Metabolic disorders are not well-recognized by psychiatrists as a possible source of secondary psychoses. Inborn errors of metabolism (IEMs) are not frequent. Although their prompt diagnosis may lead to suitable treatments. IEMs are well-known to pediatricians, in particular for their most serious forms, having an early expression most of the time. Recent years discoveries have unveiled later expression forms, and sometimes very discreet first physical signs. There is a growing body of evidence that supports the hypothesis that IEMs can manifest as atypical psychiatric symptoms, even in the absence of clear neurological symptoms. In the present review, we propose a detailed overview at schizophrenia-like and autism-like symptoms that can lead practitioners to bear in mind an IEM. Other psychiatric manifestations are also found, as behavioral, cognitive, learning, and mood disorders. However, they are less frequent. Ensuring an accurate IEM diagnosis, in front of these psychiatric symptoms should be a priority, in order to grant suitable and valuable treatment for these pathologies.

The ability to override a dominant response, often referred to as behavioral inhibition, is considered a key element of executive cognition. Poor behavioral inhibition is a defining characteristic of several neurological and psychiatric populations. Recently, there has been increasing interest in the motivational dimension of behavioral inhibition, with some experiments incorporating emotional contingencies in classical inhibitory paradigms such as the Go/NoGo and Stop Signal Tasks (SSTs). Several studies have reported a positive modulatory effect of reward on performance in pathological conditions such as substance abuse, pathological gambling, and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). However, experiments that directly investigate the modulatory effects of reward magnitudes on the performance of inhibitory tasks are scarce and little is known about the finer grained relationship between motivation and inhibitory control. Here we probed the effect of reward magnitude and context on behavioral inhibition with three modified versions of the widely used SST. The pilot study compared inhibition performance during six blocks alternating neutral feedback, low, medium, and high monetary rewards. Study One compared increasing vs. decreasing rewards, with low, high rewards, and neutral feedback; whilst Study Two compared low and high reward magnitudes alone also in an increasing and decreasing reward design. The reward magnitude effect was not demonstrated in the pilot study, probably due to a learning effect induced by practice in this lengthy task. The reward effect per se was weak but the context (order of reward) was clearly suggested in Study One, and was particularly strongly confirmed in study two. In addition, these findings revealed a “kick start effect” over global performance measures. Specifically, there was a long lasting improvement in performance throughout the task when participants received the highest reward magnitudes at the beginning of the protocol. These results demonstrate a dynamical behavioral inhibition capacity in humans, as illustrated by the reward magnitude modulation and initial reward history effects.

Hospital antibiotic use in Argentina has not been described. We present results of point prevalence surveys on antibiotic use conducted in 109 Argentinian hospitals in November 2018 and submitted to the National Program of Epidemiology and Control of Hospital-Acquired Infections, and we discuss potential areas for improvement.

Background Inhibitory control, a key modulatory component of cognition guiding strategy and behaviour, can be affected by diverse contingencies. We explore here the effect of expectation of reward over behavioural adjustment in a Stop Signal Task modulated by reward. We hypothesize that cognitive control is modulated by different expectation of the reward. Methods Participants were allocated to two groups differing in their degree of knowledge in what to expect from rewards. Expected Specific Reward participants ( N = 21) were informed of the different monetary feedbacks they would receive after each successful inhibition. Unexpected Reward participants ( N = 24) were only told that they would receive monetary reward after correct inhibitory trials, but not the amounts or differences. Results Our results confirmed previous observations demonstrating a “kick-start effect” where a high reward feedback at the beginning of the task increases response inhibition. The Expected Specific Reward condition seems also to improve inhibitory control -as measured by the stop signal reaction time (SSRT)-, compared to the Unexpected Reward group. Conclusions Knowledge of reward magnitudes seems to play a role in cognitive control irrespective of feedback magnitude. The manipulation of reward expectation appears to trigger different strategies for cognitive control, inducing a bottom-up effect of external cues, or a top-down effect given by the anticipation of incoming rewards. This is an early exploration to unearth possible higher order modulators - expectation and motivation- of cognitive control. This approach aims to gain insight into diverse psychopathological conditions related to impulsivity and altered reward systems such as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), personality disorders, substance abuse, pathological gambling and cognitive aspects of Parkinson Disease. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s40359-019-0332-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.