
João Paulo Maia-de-OliveiraFederal University of Rio Grande do Norte | IIP · Departamento de Medicina Clínica
João Paulo Maia-de-Oliveira
MD, MSc, PhD
About
41
Publications
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
February 2010 - present
February 2008 - February 2011
Publications
Publications (41)
Background:
Recent open-label trials show that psychedelics, such as ayahuasca, hold promise as fast-onset antidepressants in treatment-resistant depression.
Methods:
To test the antidepressant effects of ayahuasca, we conducted a parallel-arm, double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial in 29 patients with treatment-resistant depression. P...
Schizophrenia is a heterogeneous psychiatric disorder that is poorly treated with current therapies. In this brief review, we provide an update regarding the use of animal models to study schizophrenia in an attempt to understand its aetiology and develop novel therapeutic strategies. Tremendous progress has been made developing and validating rode...
Major depression is a highly prevalent mood disorder, affecting about 350 million people, and around 30% of the patients are resistant to currently available antidepressant medications. Recent evidence from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) supports the rapid antidepressant effects of the psychedelic ayahuasca in treatment-resistant depression. T...
Background:
Recent evidence has shown improvements in schizophrenia symptoms after the infusion of sodium nitroprusside (SNP), a nitric oxide (NO) donor. In the rat model of schizophrenia using ketamine injection, pretreatment with SNP seems to prevent behavioral changes associated with positive symptoms for up to one week.
Objective:
We investiga...
Letter to the Editor: Sodium nitroprusside for schizophrenia: could methodological variables account for the different results obtained? - Volume 47 Issue 5 - J. P. Maia-de-Oliveira, G. B. Baker, S. M. Dursun, J. E. C. Hallak
Background:
Recent findings suggest that dopaminergic abnormalities found in psychotic disorders may be secondary to nitric oxide dysfunctions. Nitric oxide seems to influence glutamatergic and dopaminergic neurotransmission, both of which have been associated with psychosis.
Objective:
To search and review published works which examined the inf...
The prevalence of neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases has significantly increased in recent years. Most of these diseases are multifactorial causes and have several progression mechanisms. The search for a medication which positively interferes in these mechanisms and thereby changes the course of these diseases is a great scientific interes...
Background: Recent findings suggest that dopaminergic abnormalities found in psychotic disorders may be secondary to nitric oxide dysfunctions. Nitric oxide seems to influence glutamatergic and dopaminergic neurotransmission, both of which have been associated with psychosis. Objective: To search and review published works which examined the influe...
Ayahuasca is an Amazonian botanical hallucinogenic brew which contains dimethyltryptamine, a 5-HT2A receptor agonist, and harmine, a monoamine-oxidase A inhibitor. Our group recently reported that ayahuasca administration was associated with fast-acting antidepressive effects in 6 depressive patients. The objective of the present work was to assess...
Ayahuasca (AYA), a natural psychedelic brew prepared from Amazonian plants and rich in dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and harmine, causes effects of subjective well-being and may therefore have antidepressant actions. This study sought to evaluate the effects of a single dose of AYA in six volunteers with a current depressive episode.
Open-label trial co...
Background
Better treatments for schizophrenia are urgently needed. The therapeutic use of the nitric oxide (NO)-donor sodium nitroprusside (SNP) in patients with schizophrenia has shown promising results. The role of NO in schizophrenia is still unclear, and NO modulation is unexplored in ketamine (KET) animal models to date. In the present study,...
B y modulating the "glutamate-NO (nitric oxide)-cGMP" pathway," a new paradigm for the treatment of schizophrenia seems to arise. Indeed, our group has recently pub-lished a double-blind placebo (PLB) con-trolled trial showing that an infusion of sodium nitroprusside (SNP), a nitric oxide donor, improved positive, negative, anxiety, and depressive...
doi: 10.1176/appi.neuropsych.13120374
Despite decades of study, the etiology and physiopathology of schizophrenia remain unknown. Recent evidence suggests that nitric oxide (NO) may be implicated in schizophrenia. NO is a gas that mediates the release of neurotransmitters, learning, memory, and neurodevelopment. Studies investigating the role of NO in patients with schizophrenia found...
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is generally classified as a mood dis-order with a profound effect on the individual's behavior and quality of life. According to the World Health Organization, in about 20 years, depression will be the disorder with the most significant repercussions, both socially and economically. Despite the substantial progress...
For many years the focus of neurochemical and pharmacological studies on schizophrenia was on dopamine, and that work yielded a great deal of information about the possible etiology of this debilitating disorder and contributed significantly to the development of antipsychotic drugs. However, it has become increasingly apparent that other neurotran...
Importance
The treatment of schizophrenia remains a challenge, and the currently available antipsychotic drugs are slow acting and produce a number of adverse effects.Objective
To examine the effectiveness and safety of a single intravenous administration of sodium nitroprusside (0.5 μg/kg/min for 4 hours) on the positive, negative, anxiety, and...
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is generally classified as a mood disorder with a profound effect on the individual’s behavior and quality of life. According to the World Health Organization, in about 20 years, depression will be the disorder with the most significant repercussions, both socially and economically. Despite the substantial progress i...
For the last 40 years, schizophrenia has been considered to be the result primarily of a dysfunction in brain dopaminergic pathways. In this review, it is described and discussed findings concerning nitric oxide-mediated neurotransmission in schizophrenia. Studies were searched in PubMed, SciELO, and LILACS using the terms schizophrenia and nitric...
One of the subjects that most concerns physicians is treatment-resistance. About 30%-60% of schizophrenia patients do not respond adequately to antipsychotic treatment and are known as refractory schizophrenia patients. Clozapine has been the drug of choice in such cases. However, approximately 30% of them do not respond to clozapine either. Here,...
This case report describes a patient with manic and psychotic symptoms who had a history of neurocysticercosis and presented with an episode of hypertensive hydrocephalus in 2003. Despite her history, she was initially treated for primary psychiatric disease.
The limited effect of current antipsychotics on the schizophrenia symptoms has led to the search for novel drugs that can potentiate the treatment of this disorder. Minocycline is an antibiotic of the tetracycline group, with effi- cacy in different neurological diseases. Various findings from animal and human studies suggest that minocycline has p...
In spite of numerous studies focused on schizophrenia, its etiology remain unknown. If we bear in mind that schizophrenia is a progressive syndrome where genetic and environmental components contribute, with impairment in the brain maturation as a result, it is conceivable that research seeking to unveil its etiology should focus on dysfunctions in...