Wow: grant from the Tourette Syndrome Association

The study “An Etiologically Informative, Population-based Study of Tourette Syndrome and Chronic Tics Across the Lifespan” was awarded 149003 USD by the Tourette Syndrome Association . David Mataix-Cols (IoP) is PI for the study and co-applicants are Christian Rück, Eva Serlachius, Paul Lichtenstein (KI) and James Leckman (Yale).

Evelyn Andersson now officially a KI PhD student

Congrats to Evelyn who today very sucessfully passed the admission seminar. Her project is about genetic markers of CBT response. Supervisors are Christian Rück (main), Erik Hedman, Nils Lindefors, Catharina Lavebratt and Martin Schalling.

We proudly present: new study on what predicts outcome in CBT

Erik Hedman

A new paper is out with lead author Erik Hedman studying predictors and moderators of outcome in CBT for social anxiety disorder. The most stable predictors of better treatment response were working full time, having children, less depressive symptoms, higher expectancy of treatment effectiveness, and adhering to treatment. The study also looked at gene polymorphisms (5-HTTLPR, COMTval158met, and BDNFval66met) but no association was found with treatment outcome. The gene story is part of Evelyn Andersson PhD study plan and she has be doing most of the wet lab work.

Click the reference below to read it all:

Hedman, E., Andersson, E., Ljótsson, B., Andersson, G., Andersson, E., Schalling, M., Lindefors, N. and Rück, C. (2012), Clinical and genetic outcome determinants of Internet- and group-based cognitive behavior therapy for social anxiety disorder. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.2012.01834.x

We proudly present: new study on treatment-resistant OCD suggests that OCD may be more than one disorder

Johan Larsson, Christian Rück and David Mataix-Cols just landed a smash (sorry for the badminton joke) with a new study published in European Neuropsychopharmacology where a group of patients with severe OCD that had been treted with neurosurgery were studied. Results show that symptoms in the symmetry/ordering domain were associated with greater severity of OCD, depression and anxiety, as well as greater impairment at  follow-up. The results challenge our current conceptualization of OCD as a unitary diagnostic entity with a single neurobiological substrate. Read more here:

Rück C, Larsson K.J., Mataix-Cols D. Predictors of medium and long-term outcome following capsulotomy for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: One site may not fit all. European Neuropsychopharmacology. 2011 Dec 29. [Epub ahead of print]. PMID: 2220936215.