Kleptomania and pathological gambling (PG) are currently classified in the DSM IV as impulse control disorders. Impulse control disorders are characterized by an overwhelming temptation to perform an act that is harmful to the person or others. The patient usually feels a sense of tension before committing the act and then experiences pleasure or relief while in the process of performing the act. Kleptomania and PG are often associated with other comorbid psychiatric diagnoses. Forty-four pathological gamblers and 19 kleptomanics were included in this study. All enrolled patients underwent a complete diagnostic psychiatric evaluation and were examined for symptoms of depression and anxiety using the Hamilton depression rating scale and the Hamilton anxiety rating scale, respectively. In addition, the patients completed self-report questionnaires about their demographic status and addictive behavior. The comorbid lifetime diagnoses found at a high prevalence among our kleptomanic patients included 47% with affective disorders (9/19) and 37% with anxiety disorders (7/19). The comorbid lifetime diagnoses found at a high prevalence in our sample of pathological gamblers included 27% with affective disorders (12/44), 21% with alcohol abuse (9/44), and 7% with a history of substance abuse (3/44). A larger study is needed to confirm these preliminary results.

A 25-year-old man with DSM-IV-TR Axis I social phobia and Axis II avoidant personality disorder and erectile dysfunction, presenting with depression, anxiety and insomnia, responded partially to extended release oral venlafaxine (75 mg/die for 6 weeks), but developed side effects and worsening symptoms when dose was increased to 150 mg/die; he responded to a combination of 75 mg/die venlafaxine and 4 mg/die reboxetine and improved on most of his symptoms.

Italian statistics on psychiatric bed availability, voluntary and compulsory admissions were examined from 1979 to 1997. Although the number of psychiatric beds dropped by 62.5%, the absolute number of compulsory admissions has remained substantially stable. The proportion of all admissions that were compulsory decreased from 17.1% to 11%. This study shows that a shift to community care was not associated with an increase in compulsory admissions in Italy.

The combination of clozapine and other potentially leukopenic drugs may pose a greater risk for neutropenia. However, neutropenia may not always be due to clozapine. When adding potentially leukopenic drugs, clinicians should look for possible alternatives especially as clozapine is often a drug used as the last resort in treatment refractory schizophrenia.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a major mental disorder in children. Presently, its pathogenesis and treatment as well as its role in adult psychiatry are subjects of heated debate. As early as 1846, the typical symptoms of ADHD were described by Heinrich Hoffmann, a physician who later founded the first mental hospital in Frankfurt. Interestingly, his description was published in a children's book entitled “Struwwelpeter” which he had designed for his 3-year-old son Carl Philipp. The symptomatology is impressively depicted in the colourfully illustrated story of “Zappel-Philipp” (“Fidgety Philip”), probably the first written mention of ADHD by a medical professional. This clearly shows that the diagnosis of ADHD is not an “invention” of modern times.

We genotyped six SNPs in the genes of p450 family among paranoid schizophrenics and normal controls. All subjects are unrelated Han Chinese. Three showed polymorphic, and no significant differences in allele or genotype frequencies were detected between patients and controls. Thus we obtained no evidence for the involvement of the polymorphisms in paranoid schizophrenia in the population investigated.

The objective of the survey was to compare depressive symptoms in depression with and without a concomitant organic disease. The results based on the HAD and CES-D scales showed that, compared to those with an isolated depression, the patients with an associated chronic organic disease have a higher score on two items on the HAD. Three variables on the CES-D scale also helped to differentiate the two groups of depressed patients. No significant difference was found between the two groups in terms of anxiety or cognitive symptoms, fatigue or feelings of disability. Our results do not indicate any symptom that is specific to a combination of depression and somatic diseases. Guilt and hostility showed a lower level in depression associated with a concomitant somatic disease than in isolated depression.

Research suggests that buprenorphine may possess antidepressant activity. The Beck Depression Inventory was completed at baseline and 3 months by heroin dependent subjects receiving either buprenorphine or methadone maintenance as part of a larger, pre-existing, double blind trial conducted by NDARC (Australia). Depressive symptoms improved in all subjects, with no difference between methadone and buprenorphine groups, suggesting no differential benefit on depressive symptoms for buprenorphine compared to methadone.

We performed an association study between three SNPs in the genes of 14-3-3 family and paranoid schizophrenia. SNP rs983583 G/A in the YWHAZ gene showed significant association with paranoid schizophrenia. Our study indicated that the YWHAZ gene was a potential susceptibility gene for paranoid schizophrenia in the population studied.

The authors developed a method of measuring the fractal box dimension of the human eyeball movement.We found a fractal property in schizophrenic subjects (n = 20) and normal controls (n = 20). The value of the fractal box dimension for schizophrenic patients differs from the results obtained in the control group.

Research on repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) indicates that the treatment of non-psychotic depression is comparable to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in terms of short-term outcome. We report on a woman who exerted a recurrent moderate major depressive episode, 6 months after discontinuation of maintenance ECT. She responded to acute rTMS treatment which was followed by the rTMS maintenance-protocol. Within 2 months of continuation rTMS she relapsed suffering from a severe non psychotic depressive episode and had to be switched to a successful ECT. In this patient rTMS had a good clinical impact as an acute treatment strategy, but failed to prevent relapse as the continuation ECT previously did in the same patient.