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Introduction:Mitochondria are intracellular organelles involved in adenosine triphosphate production. The literature has established the presence of mitochondrial dysfunction in some subjects with psychiatric disorders. Also, there are multiple reports of patients with mitochondrial dysfunction who have various psychiatric disorders. Although the literature on mitochondrial dysfunction and its relation to psychiatric disorders is growing, there remain many unanswered questions.Objective:To review subjects with mitochondrial cytopathies for prevalence of psychiatric comorbidity.Methods:For this study, 36 adults were interviewed. The Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview and the Short-Form 36 Health Survey, version 1 were used.Results:Lifetime diagnoses included 54% major depressive disorder, 17% bipolar disorder, and 11% panic disorder. These prevalence rates are compared with the general population and subjects with cancer and epilepsy. Subjects with a comorbid psychiatric diagnosis were older (P=.05), had more hospital admissions (P=.02), more medical conditions (P=.01), and lower quality of life (P=.01) than subjects with mitochondrial disease alone.Conclusion:Clinicians caring for persons with mitochondrial cytopathies should note the high prevalence of psychiatric problems. Also, this comorbidity might have etiological and therapeutic implications.

Depression and heart disease have an intricate association and perhaps a causal relationship. We review the current status of depression and heart disease and provide an algorithm for diagnosing and treating depression in cardiac patients that internists and cardiologists can use in their daily patient encounters.

BackgroundStudies have shown that patients suffering from depression or schizophrenia often have immunological alterations that can be detected in the blood. Others reported a possible link between inflammation, a microgliosis and the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in suicidal patients. Serum S100B is a marker of BBB function commonly used to study cerebrovascular wall function.MethodsWe measured levels of S100B in serum of 40 adolescents with acute psychosis, 24 adolescents with mood disorders and 20 healthy controls. Patients were diagnosed according to DSM-IV TR criteria. We evaluated suicidal ideation using the suicidality subscale of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale for Children (BPRS-C).ResultsSerum S100B levels were significantly higher (p<0.05) and correlated to severity of suicidal ideation in patients with psychosis or mood disorders, independent of psychiatric diagnosis. Patients with a BPRS-C suicidality subscores of 1–4 (low suicidality) had mean serum S100B values +/− SEM of 0.152+/−0.020 ng/mL (n = 34) compared to those with BPRS-C suicidality subscores of 5–7 (high suicidality) with a mean of 0.354+/−0.044 ng/mL (n = 30). This difference was statistically significant (p<0.05).ConclusionOur data support the use of S100B as an adjunctive biomarker to assess suicidal risk in patients with mood disorders or schizophrenia.