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Publications (30)
Background: A better mechanistic understanding of schizophrenia spectrum disorders is crucial to develop efficient treatment approaches. Therefore, this study investigated longitudinal interrelations between clinical outcomes, brain structure, and somatic health in post-acute individuals from the schizophrenia spectrum.
Methods: A sample of 63 post...
Background: As a condition of dysconnectivity, schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) are characterized by positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms. To improve these symptoms in SSD, physical exercise interventions show promise. We examined if reductions of functional dysconnectivity following exercise therapy are associated with clinical improve...
The blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier (BCB) builds an integral interface between the central nervous system and the periphery and appears to be impaired in a substantial proportion of individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (SSD). Even though a disruption of the BCB is associated with higher symptom severity, factors linked to BCB disrupt...
The relations between perceived fatigue and changes in sustained attention performance during early stages of working on cognitive demanding tasks remain poorly understood. In addition, concerns have been raised that self-ratings of fatigue may be biased by socially desirable response tendencies, confounding the relation between perceived fatigue a...
Exercise can be considered a feasible and efficient add-on treatment in schizophrenia. However, there remain two major challenges with regard to feasibility and efficiency: First, drop-out rates during exercise programs appear to be relatively high, ranging between 30 to 80 percent. Second, only between 30 and 50 percent of patients clinically resp...
Background: Optical coherence tomography and electroretinography studies have revealed structural and functional retinal alterations in individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs). However, it remains unclear which specific retinal layers are affected; how the retina, brain, and clinical symptomatology are connected; and how alteration...
Exercise interventions are nowadays considered as effective add-on treatments in people with schizophrenia but are usually associated with high dropout rates. Therefore, the present study investigated potential predictors of adherence from a large multicenter study, encompassing two types of exercise training, conducted over a 6-month period with i...
Background and Hypothesis: Previous studies have suggested that choroid plexus (ChP) enlargement occurs in individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (SSD) and is associated with peripheral inflammation. However, it is unclear whether such an enlargement delineates a biologically defined subgroup of SSD. Moreover, it remains elusive how ChP...
Background: Previous studies investigating disruptions in central nervous system (CNS) barriers in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) mainly focused on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) markers, that cannot adequately assess blood-brain barrier (BBB) integrity. Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) represents a sensitive method...
Zusammenfassung
Schizophrene Psychosen sind aufgrund der Einführung von Antipsychotika vor ca. 70 Jahren in Verbindung mit der Implentierung spezifischer Psychotherapien heute deutlich besser behandelbar. Im Bereich der Negativsymptomatik und krankheitsassoziierten kognitiven Defiziten sind die aktuellen Behandlungsmöglichkeiten jedoch weiter limit...
Background and hypothesis:
Aerobic exercise interventions in people with schizophrenia have been demonstrated to improve clinical outcomes, but findings regarding the underlying neural mechanisms are limited and mainly focus on the hippocampal formation. Therefore, we conducted a global exploratory analysis of structural and functional neural adap...
Background and hypothesis:
Cognitive impairment is a hallmark of schizophrenia, but no effective treatment is available to date. The underlying pathophysiology includes disconnectivity between hippocampal and prefrontal brain regions. Supporting evidence comes from diffusion-weighted imaging studies that suggest abnormal organization of frontotemp...
Background:
Even before the onset of psychotic symptoms, individuals with schizophrenia display cognitive impairments. Simultaneously, increasing amounts of individuals exhibit dysfunction of the blood-brain barrier (BBB). However, the impact of BBB dysfunction on neurocognitive impairment in people with first-episode psychosis has not yet been in...
Aerobic exercise is a promising add-on treatment to counteract structural and functional impairments of the hippocampal formation and associated clinical outcome in schizophrenia. However, current evidence regarding exercise effects on the hippocampal formation in schizophrenia is still limited and inconclusive. Therefore, we aim to assess the impa...
Introduction:
Persistent postural-perceptual dizziness (PPPD) (ICD-11) and anxiety disorders (ANX) share behavioural symptoms like anxiety, avoidance, social withdrawal, hyperarousal, or palpitation as well as neurological symptoms like vertigo, stance and gait disorders. Furthermore, previous studies have shown a bidirectional link between vestib...
Negative symptoms and cognitive deficits are common in individuals with schizophrenia, greatly affect their outcome, and have been associated with alterations in cerebral gray and white matter volume (GMV, WMV). In the last decade, aerobic endurance training has emerged as a promising intervention to alleviate these symptoms and improved aerobic fi...
Hippocampus-related cognitive deficits in working and verbal memory are frequent in schizophrenia, and hippocampal volume loss, particularly in the cornu ammonis (CA) subregions, was shown by magnetic resonance imaging studies. However, the underlying cellular alterations remain elusive. By using unbiased design-based stereology, we reported a redu...
Hippocampal formation (HF) volume loss is a well-established finding in schizophrenia, with select subfields, such as the cornu ammonis and dentate gyrus, being particularly vulnerable. These morphologic alterations are related to functional abnormalities and cognitive deficits, which are at the core of the insufficient recovery frequently seen in...
There are many reasons for people with (and without) severe mental illness to exercise regularly. In people with schizophrenia, major depression and bipolar disorder, it has already been shown that regular physical activity as an add-on therapy can improve quality of life and symptom severity. This is particularly important in domains that standard...
Hippocampal formation (HF) volume loss is a well-established finding in schizophrenia, with select subfields, such as the cornu ammonis and dentate gyrus, being particularly vulnerable. These morphologic alterations are related to functional abnormalities and cognitive deficits, which are at the core of the insufficient recovery frequently seen in...
Background
Schizophrenia is accompanied by widespread alterations in static functional connectivity associated with symptom severity and cognitive deficits. Improvements in aerobic fitness have been demonstrated to ameliorate symptomatology and cognition in people with schizophrenia, but the intermediary role of macroscale connectivity patterns rem...
Schizophrenia is accompanied by widespread alterations in static functional connectivity associated with symptom severity and cognitive deficits. Improvements in aerobic fitness have been demonstrated to ameliorate symptomatology and cognition in people with schizophrenia, but the intermediary role of macroscale connectivity patterns remains unknow...
Oscillatory theta activity in a fronto-parietal network has been associated with working memory (WM) processes and may be directly related to WM performance. In their seminal study, Polanía et al. (2012) (de-)coupled a fronto-parietal theta-network by applying transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), and showed that anti-phase tACS led...