Ratings of affective temperament types show promise in helping to differentiate diagnostic groups among major affective disorders as well as to predict associations with important aspects of morbidity including suicidal risk.

The Temperament Evaluation of Memphis, Pisa, Paris, and San Diego auto-rating (TEMPS-A) questionnaire was completed by 858 unselected, consecutive, consenting adults diagnosed with a DSM-5 major affective disorder (173 bipolar-1 [BD-1]), 250 BD-2, 435 major depressive disorder [MDD]) to score for anxious (anx), cyclothymic (cyc), dysthymic (dys), hyperthymic (hyp), and irritable (irr) affective temperaments. We tested their associations with diagnosis and selected clinical factors, including diagnosis, depression scores, suicidal ideation or acts, substance abuse, episodes/year, and %-time ill.

Scores for cyc ranked: BD-2 > BD-1 > MDD; anx ranked: MDD > BD-2 > BD-1; irr was greater in BD than MDD; dys was greater in MDD than BD; hyp did not differ by diagnosis. We confirmed associations of suicidal risk with higher scores of all temperament types except lower hyp scores. Higher cyc and irr scores and lower anx scores were associated with substance abuse. Several scores were higher with measures of greater affective morbidity: cyc with current depression, episodes/year, and %-time ill; irr with more episodes and depressions/year and greater %-time manic. Some of these associations were selective for BD or MDD.

The findings indicate that TEMPS-A ratings of affective temperament types can contribute to differential diagnoses and predict types and amounts of affective morbidity, as well as detecting suicidal risks.

Few studies have investigated alterations of olfactory neuroepithelium (ONE) as a biomarker of schizophrenia, and none its association with cognitive functioning.

Fresh ONE cells from twelve patients with schizophrenia and thirteen healthy controls were collected by nasal brushing, cultured in proper media and passed twelve times. Markers of cell proliferation (BrdU incorporation, Cyclin-D1 and p21 protein level) were quantified.Cognitive function was measured using Brief Neuropsychological Examination-2. Primary outcome: proliferation of ONE cells from schizophrenic patients at passage 3. Secondary outcome: association between alteration of cell proliferation and cognitive function.

Fresh ONE cells from patients showed a faster cell proliferation than those from healthy controls at passage 3. An opposite trend was observed at passage 9, ONE cells of patients with schizophrenia showing slower cell proliferation as compared to healthy controls. In schizophrenia, overall cognitive function (Spearman’s rho -0.657, p < 0.01), verbal memory – immediate recall, with interference at 10 s and 30 s (Spearman’s rho from -0.676 to 0.697, all p < 0.01) were inversely associated with cell proliferation at passage 3.

Fresh ONE cells collected by nasal brushing might eventually represent a tool for diagnosing schizophrenia based upon markers of cell proliferation, which can be easily implemented as single-layer culture. Cell proliferation at passage 3 can be regarded as a promising proxy of cognitive functioning in schizophrenia. Future studies should replicate these findings, and may assess whether ONE alterations are there before onset of psychosis, serving as an early sign in patients with at risk mental state.