Emilie Olie

• Professor
• Medical Doctor at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Montpellier

Purpose of Review The pain-suicide relationship is one of the most debated in recent literature, but theories and clinical evidence have often reached contrasting conclusions. Through a critical overview of theoretical, meta-analytical and empirical contributions, we aimed at advancing the conversation on the pain-suicide relationship by integratin...

Introduction Ostracism increases the risk of depression and suicidal behaviors. Mindfulness training, which is at the core of third-wave behavioral therapies such as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), might reduce social distress and inhibit negative affect. Methods This randomized controlled trial included 32 patients with a history of suic...

Previous studies have suggested that alterations in white matter (WM) microstructure are implicated in suicidal thoughts and behaviours (STBs). However, findings of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies have been inconsistent. In this large-scale mega-analysis conducted by the ENIGMA Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviours (ENIGMA-STB) consortium, we exa...

Introduction: Bipolar disorders (BD) are characterized by mood symptoms that can worsen medication side effects. We aimed to study the association between residual mood signs and self-reported side effects in the euthymic phase of BD. Methods: We assessed residual mood signs using the Montgomery–Asberg Depression Rating scale (MADRS) and Young Mani...

Background: Individuals with bipolar disorders (BD) have an estimated loss of life expectancy around 10-15 years. Several laboratory-measured biomarkers of accelerated aging exist (e.g., telomere length), however with a questionable transferability to bedside. There is a need for easily and inexpensively measurable markers of aging, usable in rout...

Background BIPCOM aims to (1) identify medical comorbidities in people with bipolar disorder (BD); (2) examine risk factors and clinical profiles of Medical Comorbidities (MC) in this clinical group, with a special focus on Metabolic Syndrome (MetS); (3) develop a Clinical Support Tool (CST) for the personalized management of BD and medical comorbi...

Bipolar disorders (BD) are characterized by mood symptoms that can worsen medication side effects. We aimed to study the association between mood signs and self-reported side effects in the euthymic phase of BD. We assessed mood signs using the MADRS and YMRS and self-reported side effects using the PRISE-M for 880 males and 1369 females with BD. W...

Bipolar disorder (BD) has been associated with premature cellular aging with shortened telomere length (TL) as compared to the general population. We recently identified a subgroup of young individuals with prematurely shortened TL. The aims of the present study were to replicate this observation in a larger sample and analyze the expression levels...

Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a severe and frequent affection that is highly comorbid to major depressive disorder. Comorbid PTSD and depression are usually treatment-resistant, with a high risk of functional impairment and suicide. Esketamine nasal spray is a recent validated treatment for treatment-resistant depression (TRD)...

Importance Examining translatable mitochondrial blood-based biological markers to identify its association with metabolic diseases in bipolar disorder. Objective To test whether mitochondrial metabolites, mainly lactate, and cell-free circulating mitochondrial DNA are associated with markers of metabolic syndrome in bipolar disorder, hypothesizing...

Background Physical pain is a common issue in people with bipolar disorder (BD). It worsens mental health and quality of life, negatively impacts treatment response, and increases the risk of suicide. Lithium, which is prescribed in BD as a mood stabilizer, has shown promising effects on pain. Methods This naturalistic study included 760 subjects...

Les patients souffrant de dépression suicidaire répondent moins bien aux traitements antidépresseurs conventionnels que ceux qui n’ont pas d’idées suicidaires. Une avancée prometteuse dans ce domaine est l’utilisation de la kétamine, qui a montré une efficacité significative et rapide dans la réduction de l’intensité des idées suicidaires chez les...

This paper offers a systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies on the main twelve-step mutual-help (TSMH) groups (excluding Alcoholics Anonymous) and four meta-analyses exploring the correlation between (i) duration or involvement in TSMH groups and; (ii) severity of symptoms or quality of life. Systematic review was conducted follow...

Background Childhood trauma (CT), depression, and psychological pain are known predictors of suicidal ideation. Recent literature additionally highlights the importance of the attachment system. Methods We aimed to predict suicidal ideation through CT, attachment, and psychological and social pain by using mediation models aiming to predict suicid...

Bipolar disorders (BD) are characterized by cognitive impairment during the euthymic phase, to which treatments can contribute. The anticholinergic properties of medications, i.e., the ability of a treatment to inhibit cholinergic receptors, are associated with cognitive impairment in elderly patients and people with schizophrenia but this associat...

Background Many patients with depression refuse treatment. Moreover, suicide attempters often display low perceived need of treatment and impaired decision-making. These observations raise questions about the capacity to treatment consent in depressed suicide attempters (SA). Methods In patients with current depressive episode ( N = 33 SAs and N =...

A growing body of evidences suggests that suicidal ideation (SI) and suicidal behaviors have biological bases. However, no biological marker is currently available to evaluate the suicide risk in individuals with SI or suicide attempt (SA). Moreover, the current risk assessment techniques poorly predict future suicidal events. The aim of this study...

Background. Managing patient with suicidal thoughts and behaviours presents significant challenges due to the scarcity of robust evidence and clear guidance. This study sought to develop a comprehensive set of practical guidelines for the assessment and management of suicidal crises.Methods. Utilizing the Delphi methodology, 80 suicide clinician an...

Some evidence converges to consider that suicidal behaviour could be a separate diagnosis and emphasizes the relevance to identify specific biomarkers. Identifying the neural substrates of suicide attempt is key to understanding the etiology of suicide and might be helpful in reducing suicide rates among psychiatric patients by promoting the develo...

Introduction Bipolar Disorder (BD) is a common psychiatric disease. It has been demonstrated a long time ago that bipolar patients are more painful than the healthy subjects. Substance use disorder is a frequent comorbidity in BD, but also in painful patients. The aim of our study was to analyze if bipolar patients with a painful expression have mo...

IntroductionMigraine and bipolar disorder (BD) are two chronic and recurrent disorders with a major impact on patient’s quality of life. It is now well known that affective disorders and migraine are often comorbid (Leo et al. Scand J Pain. 2016; 11:136-145). Starting from these observations, we can hypothesis that BD patients with comorbid migrain...

Suicide is a serious public health problem since it accounts for nearly 900,000 deaths each year worldwide. Globally in 2019, 10.7 persons out of 100,000 died by suicide. Psychiatric disorders are related to an overwhelming proportion of these cases. In the last years, several specific interventions and action plans for suicide prevention have been...

Background: Patients with major mood disorders are at high risk of suicidal behavior compared to the general population. Suicide is a public health concern, accounting for around 1.2% of deaths worldwide. Understanding its underlying mechanisms may help identify predictive biomarkers and design novel targeted treatments. Immune dysfunctions, in par...

Bipolar disorder (BD) has been associated with premature cellular aging with shortened telomere length (TL) as compared to the general population. We recently identified a subgroup of young individuals with prematurely shortened TL. The aims of the present study were to replicate this observation in a larger sample and analyze the expression levels...

Discerning potential associations between plasma biomarkers and the evolution of suicidal ideation (SI) in mood disorders could advance our understanding of disease progression. We evaluated a cohort of 149 mood disorder patients, assessing 32 plasma soluble proteins implicated in neuroplasticity and inflammation at baseline and six-month follow-up...

Background: Eating disorders (EDs) are liable to alter the disease course of bipolar disorder (BD). We explored the crossed clinical features between EDs and BD, particularly as a function of BD type (BD1 vs. BD2). Methods: 2929 outpatients attending FondaMental Advanced Centers of Expertise were assessed for BD and lifetime EDs with a semi-stru...

Background: This study explores factors associated with transitioning from recent suicidal ideation (SI) to suicide attempt (SA) in depressed outpatients. Methods: This is a case-control study nested in two cohorts (LUEUR and GENESE) of depressed adult outpatients recruited in France and followed up for six weeks. SI, depression, anxiety, insomn...

Background: Modified pain perception is at the core of many theories on suicide; however, studies on the relationship between pain perception and suicidal behavior (attempt) have produced contradictory results. In this experimental study, we investigated whether physical pain and social pain are concomitantly influenced by suicidal ideation (SI) a...

Background Individuals with bipolar disorders (BD) are at risk of premature death, mainly due to medical comorbidities. Childhood maltreatment might contribute to this medical morbidity, which remains underexplored in the literature. Methods We assessed 2891 outpatients with BD (according to DSM-IV criteria). Childhood maltreatment was assessed us...

Bipolar disorders (BD) are characterized by cognitive impairment during the euthymic phase, to which treatments can contribute. The anticholinergic properties of medications, i.e., the ability of a treatment to inhibit cholinergic receptors, are associated with cognitive impairment in elderly patients and people with schizophrenia but this associat...

Suicidal ideation and attempt might have distinct neural underpinnings. Identifying the neural substrates of suicide behaviors might help to reduce suicide rates. This study wanted to identify i) neural markers of suicide attempt using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI), and ii) associations between rs-fMRI metrics, suici...

Suicidal ideation (SI) is a major suicide risk factor; therefore, it is crucial to identify individuals with SI. Discrepancies between the clinicians and patients' estimation of SI may lead to under-evaluating the suicide risk. Yet, studies on discrepancies between self- and clinician-rated SI are lacking, although identifying the patients' sociode...

Depression is linked to dysfunctional appetitive and aversive motivational systems and effort-based decision-making, yet whether such deficits extend to social decisions remains unclear. Participants (23 non-depressed, 48 depressed - 24 with a past history of suicide attempt) completed a social decision-making task consisting in freely choosing whe...

Objective: A major limitation of current suicide research is the lack of power to identify robust correlates of suicidal thoughts or behavior. Variation in suicide risk assessment instruments used across cohorts may represent a limitation to pooling data in international consortia. Method: Here, we examine this issue through two approaches: (a) an...

Background: Converging evidence suggests that a subgroup of bipolar disorder (BD) with an early age at onset (AAO) may develop from aberrant neurodevelopment. However, the definition of early AAO remains unprecise. We thus tested which age cut-off for early AAO best corresponds to distinguishable neurodevelopmental pathways. Methods: We analyzed...

Objectives: Up to 70% individuals with bipolar disorder (BD) are lifetime tobacco smokers, a major modifiable risk factor for morbidity. However, quitting smoking is rarely proposed to individuals with BD, mainly because of fear of unfavorable metabolic or psychiatric changes. Evaluating the physical and mental impact of tobacco cessation is primo...

Evidences suggest that inflammation is increased in a subgroup of patients with depression. Moreover, increased peripheral inflammatory markers (cells and proteins) are associated with some, but not all depressive symptoms. On the other hand, similar studies on bipolar disorders mainly focused on blood cytokines. Here, we analysed data from a large...

This study of a cohort of 1-year treatment-compliant survivors of a suicide attempt examined for the first time whether a high CYP2D6-CYP2C19 metabolic capacity (pharmacogenes related to psychopathology, suicide, and attempt severity) and/or polypharmacy treatments predicted repeat suicide attempts, adjusting for sociodemographic and clinical facto...

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe and relatively prevalent psychiatric disorder, responsible for high rates of suicidal behaviors. Disturbed identity appears as at the very core of this disorder, being inter-related with all other BPD features. Notably, from a dimensional perspective on mental disorders, one should realize that it i...

Introduction Suicide attempters (SA) are more vulnerable to social stress and show disturbed cortisol response in stressful conditions compared with psychiatric and healthy controls. Recent data suggest that this dysregulation might be related to impulsivity traits. However, little is known about the emotional consequences of social stress in SA ex...

Background and objective: Phantom limb pain (PLP) concerns >50% of amputees and has a negative impact on their rehabilitation, mental health, and quality of life. Mirror therapy (MT) is a promising strategy, but its effectiveness remains controversial. We performed a systematic review to: (i) evaluate the effectiveness of MT versus placebo in redu...

Background In 2020–2021, many European countries put in place temporary lockdown measures due to the increase in COVID-19 cases, although such measures have negative psychological effects. As pre-existing mental disorders are a risk factor of negative psychological consequences during pandemics, it is important to identify specific predictors of ps...

Background: Bipolar disorder (BD) is a chronic, lifelong condition, associated with increased risk of obesity, cognitive impairment, and suicidal behaviors. Abdominal obesity and a higher risk of violent suicide attempt (SA) seem to be shared correlates with older age, BD, and male sex until middle age when menopause-related female body changes occ...

One of the biggest ambitions in the field of anorexia nervosa (AN) research is to find a reliable and effective pharmacological treatment. The fact that currently no pharmacological treatment is safe and effective in this disease is worrying and also challenging. On the basis of the progress in our understanding of AN neurobiology, we propose that...

Background: Childhood trauma and affective disorders are known risk factors for adult suicidal behavior. Studies have shown a mediating effect of insecure attachment on the effect of childhood trauma and suicidal behavior but so far it is not clear whether this effect is related to an attachment dimension (anxiety, avoidance). Aim: The present s...

Points essentiels •La prévention du suicide bénéficie à l’heure actuelle d’innovations dans les stratégies de soins des patients en crise suicidaire. •L’entretien clinique avec un patient en crise suicidaire doit être soigné car il est la première étape clé de la prévention. •Obtenir une alliance thérapeutique avec les patients à risque suicidaire...

Points clés La crise suicidaire est une crise psychique dans un contexte de vulnérabilité avec émergence et expression d’idées suicidaires, dont le risque majeur est le suicide. L’évaluation du risque de passage à l’acte repose sur le niveau de risque, d’urgence et dangerosité. L’intervention de crise doit être réalisée dans un contexte de bienveil...

Purpose Self-concept, at the core of minority stress, is associated with negative mental health outcomes. Methods We aimed to assess the effectiveness of a one-shot third-wave CBT intervention targeting correct self-identification to address suffering related to minority stress. The study population included 172 participants (n = 98 heterosexuals,...

Marked heterogeneity in suicide attempters has been observed, with earlier onset being linked to stronger heritability, more childhood maltreatment. Nitric oxide signalling system might be implicated in this relationship through its role in the stress response/adaptation. This study examined how NOS genetic variants and childhood maltreatment were...

Background The opioid tramadol is used as analgesic drug, and more recently was also proposed for the management of major depressive disorder. However, growing evidence suggests a link between opioid system dysfunction and suicidal behaviors, raising the question of tramadol use in view of the high addictive and suicidal risk. Here, we present the...

Features of resting brain metabolism in motor functional neurological disorder are poorly characterized. This study aimed to investigate the alterations of resting brain metabolism in a cohort of patients experiencing a first episode of motor functional neurological disorder with recent symptom onset, and their association with persistent disabilit...

Background Suicidal ideation (SI) is an important risk factor of death by suicide. Recent data suggest that suicidal depression (i.e., moderate to severe depression with SI) could be a specific depression subtype with worse clinical outcomes than nonsuicidal depression (i.e., without SI). Methods Among 898 French adult inpatients (67% women, mean...

Currently, only a limited number of interventions can rapidly relieve depressive symptoma-tology in patients with major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder experiencing extreme distress. Such crises, especially when suicide attempt or ideation is involved, are a major risk factor of suicide. Ketamine, a N-methyl-D-aspartate glutamate receptor a...

Résumé Les débats sur l’euthanasie et le suicide assisté (ESA) sont d’actualité en Europe. L’élargissement de l’ESA pour motif psychiatrique, déjà autorisé dans certains pays, interroge tant sur le plan éthique que clinique étant donné la proximité entre les patients suicidaires et les patients demandant ou ayant accédé à l’ESA. Comment concilier l...

Improving our understanding of pathophysiology of suicidal behavior (SB) is an important step for prevention. Assessment of suicide risk is based on socio-demographic and clinical risk factors with a poor predictivity. Current understanding of SB is based on a stress-vulnerability model, whereby early-life adversities are predominant. SB may thus r...

Background: Bipolar disorder (BD) is a severe chronic psychiatric disorder affecting 0.5 to 1% of the population worldwide. To date, most studies have estimated the cost of BD via information sourced from insurance claims with limited information on clinical characteristics and course of BD. The aims of this study are (i) to estimate the direct he...

Introduction La COVID-19 et notamment les périodes de confinement ont eu un impact négatif important sur la santé mentale des Français, cependant les retentissements au niveau du comportement suicidaire n'ont été que peu étudiés. Méthodes L'accès à la base nationale des hospitalisations (Programme de médicalisation des systèmes d'information, PMSI...

Background & Aims Patients with Anorexia Nervosa (AN) present many nutritional deficiencies (macro- and often also micro-nutrients), possibly explained by their inadequate food intake. Previous studies reported that selenium (Se) deficiency is common in the general population. As Se can be easily added as a supplement, the goal of this study was to...

Background The FACE-BD cohort is an observational cohort of individuals with bipolar disorders (BD) who benefited from a systematic evaluation with evidence-based treatment recommendations and who were followed-up every year for 3 years in France. The objectives were to describe the lifetime course of BD, associated psychiatric and somatic comorbid...

Objectives: Persistent functional impairment is common in bipolar disorder (BD) and is influenced by a number of demographic, clinical, and cognitive features. The goal of this project was to estimate and compare the influence of key factors on community function in multiple cohorts of well-characterized samples of individuals with BD. Methods:...

Objective: Psychological pain is a transdiagnostic factor in mental health and a key clinical dimension to understand suicide in patients with mood disorders. However, less is known about the clinical characteristics that predict high psychological pain. The aim of this study was to fill this gap in a sample of patients with mood disorders. Method...

In patients with bipolar disorder (BD), pain prevalence is close to 30%. It is important to determine whether pain influences BD course and to identify factors associated with pain in BD in order to guide BD management. This naturalistic, prospective study used data on 880 patients with BD from the French FACE-BD cohort who were divided into two gr...

Objective Eating disorders (ED) are associated with an in increased risk of suicidal behaviours. Laxative abuse might alter the gut–brain axis signaling, that might be implicated in the pathophysiology of suicide. This study aims to determine the association between laxative misuse and suicide attempt (SA) and suicidal ideation (SI) in patients wit...