Kyooseob Ha

Seoul National University Hospital | SNU · Department of Neuropsychiatry

Objectives: In this study, we aimed to compare the genetic architecture of schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) in a Korean population by analyzing polygenic risk scores (PRS) derived from large-scale psychiatric disorder genome-wide association study data, based on genetic information collected from SCZ, BD, and healthy control groups.Met...

Background Bipolar disorder (BD) shows heterogeneous illness presentation both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. This phenotypic heterogeneity might reflect underlying genetic heterogeneity. At the same time, overlapping characteristics between BD and other psychiatric illnesses are observed at clinical and biomarker levels, which implies a sha...

Background Several genetic studies have been undertaken to elucidate the intricate interplay between genetics and drug responses in bipolar disorder (BD). However, there has been notably limited research on biomarkers specifically linked to valproate, with only a few studies investigating integrated proteomic and genomic factors in response to valp...

Background: Antidepressants are used to treat acute depression in patients with bipolar I disorder, but their effect as maintenance treatment after the remission of depression has not been well studied. Methods: We conducted a multisite, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of maintenance of treatment with adjunctive escitalopram o...

Liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry revealed plasma metabolic profiles for the antidepressant drug escitalopram (ECTP) and associated clinical responses in subjects with major depressive disorder (MDD). Metabolic profiles contribute to variations in responses to drug treatment of depression. To assess clinical responses...

Data-driven approaches to subtype transdiagnostic samples are important for understanding heterogeneity within disorders and overlap between disorders. Thus, this study was conducted to determine whether plasma proteomics-based clustering could subtype patients with transdiagnostic psychotic-affective disorder diagnoses. The study population includ...

Background: After the existence of a bipolar disorder (BD) prodrome was established, the development of clinical rating instruments has become relevant that are sufficiently brief to be implemented in real-world clinical practice and that are designed to identify individuals at-risk for BD. This study aimed to validate a shorter version of the Bip...

Polygenic risk scores (PRS) have attenuated cross-population predictive performance. As existing genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been conducted predominantly in individuals of European descent, the limited transferability of PRS reduces their clinical value in non-European populations, and may exacerbate healthcare disparities. Recent e...

Although early intervention may help prevent the progression of bipolar disorder, there are some controversies over early pharmacological intervention. In this study, we recruited 40 subjects in the prodromal stage of BD-II (BP), according to bipolar at-risk state criteria. We compared the expression of their plasma proteins with that of 48 BD-II a...

Background Bipolar disorder (BD) has the greatest suicide risk among mental and physical disorders. A recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) of European ancestry (EUR) samples revealed that the genetic etiology of suicide attempt (SA) was not only polygenic but also, in part, diagnosis-specific. The authors aimed to examine whether the polygen...

The proteomics data included in this article supplement the research article titled “Predictive protein markers for the severity of depression in mood disorders: A preliminary trans-diagnostic approach study (manuscript ID: JPSYCHIATRES-D-20-00437).” Plasma protein was analyzed using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). This d...

Background Previous studies report that income inequality is an important risk factor for depression and suicide, and an increasing income gap appears inevitable. However, little study to date has investigated associations between the attribution of poverty and suicide. Though we previously reported associations between socio-cultural factors, incl...

Depression is a common symptom of many mental disorders, especially major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BD). Previous studies have reported that these diseases share common pathophysiological pathways; therefore, this study elucidated whether the plasma levels of protein markers related to common depressive symptoms differed betwe...

Bipolar disorder is a heritable mental illness with complex etiology. We performed a genome-wide association study of 41,917 bipolar disorder cases and 371,549 controls of European ancestry, which identified 64 associated genomic loci. Bipolar disorder risk alleles were enriched in genes in synaptic signaling pathways and brain-expressed genes, par...

Objective: Bipolar disorder (BD) is complex genetic disorder. Therefore, approaches using clinical phenotypes such as biological rhythm disruption could be an alternative. In this study, we explored the relationship between melatonin pathway genes with circadian and seasonal rhythms of BD. Methods: We recruited clinically stable patients with BD...

Emerging high-throughput proteomic technologies have recently been considered as a powerful means of identifying substrates involved in mood disorders. We performed proteomic profiling using liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry to identify dysregulated proteins in plasma samples of 42 and 45 patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) a...

Background Although many studies have identified the risk factors for suicide, the absence of a statistical model that integrates several risk areas makes it difficult to understand the abnormally high suicide rate in South Korea. Therefore, we aimed to establish a multidimensional structural equation model of suicide incorporating socio-cultural a...

Background: Early trauma is known to be a risk factor of suicide-related behavior. On the other hand, people who attempt suicide using a fatal method are reported to be more likely to complete suicide. In this study, we assumed that early trauma affects an individual's temperament and character and thereby increases the risk of a fatal method of s...

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a heritable mental illness with complex etiology. We performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 41,917 BD cases and 371,549 controls, which identified 64 associated genomic loci. BD risk alleles were enriched in genes in synaptic and calcium signaling pathways and brain-expressed genes, particularly those with high...

Background The Seoul Pluripotent Risk for Mental Illness (SPRIM) study was designed to identify predictors leading to mental illness in help-seeking individuals by securing sufficient statistical power through transdiagnostic approaches. The SPRIM study aims to examine the clinical characteristics of high-risk individuals for mental illness and to...

Background: Major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder are prevalent and debilitating psychiatric disorders that are difficult to distinguish, as their diagnosis is based on behavioural observations and subjective symptoms. Quantitative protein profile analysis might help to objectively distinguish between these disorders and increase our unde...

Background In the new global socio-economic development, suicidal deaths have increased which is progressively gaining more attention in the field of psychiatry, social work, psychology, and public health research. The present study aimed at examining the evidence for the attitudes towards suicide and risk factors for suicide attempts among univers...

Background Given its diverse disease courses and symptom presentations, multiple phenotype dimensions with different biological underpinnings are expected with bipolar disorders (BPs). In this study, we aimed to identify lifetime BP psychopathology dimensions. We also explored the differing associations with bipolar I (BP-I) and bipolar II (BP-II)...

Lipidomic analysis can be used to efficiently identify hundreds of lipid molecular species in biological materials and has been recently established as an important tool for biomarker discovery in various neuropsychiatric disorders including major depressive disorder (MDD). In this study, quantitative targeted serum lipidomic profiling was performe...

Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) method revealed the plasma metabolite profiles in major depressive disorder (MDD) patients treated with escitalopram (ECTP) (n=7). Depression severity was assessed according to the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD-17). Metabolic profiles were derived from MDD subject blood samples collec...

Objectives We provide an opportunity for implementing preventive interventions to decrease suicide mortality among prior suicide attempters. We aim to identify sex-specific high risk periods and factors for later suicide death among suicide attempters. Methods 8,537 suicide attempters of Korea National Suicide Survey were collected from January 1,...

This is the first national survey study in South Korea investigating the relationship between suicide lethality and the clinical information of suicide attempters. An interview questionnaire was used to assess their sociodemographic factors, medical and psychiatric information, and two suicide scales, the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale and...

Objective This study explores the feasibility and psychometric properties of the Korean version of the Bipolar Depression Rating Scale (BDRS) in adolescents with Early-onset bipolar disorders. Methods Fifty-three participants (aged 13–18) with early-onset bipolar disorders (40 depressed and 18 euthymic, 5 patients were assessed at depressed state...

Background: Comorbidity of bipolar disorder (BD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has received clinical attention. However, the detailed nature and nolosogic validity of the comorbidity have not been fully explored. This study investigated the comorbidity rate, clinical nature, and correlates of OCD in patients with BD. Methods: Patients...

Objective: Posttraumatic embitterment disorder (PTED) is characterized by states of "embitterment", characteristically similar to "Hwa-byung", which is a Korean culture-bound syndrome. The present study aimed to assess diagnostic relationships between PTED and Hwa-byung. Methods: A total of 290 participants completed our survey. PTED and Hwa-byu...

Objectives: In this study, we aimed to determine the role of genetic variations within the zinc finger protein 804A (ZNF804A) gene, a candidate for a psychosis risk-conferring gene, in the development of schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BP) in the Korean population. Methods: A total of 921 patients with SZ, bipolar I (BP-I) and II (BP-II...

Objective: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a systemic and multifactorial disorder that involves abnormalities in multiple biochemical pathways and the autonomic nervous system. This study applied a machine-learning method to classify MDD and control groups by incorporating data from serum proteomic analysis and heart rate variability (HRV) anal...

Aims: Bipolar disorder is characterized by behavioral changes such as risk-taking and increasing goal-directed activities, which may result from altered reward processing. Patients with bipolar disorder show impaired reward learning in situations that require the integration of reinforced feedback over time. In this study, we examined the behavior...

Objectives There were previous studies which indicated that attitude toward suicide is able to influence the suicide outcome in both individual and group levels. In regard to the highest suicide rate in Korea, our study aims to explore the influence that attitude toward suicide has on suicide by comparing the national attitude towards suicide with...

Several studies have linked teachers' personality characteristics and sense of efficacy to stress. However, investigating the relationship between these three constructs in this context was limited. This study aims to investigate the relationship between personality, sense of efficacy and perceived stress among Korean teachers. A total of 137 teach...

World Health Organization has asserted that mental illness is the greatest overriding burden of disease in the majority of developed countries, and that the socioeconomic burden of mental disease will exceed that of cancer and cardiovascular disorders in the future. The life-time prevalence rate for mental disorders in Korea is reported at 27.6 %,...

Objective: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a systemic and multifactorial disorder involving complex interactions between genetic predisposition and disturbances of various molecular pathways. Its underlying molecular pathophysiology remains unclear, and no valid and objective diagnostic tools for the condition are available. Methods: We perfo...

Background Findings from family studies and recent genome-wide association studies have indicated overlap in the risk genes between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (BD). After finding a linkage between the ST8SIA2 (ST8 alpha-N-acetyl-neuraminide alpha-2, 8-sicalyltransferase 2 gene) locus (15q26) and mixed families with schizophrenia and BD, sev...

Despite both depression and metabolic disturbances confer substantial burden of disease, natural course of depressive symptoms and the relationship with metabolic adversities have not examined. We explore associations between trajectories of depressive symptoms and metabolic disturbance, lifestyle factors and comorbidities. This retrospective cohor...

Bipolar disorder is associated with elevated risk of suicide attempts and deaths. Key aims of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders Task Force on Suicide included examining the extant literature on epidemiology, neurobiology and pharmacotherapy related to suicide attempts and deaths in bipolar disorder. Systematic review of studies from 1...

Many factors influence the likelihood of suicide attempts or deaths in persons with bipolar disorder. One key aim of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders Task Force on Suicide was to summarize the available literature on the presence and magnitude of effect of these factors. A systematic review of studies published from 1 January 1980 to...

This study assessed the relationship between thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) level and risk of depressive symptom in a population with no clinical or laboratory evidence of thyroid dysfunction. This retrospective cohort study included 13,017 subjects (7913 males and 5104 females), 17-84 years of age, who underwent health examinations at the hospi...

Backgrounds Seasonality, an individual trait of seasonal variations in mood and behavior, has received clinical attention for its association with mood disorders. This study aimed to explore the prevalence, specific manifestation, and associated individual and climatic factors of seasonality in the non-elderly adult population. Methods Five hundre...

Both emotional and cognitive processes are involved in moral judgments. Ventromedial prefrontal lesions are related to impaired prosocial emotions and emotional dysregulation, and patients with these lesions exhibit increased utilitarian judgments of emotionally salient personal moral dilemmas. Bipolar patients experiencing manic episode also have...

We aimed to examine internalized stigma of patients with mental illness in Korea and identify the contributing factors to internalized stigma among socio-demographic, clinical, and psychosocial variables using a cross-sectional study design. A total of 160 patients were recruited from a university mental hospital. We collected socio-demographic dat...

Seasonality is one of the key features in subjects with mood disorders and is involved in the multi-faceted nature of the clinical course. However, few studies have explored the clinical implications of seasonality in bipolar disorders. We examined the differential effects of seasonality on clinical variables between bipolar I and II disorder (BD I...

This study investigates the clinical nature, prevalence rates, and associated factors of second-generation antipsychotic (SGA)-related tardive dyskinesia and tardive dystonia. To date, these subjects have not been thoroughly investigated.The subjects were 80 non-elderly schizophrenic patients who received SGAs for more than 1 year without any previ...

Sleep-wake cycle disruption and seasonal variation in mood and behavior have been associated with mood disorders. This study aimed to investigate the lifetime characteristics of the sleep-wake cycle and its association with the lifetime characteristics of seasonality in individuals with bipolar disorder. Circadian preference, regularity of bed-rise...

Seasonality, an individual trait of seasonal variations in mood and behavior, has received clinical attention for its association with mood disorders. This study aimed to explore the prevalence, specific manifestation, and associated individual and climatic factors of seasonality in the non-elderly adult population. Five hundred fifty-two participa...

Objectives: Bipolar disorder is associated with a high risk of suicide attempts and suicide death. The main objective of the present study was to identify and quantify the demographic and clinical correlates of attempted and completed suicide in people with bipolar disorder. Methods: Within the framework of the International Society for Bipolar...

Objective Ethnic, social and cultural factors contribute to axis I comorbid conditions in bipolar disorder (BPD). Korea has strict laws against illicit drugs and a relatively permissive prevailing attitude toward alcohol. The present study aimed to explore the lifetime axis I comorbidity rate in patients with BPD in Korea. Methods Clinically stabl...

Background: Time perception, which plays a fundamental role in decision-making and the evaluation of the environment, is also influenced by emotions. Patients with bipolar disorder have impairments in emotional processing as well as interval timing. We investigated the effects of emotional stimuli on time estimation and reproduction in manic and e...

This study aimed to investigate the overall prescription pattern for patients with bipolar disorders in Korea and its relevance to the practice guidelines. Prescription records from all patients with bipolar I and II disorders who have been admitted or who started the outpatient treatment during the year of 2009 in 10 academic setting hospitals wer...

Objective: The evidence of the association between depression and metabolic syndrome is increasing, but the existence of sex differences in this association remains controversial. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between subjective depressive symptoms and metabolic syndrome and each of its components by sex in the Korean po...

Objective We discuss the rationale behind staging systems described specifically for bipolar disorders. Current applications, future directions and research gaps in clinical staging models for bipolar disorders are outlined.Method We reviewed the literature pertaining to bipolar disorders, focusing on the first episode onwards. We systematically se...

Bipolar disorder is a psychopathy characterized by manic and major depressive episodes. It is important to determine the degree of depression when treating patients with bipolar disorder because 810% of bipolar patients commit suicide during the periods in which they experience major depressive episodes. The Hamilton depression rating scale is most...