Comorbidity implications in brain disease: Neuronal substrates of symptom profiles

Abstract

The neuronal substrates underlying aspects of comorbidity in brain disease states may be described over psychiatric and neurologic conditions that include affective disorders, cognitive disorders, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, substance abuse disorders as well as the neurodegenerative disorders. Regional and circuitry analyses of biogenic amine systems that are implicated in neural and behavioural pathologies are elucidated using neuroimaging, electrophysiological, neurochemical, neuropharmacological and neurobehavioural methods that present demonstrations of the neuropathological phenomena, such as behavioural sensitisation, cognitive impairments, maladaptive reactions to environmental stress and serious motor deficits. Considerations of neuronal alterations that may or may not be associated with behavioural abnormalities examine differentially the implications of discrete areas within brains that have been assigned functional significance; in the case of the frontal lobes, differential deficits of ventromedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex may be associated with different aspects of cognition, affect, remission or response to medication thereby imparting a varying aspect to any investigation of comorbidity.

Predicting stress in male and female psychiatric patients and healthy volunteers

“…Taken together, the results of the psychiatric patient group and healthy control group are reconcilable with several other observations in illustrating the complex associations between affective personality, stress, energy, and dispositional optimism, not least in possibly underlying comorbidity (Palomo et al, 2007).…”

“…It indicated that to a marked extent only two of the attributes made a contribution; negative affect was directly predictive whereas positive affect was counterpredictive (see Table 3). This important result − that stress could be predicted from negative affect − has been observed quite regularly (Archer, Adolfsson, & Karlsson, 2008;Archer, Adrianson, Plancak, & Karlsson, 2007;Palomo, Beninger, Kostrzewa, & Archer, 2007). Although stress was also counterpredicted from positive affect, optimism -as measured by life orientation -was found not to affect stress.…”

Behavioural supersensitivity following neonatal 6-hydroxydopamine: Attenuation by MK-801

“…The present findings implicate further glutamatergic-dopaminergic interactions as expressed by symptom profiles under brain disease states (cf., Palomo et al, 2006).…”

Functional and Structural MRI Studies on Impulsiveness: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorders

“…It should be noted also that bulimia nervosa is associated with response inhibition deficits and higher impulsiveness (BIS-11) scores (Kemps and Wilsdon, 2010). Comorbid aspects of clinical impulsiveness remain an issue in the pathophysiology of neuropsychiatric disorders (Palomo et al 2007b). Both ADHD and pediatric bipolar disorder (PBD) are characterized by inattention, impulsiveness, lack of behavioural inhibition and deficits in cognitive flexibility and sustained attention (Galanter and Leibenluft, 2008;Pavuluri et al, 2006), the latter generally associated with emotional dysregulation, elated mood, irritability, increased energy and disinhibition (Pavuluri et al, 2007Pavuluri and Passarotti, 2008).…”