has become a hot topic in recent years. We aim to assess the efficacy and safety of intranasal ketamine in the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD), especially treatment-resistant depression (TRD).

Methods: We searched Medline, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library until April 1, 2020 to identify double-blind, randomized controlled trials with allocation concealment evaluating intranasal ketamine in major depressive episodes. Read More

Phys Rev E 2021 May;103(5-1):052404

Department of Physics, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Division of Hematology, Department of Internal Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA.

Protein complexes involved in DNA mismatch repair diffuse along dsDNA as sliding clamps in order to locate a hemimethylated incision site. They have been observed to use a dissociative mechanism, in which two proteins, while continuously remaining attached to the DNA, sometimes associate into a single complex sliding on the DNA and sometimes dissociate into two independently sliding proteins. Here, we study the probability that these complexes locate a given target site via a semi-analytic, Monte Carlo calculation that tracks the association and dissociation of the sliding complexes. Read More

Int J Ment Health Addict 2021 Jun 10:1-17. Epub 2021 Jun 10.

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

This study aimed to explore the prevalence of post-traumatic distress, alexithymia, dissociation, and addictive behaviors during the stressful situation of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also aimed to determine whether trauma, alexithymia, and dissociation can effectively predict the risk of addiction in non-clinical subjects during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two hundred nineteen subjects completed a web survey during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Italy, including the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), the Dissociative Experience Scale-II (DES-II), and the Addictive Behavior Questionnaire (ABQ). Read More

Int J Neurosci 2021 Jun 14:1-9. Epub 2021 Jun 14.

Epilepsy Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.

Psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) or functional seizures are universal phenomena. However, data on their epidemiology is limited. The aim of the current study was to review the literature on the epidemiology of PNES and to provide analytical estimates of its incidence and prevalence based on the direct data that are available from previous studies on PNES. Read More

Chem Sci 2019 Dec 18;11(7):1985-1990. Epub 2019 Dec 18.

Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Materials Protection for Electric Power and Transportation, Hunan Provincial Engineering Research Center for Food Processing of Aquatic Biotic Resources, School of Chemistry and Food Engineering, Changsha University of Science and Technology Changsha 410114 P. R. China

Enzyme-free amplification techniques based on dynamic DNA self-assembly (DDSA) have recently been developed for the detection of mRNA in living cells. However, signal generation in traditional DDSA amplifiers is mainly dependent on the random diffusion of dissociative probes in a bulk solution, which is generally accompanied by poor kinetics and interference from complex biological systems. In this work, a new amplifier based on the design of an intramolecular catalytic hairpin assembly (intra-CHA) is proposed for the FRET imaging of mRNA in living cells. Read More

Chem Sci 2020 Mar 3;11(12):3365-3370. Epub 2020 Mar 3.

Center of Basic Molecular Science (CBMS), Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University Beijing 100084 China

How would acidic bond dissociation be affected by adding a small quantity of a weakly polar ionic liquid IL (the "apparent" or "measured" dielectric constant of the IL is around 10-15) into a strongly polar molecular solvent (, of DMSO: 46.5), or ? The answer is blurred, because no previous investigation was reported in this regard. Toward this, we, taking various IL/DMSO mixtures as representatives, have thoroughly investigated the effects of the respective solvent in ionic-molecular binary systems on self-dissociation of C-H acid phenylmalononitrile PhCH(CN) p determination. Read More

Curr Opin Behav Sci 2021 Feb 15;37:13-18. Epub 2020 Jul 15.

Language Research Center, Georgia State University.

Cognitive, comparative, and developmental psychologists have long been interested in humans' and animals' ability to respond to abstract relations. Cross-species research has used relational matching-to-sample (RMTS) tasks in which participants try to find stimulus pairs that "match" because they express the same abstract relation (same or different). Researchers seek to understand the cognitive processes that underlie successful matching, and the cognitive constraints that create species differences in these tasks. Read More

Chem Sci 2021 Apr 7;12(20):7125-7137. Epub 2021 Apr 7.

Department of Chemistry, Southern University of Science and Technology Shenzhen China.

The desire for a carbon-free society and the continuously increasing demand for clean energy make it valuable to exploit green ammonia (NH) synthesis that proceeds the electrolysis driven Haber-Bosch (eHB) process. The key for successful operation is to develop advanced catalysts that can operate under mild conditions with efficacy. The main bottleneck of NH synthesis under mild conditions is the known scaling relation in which the feasibility of N dissociative adsorption of a catalyst is inversely related to that of the desorption of surface N-containing intermediate species, which leads to the dilemma that NH synthesis could not be catalyzed effectively under mild conditions. Read More

Chem Sci 2020 Jul 27;11(32):8502-8505. Epub 2020 Jul 27.

Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China Hefei 230026 P. R. China

We report that Au atoms within van der Waals complexes serve as catalysts for the first time. This was observed in ionization-induced chemistry of 1,6-hexanediol-Au and 1,8-octanediol-Au complexes formed in superfluid helium nanodroplets, where the addition of Au atom(s) made CH the sole prominent product in dissociative reactions. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations showed that the Au atom significantly strengthens all of the C-C bonds and weakens the C-O bonds in the meantime, making the C-C bonds stronger than the two C-O bonds in the ionized complexes. Read More

New Ideas Psychol 2021 Jan 8;60. Epub 2020 Aug 8.

Language Research Center, Georgia State University.

To explain learning, comparative researchers invoke an associative construct by which immediate reinforcement strengthens animal's adaptive responses. In contrast, cognitive researchers freely acknowledge humans' explicit-learning capability to test and confirm hypotheses even lacking direct reinforcement. We describe a new dissociative framework that may stretch animals' learning toward the explicit pole of cognition. Read More

J Am Chem Soc 2021 Jun 14;143(24):9140-9150. Epub 2021 Jun 14.

Polymer Chemistry Research Group, Center of Macromolecular Chemistry (CMaC), Department of Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281 S4-bis, Ghent B-9000, Belgium.

In this study, β-amino esters, prepared by the aza-Michael addition of an amine to an acrylate moiety, are investigated as building blocks for the formation of dynamic covalent networks. While such amino esters are usually considered as thermally nondynamic adducts, the kinetic model studies presented here show that dynamic covalent exchange occurs via both dynamic aza-Michael reaction and catalyst-free transesterification. This knowledge is transferred to create β-amino ester-based covalent adaptable networks (CANs) with coexisting dissociative and associative covalent dynamic exchange reactions. Read More

Drug Test Anal 2021 Jun 13. Epub 2021 Jun 13.

Department of Veterinary Medical Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.

Ketamine is a widely used dissociative drug, whose quantification in plasma and urine can be of pharmacological, toxicological, and clinical interest. Although tandem mass spectrometry allows the reliable determination of ketamine and its metabolites in biological matrices, the structural similarity between norketamine (main active metabolite) and dehydronorketamine (a less relevant metabolite) can represent a critical aspect. These compounds differ exclusively in two hydrogen atoms, but the consequent two-unit difference in their mass/charge ratio is partially nullified by the isotopic abundance of the chlorine atom present in their structure. Read More

Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2021 Jun 11;128:58-63. Epub 2021 Jun 11.

Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. Electronic address:

The relationship between functional seizures (FS) and sexual trauma has received attention in many previous studies. However, the mechanisms underlying this relationship have not been elucidated yet. The purpose of this narrative review is to explore and speculate on the underpinning neurobiological mechanisms for the association and link between sexual trauma and functional seizures. Read More

Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat 2021 4;17:1825-1838. Epub 2021 Jun 4.

Buenos Aires University, Ramos Mejía Hospital, Epilepsy Center, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) are paroxystic and episodic events associated with motor, sensory, mental or autonomic manifestations, which resemble epileptic seizures (ES), but are not caused by epileptogenic activity. PNES affect between 20% and 30% of patients attending at epilepsy centers and constitute a serious mental health problem. PNES are often underdiagnosed, undertreated and mistaken with epilepsy. Read More

Borderline Personal Disord Emot Dysregul 2021 Jun 10;8(1):19. Epub 2021 Jun 10.

Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary.

Background: The current study's goal was to examine the multivariate patterns of associations between schema modes and emotion regulation mechanisms in personality disorders. Schema modes are either integrated or dissociative states of mind, including intense emotional states, efforts to regulate emotions, or self-reflective evaluative thought processes. Exploring the multivariate patterns of a shared relationship between schema modes and emotion regulation strategies may lead to a better understanding of their associations and a deeper understanding of the latent personality profiles that organize their associations in a mixed personality disorder sample. Read More

Sci Total Environ 2021 May 29;790:148151. Epub 2021 May 29.

School of Environment and Energy, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, PR China; The Key Lab of Pollution Control and Ecosystem Restoration in Industry Clusters, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou 510006, PR China.

Using Aspergillus niger (A. niger) to produce low-concentration organic acids is challenging for dissolving InO from waste LCD (liquid crystal display) panels with high toxicity. In this study, three bioleaching approaches from the general and the optimized fermentation systems were investigated respectively to compare indium recovery effects and firstly clarified its bioleaching mechanism. Read More

Brain Behav 2021 Jun 9:e02200. Epub 2021 Jun 9.

Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and Psychosomatics, University Hospitals and University of Halle (Saale), Halle, Germany.

Introduction: Recent research suggests that traumatized patients are characterized by disrupted resting-state functional connectivity. We examined whether neural networks involved in resting-state change over the course of a phase-oriented inpatient treatment for complex traumatized and dissociative disorder patients. We also investigated associations between these network alterations and clinical symptoms and emotion regulation skills. Read More

Pain Rep 2021 Jul-Aug;6(2):e936. Epub 2021 Jun 3.

Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.

Introduction: Ketamine, an anesthetic adjunct, is routinely administered as part of a balanced general anesthetic technique. We recently showed that the acute analgesic and dissociation properties of ketamine are separable to suggest that distinct neural circuits underlie these states.

Objective: We aimed to study whether this finding is robust to the substantial neural circuit alterations associated with general anesthesia. Read More

Inorg Chem 2021 Jun 7;60(12):8777-8789. Epub 2021 Jun 7.

Department of Chemistry, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, FI-80100 Joensuu, Finland.

Cyclometalated complexes [M(Phbpy)(CN)] (HPhbpy = 6-phenyl-2,2'-bipyridine) of the group 10 metals (Ni, Pd, and Pt) bearing a carbanionic CNN pincer ligand were synthesized and studied in a combined experimental and computational DFT approach. All three complexes were crystallographically characterized showing closely packed dimers with head-to-tail stacking and short metal-metal contacts in the solid state. The computational models for geometries, excited states, and electronic transitions addressed both monomeric (, , and ) and dimeric (, , and ) entities. Read More

Chem Sci 2020 Sep 7;11(36):9827-9835. Epub 2020 Sep 7.

Aix-Marseille Univ, CNRS Marseille France

Despite the continuous development of theoretical methodologies for describing nonadiabatic dynamics of molecular systems, there is a lack of approaches for processes where the norm of the wave function is not conserved, , when an imaginary potential accounts for some irreversible decaying mechanism. Current approaches rely on building potential energy surfaces of reduced dimensionality, which is not optimal for more involving and realistic multidimensional problems. Here, we present a novel methodology for describing the dynamics of complex-valued molecular Hamiltonians, which is a generalisation of the trajectory surface hopping method. Read More