Maybe the World’s first Blind Breaking Party

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIMG_6161 IMG_6167Recently, we held our first Blind Breaking Party were the blinding of the study participants allocation to drug or placebo was broken live and the results emerged on the screen as each envelope was opened. We also launched our mug: no data loss. Volen Ivanov showed his skills as a DJ. Thanks to everyone attending.

New publication: a brazilian-bostonian-karolinska collaboration

Today we came out with a paper that combines neurosurgical patients from Sao Paulo, Boston and Stockholm and we studied symptom dimensions (what type of OCD it was) and clinical outcome after limbic system surgery for treatment-refractory patients.  Patients with hoarding symptoms had a worse response to treatment (mean Y-BOCS decrease of 22.7% ± 25.9% vs 41.6% ± 32.2%, respectively; p = 0.006). Click the link below for the full story:

Gentil AF, Lopes AC, Dougherty DD, Rück C, Mataix-Cols D, Lukacs TL, Canteras MM, Eskandar EN, Larsson KJ, Hoexter MQ, Batistuzzo MC, Greenberg BD, Miguel EC. Hoarding symptoms and prediction of poor response to limbic system surgery for treatment-refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder. J Neurosurg. 2014 Apr 4.

Evelyn Andersson sucessfully passed her half-time seminar

Evelyn Andersson a week ago passed her half time seminar with flying coulors. We wish to thank the board: Prof Jerker Hetta, Prof Bo Melin and Assoc Prof Patrik Magnusson. The PhD is on genetics and CBT.

Evelyn Andersson at her half-time seminar
Evelyn Andersson at her half-time seminar

Half-time seminar

PosterEvelyn Andersson will have her half-time seminar for her PhD (“From DNA to Therapy – Predictors, Candidate Genes and a Gene x Environment study with national register data”) on March 28 at 2 pm at Askö, M57, Karolinska Huddinge.

Vad är BDD / dysmorfofobi?

Dysmorfofobi, på engelska kallat Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), är ett tillstånd där man är så missnöjd med specifika delar av sitt utseende att det blir ett handikapp. Ibland kallas det också inbillad fulhet och det man då menar med “inbillad” är att den defekt som man själv ser inte kan uppfattas av andra. BDD är inte samma sak som att känna sig lite oattraktiv eller tjock, här är man istället upptagen av att t ex ens näsa är så groteskt ful att man inte kan visa sig för andra. Att andra säger till en att man ser normal ut brukar inte hjälpa. Ofta förekommer ritualer för att dölja sin “defekt” eller att man speglar länge sig för att se om man ser OK ut.

BDD är vanligt, ca 1-2 % av befolkningen lider av sjukdomen.

Vi har startat en behandlingstudie där vuxna i hela Sverige kan delta. Studien pågår just nu och anmälan är stängd. KBT är annars rekommenderad behandling och du kan söka till din psykiatriska öppenvårdsmottagning för att få hjälp.

On the radio: Om sjukligt samlande i P1

Idag talade bl a Volen Ivanov, Christian Rück och David Mataix-Cols som sjukligt samlande (hoarding) i P1:s Kropp och Själ som du kan lyssna på här: http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/297465?programid=83

Även HSB:s psykosociala enhet med Sylvia Mårtensson och Christina Ahlström berättar om deras fantastiska verksamhet i programmet.

Grants from the Swedish Society of Medicine

We are happy announce that the Swedish Society of Medicine (Stiftelsen Söderström-Königska sjukhemmet) has given us two grants of 200000 SEK each for internetbased-CBT in BDD (dysmorphofobia) and DBS in OCD (with Diana Djurfeldt as PI), respectively.

New study: genetic variants in the monoamine system and CBT outcome in social phobia

In a collaboration between Karolinska Institutet and Uppsala University, we studied three genetic polymorphisms in the monoamine system (5-HTTLPR, COMT val158met, TPH2 G-703T) and outcome of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in social anxiety disorder (SAD) in over 300 patients. This is one of the largest genetic studies ever made on adults with SAD and CBT outcome. Monoamine-related gene polymorphisms have previously been tied to amygdala reactivity, treatment efficacy and fear extinction processes and was hereby reasoned to influence the outcome of CBT. However, none of our polymorphisms were associated with CBT outcome at long term follow-up. In our subsamples we found contradictory significant effects immediately after treatment. Even though CBT is an effective treatment of anxiety disorders, many patients (25-50%) do not respond sufficiently. Therefore, there is a need to improve not only the treatments but also how patients are selected for treatment in order to optimize the efficacy. Therapygenetics attempts to explore the relationship between genetic variation and psychological treatment response. Ultimately, such knowledge could be used to tailor therapies based on patients’ biological markers, which in turn, could improve therapeutic outcome.

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Lead author Evelyn Andersson.