With further work using functional magnetic resonance

ima

With further work using functional magnetic resonance

imaging, it will be possible to identify at what point various affected groups fail to encode sensory information, or fail to make use of that information in their responses.
The term neurosis was introduced to the medical literature by William Cullen1 in the mid-1780s.2 Cullen believed that “life is a function of nervous energy, muscle a continuation of nerve, and disease mainly nervous disorder,” and classified illness into fever, cachexias, local diseases, and neuroses,3 ie, diseases that were assumed to have their seat in the nervous system.4 To shift emphasis in the Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical conceptualization Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of insanity1 from the nerves to the soul (anima or psyche), the term psychialerie was introduced by Johann Christian Reil in 1803.5 It was adopted by Johann Christian Heinroth,6 and changed to psychiatrie in his influential text published in 1818. Introduction

of the term psychiatry profoundly affected the subject matter and the development of the field; for well over 100 years, psychiatric opinion remained divided as to whether psychiatry deals with Cullen’s1 disorders of the nerves (body) or Reil’s5 disorders of the soul (mind).7 The terms neurosis and psychiatry were used interchangeably Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical during the second quarter of the 19th century.2 Recognition, however, that not every defect of the nervous system was accompanied by mental disorder led to the introduction of the term psychosis Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical by Ernst Feuchsterleben8 in 1845. In his Textbook on Medical Psychology, Feuchsterleben8 declared that “every psychosis Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical is a neurosis, because, without the nerves as intermediaries, no psychological change can be exhibited, but not every neurosis is a psychosis,” thus using the term psychosis for the first time in the psychiatric literature.2 By separating the disorders of the nerves with mental pathology from the disorders of the nerves without mental

pathology, ie, psychiatric disorders from neurological disorders, the concept of psychosis provided the necessary orientation points for the development of the discipline that we now call psychiatry.9 isothipendyl The unitary concept of psychosis In the middle of the 19th century, psychosis was an allembracing diagnostic concept, which included all the different general forms of insanity separated by Fisquirol,10 ie, lypemania (melancholia of the ancient), monomania (partial insanity), mania (pure insanity), dementia, and imbecility (or idiocy), and all the different mental states Luminespib described by Griesinger,11 ie, mental depressions (lypemania), mental exaltations (monomania and mania), and mental weakness (dementia and imbecility).

g , lea

g., smoking with changes to brain volume) may be unidirectional, bidirectional, or mediated by other shared factors. In addition, there currently exists a paucity of research assessing a particular pathway in concert with smoking and anxiety. Few prospective data are available assessing the impact of changes to specific systems on anxiety symptoms in response to cigarette smoking. In addition, aside from Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical the inherent difficulties

in translating animal model data to humans, many of the above associations displayed variability in results depending upon study variables, including animal model used or experimental design. In addition, much of the literature has focused solely on the role of nicotine and not the other known toxic ingredients of cigarette smoke including free radicals Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical and metals. There was also significant variability in expression and function of these systems between different groups (e.g., men vs. women) and individuals within these groups, and hence

much further work is Epigenetic inhibitor price required to ascertain how these influences draw together. Understanding reasons underpinning differential expression between groups may help clarify further key elements to anxiety development. Women, for example, are known to exhibit higher rates of anxiety disorders, which likely relates to a combination of biological (e.g., different hormonal compositions) and Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical psychological factors, and hence further analysis of these effects on the described pathways may prove enlightening. Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical The acute and long-term effects of any agent that causes a robust homeostatic adaptation are often quite different; this needs to be taken into account in interpretation of acute data, and in extrapolating to management strategies. Future research efforts in this area should attempt to address some of these challenges. First, it would be useful to ascertain the effects of nicotine versus other cigarette constituents to the above pathways in humans.

The use of Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical populations with high consumption of Snus, such as Norway, presents as opportunity for such analyses to be conducted prospectively, and combined with follow-up behavioral assessments, serum analysis of relevant markers (e.g., inflammatory or O&NS), assessment of genetic function, and functional and structural imaging. Such studies could be extended over time to investigate specific changes between different anxiety disorders (e.g., Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase PD, GAD, PTSD), different subsets of the population (e.g., cultural or gender groups), and in individuals with other risk elements known to influence these similar pathways (e.g., history of childhood trauma, comorbid medical illness). It is likely that interindividual differences in genetics and epigenetic alterations will also complicate these effects, and as such further exploration of this evolving area will be of foremost importance.

2006) Study: Questionnaire (30 items) survey to psychiatric hospi

2006) Study: Questionnaire (30 items) survey to psychiatric hospitals and wards of general hospitals N= 149 (Response rate 100%), only 32 (21.5%) provided ECT Date: 2003–2004 Time

span: One year Diagnoses: 81% depressive episode 6% psychoses 2% mania 0.9% other Gender and age: No information Conditions: 44% written informed consent 65% patient information Training: 34% Other: 53% of the #mTOR inhibitor keyword# hospitals administered <10 ECT sessions per month Within-country significant difference in TPR utilization rates Attitudes psychiatrists: ECT is not used enough: 84.3% TPR, Flanders: 2.6 TPR, Wallonia: 5.5 TPR, Brussels Capital Region: 10.6 Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical TPR, Belgium total: 4.37 C-ECT: Rarely used (none (44%), 0–5 (47%)) A-ECT: Rarely used (none (44%), 0–5 (44%))

Modified Anesthesia: 75% Propofol Current type: 34% sine wave Electrode placement & dose: BT: 66% UL: not used 37% combined BT and fixed Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical high stimulus dose England (L) Department of Health (http://www.dh.gov.uk) (Department of Health 2007) Study: National survey data (for governmental and private institutions) N= 12,800 ECT administrations N= 2,272 patients Date: January to March 2002 Time span: Three months Diagnoses (ICD-10): 81% mood disorders 6.5% schizophrenia, schizotypal, delusional disorder 12.5% other Gender: 71% Women Age, year groups: 0%, <16 0.2%, 16–18 2%, 19–24 23%, 25–44 29%, 45–64 24%, 65–74 22%, >75 Conditions: 16% Involuntary (Of the 600 patients formally Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical detained while receiving ECT treatment, 60% did not consent to treatment) Other: No patients under 16 years, but 0.2% young patients age 16–18 years Decrease in use of ECT since

1999 TPR: 1.84* (TPR, women: 2.56 TPR, men: 1.12) AvE: 5.6 (range 4.8–6.2) A-ECT: Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical 19% No parameters *[Correction added after first online publication on 20 March 2012: The Rate Data for England (L) has been changed.] Ethnicity: (patients per 100,000 ethnic origin) 4.2 White 1.8 Asian or Asian British 1.2 Black or Black British 1.0 Mixed 2.1 other Hungary (L) Gazdag G (Gazdag et al. 2004a) Study: Semi structured (13 item) questionnaire Phosphoprotein phosphatase survey to psychiatric departments. N= 76 departments, 43 answered (Response 57%, ECT not used in 43%) Date: 2002 Time span: One year Diagnoses: 64% schizophrenia, schizoaffective 32% affective disorder (including mania, organic affective) 4% other Gender: 59% women Age: No information Legal: Anesthesia obligatory Other: Within-country variability, ECT administered in little over one-half of all departments TPR: 0.31 iP: 0.6% (up to 2.6%) AvE: 6.

2010) Activity-dependent secretion of BDNF is a necessary compon

2010). Activity-dependent secretion of BDNF is a necessary component for long-term potentiation (LTP) and depression processes (LTD), which are regarded as key elements of neural plasticity underlying learning and memory (Minichiello 2009). A click here common functional single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the gene (rs6265), leading to an amino acid change in the pro-domain

of BDNF at codon 66 (Val66Met), occurs in about 30% of the human population of Caucasian ancestry (Egan et al. 2003; Hariri Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical et al. 2003; Sen et al. 2003). The substitution of Val to Met in BDNF affects the intracellular trafficking and secretion of the BDNF protein and impairs the ability of BDNF to undergo activity-dependent Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical release, but not general secretion (Egan et al. 2003; Hariri et al. 2003; Chen et al. 2004). Most research has focused on the effects of BDNF Val66Met on memory processes and related brain structures. Here, Met carriership has been associated with smaller hippocampal volumes (Pezawas et al. 2004; Bueller et al. 2006; Frodl et al. 2007; Karnik Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical et al. 2010), decreased hippocampal activity, and lower declarative memory performance (Egan et al. 2003; Hariri et al. 2003). Research on the effects of BDNF in the brain has been extended into the motor system and motor learning. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), it was shown that

BDNF Met carriers do not show the expansion of motor cortex surface area that is typically observed after a motor learning episode (Kleim et al. 2006). Cheeran et al. (2009) further elaborated on this study by showing that the LTP/LTD-like motor excitability induced with various TMS protocols is Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical modulated by BDNF genotype, with Met carriers showing less motor cortex excitability. Met carriers were also shown to be more error prone when learning new motor skills during a delayed driving task (McHughen et al. 2010). Together, Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical these TMS and behavioral studies

provide strong evidence that BDNF genotype indeed affects motor performance and motor learning. Recent evidence suggests that the effects of BDNF genotype may be influenced by sex (Fukumoto et al. 2010; Verhagen et al. 2010). However, a potential BDNF sex interaction in the motor domain has not yet been investigated. In this study, we next tested such an interaction. As BDNF Val66Met has been shown to influence both structural brain connectivity in the corpus callosum (CC) (Chiang et al. 2011) and functional connectivity as observed with resting-state fMRI (Thomason, Yoo, Glover, & Gotlib, 2009), we use a bimanual motor task to capture possible contributions from both motor and interhemispheric motor connectivity-related processes. Materials and Methods Subjects This study is part of the Brain Imaging Genetics (BIG) project running at the Radboud University Nijmegen (Medical Centre) (Franke et al. 2010), which is a collection of participants from (neuroimaging) studies that required genetic information.

In addition, the effects of drug noncompliance and EPS can both m

In addition, the effects of drug noncompliance and EPS can both mimic true treatment resistance.137,138 At least a 1- to 2-year course of persistent symptoms should also be considered as one of the criteria for treatment resistance in schizophrenia,

because of the waxing and waning course of this illness. The most widely accepted current criteria for treatment resistance in schizophrenia were first used by Kane et al.127 These criteria, modified for clinical use, are as follows: Persistent positive psychotic symptoms (item score ≥ 4) on Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical at least two of four positive symptom items on the BPRS: hallucinatory behavior, suspiciousness, unusual thought content, or conceptual disorganization. Current presence of at least a moderately severe illness as rated by the total BPRS (score ≥45 on the 18item scale) and a score of ≥4 on the Clinical Global

Impression (CGI) scale. Persistence of illness: no period of good social and/or occupational functioning within the last Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical 5 years. Drug-refractory condition defined as at least two periods of treatment in the preceding 5 years with appropriate doses of conventional or SGAs, each without clinically significant symptom relief. The rates for two retrospective drug trial failures have been found Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical to be similar to the rates for three when screening for treatment resistance; this fact is now widely accepted.138 People Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical not responsive to two adequate antipsychotic trials (one retrospective and one prospective) have less than a 7% chance of responding to another trial.139 The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines for clozapine, as reflected in the product labeling for clozapine,140 also states that people should fail to respond to two separate trials of antipsychotics, before being treated with clozapine. It is generally recognized that Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical a 4- to 6-week period (rather than strictly a 6-wcck one) is adequate for a treatment trial of an antipsychotic.141 Dosages of >400 mg/day of chlorpromazine

have been shown to be adequate to block 80% to 90% of dopamine receptors (thought to be the target of this drug action).142 Higher doses produce no direct therapeutic benefit, even in patients not heptaminol responsive to therapy, and do not have greater efficacy in acute treatment than lower doses.143-145 Therefore, two 4- to 6-weck trials of 400 to 600 mg/day chlorpromazine or a chlorpromazine equivalent are now accepted as a standard for an adequate trial.138,146 Until the arrival of standardized criteria for defining treatment resistance, research into the neurobiological nature of the problem had been scant.147 Recently, however, with the use of more objective criteria, some consistent findings have been seen. There is a relative DNA Damage inhibitor paucity of data in this area and more research needs to be done.

Choosing the R&D strategy, managers evaluate two possible options

Choosing the R&D strategy, managers evaluate two possible options. The first is based on the idea to perform the entire process inside the company, composing a highly experienced team of scientists. The second option is based on universities or research institutes and is founded on the reliance on leading academic laboratories created over time by “scientific stars.” This second possibility will Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical certainly reduce company costs as these academics frequently cofound the companies based on their discoveries and become part of the scientific boards. We have gathered strong evidence of this second option for the R&D strategy in the companies

we analyzed. The commercialization Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of the research-based product might represent another business area of the nanomedicine company. However, the typical option considered and adopted by managers is to license out the manufacturing and commercialization of the nanomedicine-based product

to larger companies. If this is the case, the business model pursued will not include commercialization, and the company will be technology and research based. The commercialization of the nanomedicine products/technologies is currently driven by startups and small-medium enterprises (SMEs) [4], and it is performed through three types of business models. (1) The development of a nanotechnology Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical platform that can be used to add value to check details second-party products: this business model seems to be particularly attractive for drug delivery companies, which typically license their particular Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical technologies out to pharmaceutical industries. Otherwise the drug delivery system is

tailored and applied to a specific drug complying the particular instructions of the larger company [4]. (2) The development and manufacturing of high-value materials for the medical device and pharmaceutical industry: several startups and SMEs merely provide nanomaterials Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical for the manufacture of medical devices or nanotechnology-enhanced drugs [4]. (3) The development of nanotechnology improved medical devices or pharmaceuticals: companies adopting this business model intend to develop a proprietary product pipeline as well as trying to bring to the market Rutecarpine place new or standard drugs delivered with a drug delivery system or else to develop, for example, a new diagnostic platform based on nanotechnologies [4]. 5. Regulatory Risk The US Food and Drug Administration’s long approval procedure and regulations make nanomedicine products different from those of other industries using nanotechnologies with no limitations due to regulatory bodies. As a consequence, the expenditure to bring a nanomedical product to the marketplace is so huge that pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries have no alternative but focus on the blockbusters that can please the stockholders [3].

coli O157, K pneumonia, P mirabilis, and E sakazakii on the st

coli O157, K. pneumonia, P. mirabilis, and E. sakazakii on the standard medium Discussion Plasma treatment is considered a good and safe method to eliminate the decontamination of not only dental instruments but also general surgical instruments.10 Our results showed that the best bacterial inactivation plasma conditions were 300 W applied power, 4.5 cm distance from the

source, and 1.24 mbar pressure at 9% of O2. Philip et al.11 demonstrated that total inactivation of Bacillus subtilis spores was achieved 40 minutes after plasma exposure at 100 W with 2% of O2. Furthermore, Xu et Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical al.1 reported that the time needed for the inactivation of Geobacillus stearothermophilus spores was 3 minutes. In another Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical study, Xu et al.1

also found that 10-20% of O2 was sufficient to inactivate these bacteria. Elsewhere, Feichtinger et al.12 discovered that spores numbers were reduced one second after the application of laboratory air as plasma gas. Our results agree with those reported by Xu et al.,13 who revealed that using argon (Ar) in a plasma jet source for 10 minutes did not totally eliminate E. coli. According to our results, O2-N2 gas using a plasma source Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical was able to totally inactivate all kinds of bacteria except E. coli. The inactivation effect was more pronounced when we used flat polymers as substrates. Ricard and Monna14 reported that N2–5% O2 gas mixture completely eliminated Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Streptococcus H 89 datasheet mutans, Porphyromonas gingivalis, and Prevotella intermedia bacteria 15–20 minutes after treatment. In contrast, our results demonstrated that SF6 gas totally inactivated the bacteria in only 1-3 minutes. Conclusion Plasma inactivation using N2-O2 gas mixture and SF6 gas proved promising for the inactivation of the bacterial isolates in the Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical present study. Our findings could be helpful in many medical and industrial fields; however, further investigations are needed to integrate this technique into the field of bacteria disinfection.

Acknowledgment The authors would like to thank the Director General of AECS, enough the Head of the Physics Department, the Head of the Chemistry Department, and the Head of the Molecular Biology and Biotechnology Department for their support. Conflict of interest: None declared.
Background: Coronary angiography consists of the selective injection of contrast agents in coronary arteries. Optimal strategy for heparin administration during coronary angiography has yet to be determined. We assessed the effect of heparin administration during coronary angiography on vascular, hemorrhagic, and ischemic complications. Methods: Five hundred candiates for diagnostic coronary angiography (femoral approach) were randomly divided into case (intravenous Heparin [2000-3000 units]) and control (placebo) groups.

134 In many cases it can be cured simply by the administration of

134 In many cases it can be cured simply by the administration of strong artificial light during early morning hours.135, 136 The successful treatment of SAD with light suggests that this mood disorder is caused by an impairment of circadian clock synchronization, either because of insufficient luminosity or deregulated melatonin secretion during wintertime.134 In addition to the serious physical and psychic illnesses mentioned above, there are more innocuous manifestations Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of aberrant circadian clock functions. Human subjects have individual preferences for their activity phase and, accordingly, can be classified into

“chronotypes.”137 Due to socioeconomic constraints many chronotypes can only adopt their favorite lifestyle during weekends and vacations.138 “Morning larks” choose to get Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical up early in the morning and go to bed relatively early at night, while “night owls” selleck inhibitor prefer to stay in bed longer and to remain active during a good part of the night. The most extreme forms of these behaviors are known as advanced sleep phase syndrome (ASPS) and delayed sleep phase syndrome (DSPS), respectively.139 In one form of familial advanced sleep phase syndrome (FASPS) a mutation in Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical the hPER2 gene was identified as the culprit.140 The mutant hPER2 protein carries a glycine residue instead of a serine

residue at position 662. This mutation prevents a phosphorylation, normally occurring on S662, which triggers further phosphorylation by casein kinases Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical 1S/ε (CK18 and CK1ε) at nearby serine residues C-terminal to S662.

In the absence of these phosphorylations, mPER2 accumulates to lower than normal levels, resulting in a shortening of the period length and, as a consequence, in a daily phase advance. These molecular events could be successfully reproduced in transgenic mice141 and cultured fibroblasts141 expressing transgenes specifying S662G mutant proteins. The successful dissection Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of molecular mechanisms responsible for FASPS in animal and even below cellular model systems exemplifies the power of reductionist approaches in tackling seemingly complex behavioral traits. Conclusions Although the first circadian clock was discovered almost 280 years ago, the mechanisms involved in biological timekeeping remained a mystery for the following two and a half centuries. Owing to the development of powerful genetic, genomic, and molecular tools during the past few decades, clock genes were able to be identified, isolated, and studied in several model systems. These technical advances converted circadian rhythm research from a purely phenomenological to a molecular and mechanistic discipline. In one organism, cyanobacteria, a temperature-compensated clock ticking for over a week could be reconstituted with purified recombinant proteins in the test tube.

Although off-line quantitative assessment may provide more object

Although off-line quantitative assessment may provide more objective results, simultaneous interpretation P450 inhibitor in vivo during the acquisition of images is required for timely decision. MPI could not be performed immediately after MCE on all patients

due to a tight schedule of routine SPECT studies. Delays in obtaining MPI possibly underestimated the diagnostic accuracy of MPI. Since low feasibility and availability of MPI may restrict its utility at the emergency department, infrastructure would be needed Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical to realistically use perfusion imaging in the routine clinical practice. In addition, the gating method was not used for about one-third of patients. Gated MPI allows simultaneous evaluation of perfusion and function, and has been shown to result in improved specificity Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical by differentiating between defects and attenuation artifacts.21) However, we found that the diagnostic accuracy of MPI with and without gating was similar. Seven (11%) patients with true perfusion defects not associated with regional dysfunction were dichotomized as negative on gated MPI and two (6%) patients with attenuation artifacts were dichotomized as positive on MPI without gating. This study was designed to test the diagnostic efficacy in high-risk chest pain patients and the incidence of ACS was higher than in other studies. The diagnostic accuracy of MCE and MPI may be changed in patients with intermediate or low risk chest pain. We

excluded patients Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical with previous myocardial infarction Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical because perfusion imaging is unable to differentiate between ACS and previous myocardial infarction. ACS was defined as the development of AMI or documentation of significant coronary artery stenosis that required urgent revascularization, a definition that has been used as a surrogate for unstable angina.12),13) Although it cannot be clearly defined, we included unstable angina in ACS, considering the prognostic implication of the Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical early detection of unstable

angina. Finally, the small sample size of this study is also a limitation and further studies with enough power are needed to confirm our results. Compared with routinely used troponin I, ECG criteria and even MPI, MCE is more accurate in diagnosing ACS. Early MCE is proposed to be a useful imaging technique in patients presenting to the emergency department with resting chest pain for whom early and accurate diagnosis remains difficult. Acknowledgements Unoprostone We are indebted to Dr. Sung-Cheol Yoon at Ulsan University’s Department of Biostatistics for helpful review of the statistical analysis in the paper.
A 50-year-old woman admitted for sudden onset facial palsy and dysarthria. Three years ago, she suffered from subacute bacterial endocarditis of the aortic valve with cultured organism of Kingella and 3-month antibiotic treatment (ceftriaxone) had been done successfully. On admission, the patient had a temperature of 36.7℃, a blood pressure of 128/54 mmHg, a pulse of 121/minute and a respiratory rate of 20/minute.

White-matter anomalies in the anatomical connections relevant to

White-matter anomalies in the anatomical connections relevant to language and/or myelination of these connections could be involved. The ability to have specific MRI predictors of who will develop schizophrenia among those at high risk appears hopeful for the near future. Having the ability to predict, the development, of illness will then lead to studies to determine whether early pharmacological treatment, will prevent, the cortical progressive brain cortical change and, in doing so, have a significant effect, on clinical outcome. Notes This work was supported

by R21 MH071720-01 from Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical the National Institute of Mental Health. The co-authors wish to thank the following investigators from the Center for Advanced Brain Imaging at the Nathan S. Kline Institute for assistance in developing and implementing the new MRI protocol as well as image analysis for preliminary pilot data shown here: Babak Ardekani, Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Craig Branch, Matthew Akt inhibitor Hoptman, and Raj Sangoi.
Interest in the subjective well-being (SW) of psychiatric patients has significantly increased over recent years. While, for a long time, symptom reduction alone was the most essential outcome parameter, more detailed success criteria are now being implemented, approximately 50 years after the introduction of neuroleptic treatment.

Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Considering the extensive use of typical neuroleptics over the last decades, surprisingly little evaluation of patients’ subjective complaints while being medicated has been performed.1-6 In terms of Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical tolerability, investigators focused on motor symptoms when looking at drug-induced complaints and reasons for noncompliance. With Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical the development of atypical

antipsychotics, treatment goals became more ambitious, the patient’s perspective was considered more, and complaints such as affective blunting and cognitive slowing, as well as volition and loss of spontaneity, received greater interest.7-12 These emotional restrictions have been described as “neuroleptic dysphoria,” “pharmacogenetic depression,” “akinetic depression,” “neuroleptic depression,” and “neuroleptic-induced anhedonia.” 13 The increased of interest in subjective well-being was not only due to a conceptual shift in therapeutic outcome criteria: Studies on subjective well-being disproved the former belief that schizophrenic patients are not able to reliably assess their SW. The majority of schizophrenic patients, if not acutely psychotic or suffering from severe cognitive impairment, are able to complete selfrating scales in a consistent and reliable manner.14-17 The impact of antipsychotic drugs on SW, together with the quality of the doctor-patient relationship, is one of the two agreed major determinants for medication compliance.