This shows that natural language processing can be used to efficiently and transparently score clinical notes in terms of cognitive and psychopathologic domains.

Pharmaceutical industry-sponsored meals and physician prescribing patterns for Medicare beneficiaries.

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BACKGROUND.Patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) experience chronic cognitive deficits. Histone deacetylases (HDACs) are enzymes that regulate cognitive circuitry; however, the role of HDACs in cognitive disorders, including SCZ, remains unknown in humans. We previously determined that HDAC2 mRNA levels were lower in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) tissue from donors with SCZ compared with controls. Here we investigated the relationship between in vivo HDAC expression and cognitive impairment in patients with SCZ and matched healthy controls using [ 11 C]Martinostat positron emission tomography (PET). METHODS.In a case-control study, relative [ 11 C]Martinostat uptake was compared between 14 patients with SCZ or schizoaffective disorder (SCZ/SAD) and 17 controls using hypothesis-driven region-of-interest analysis and unbiased whole brain voxel-wise approaches. Clinical measures, including the MATRICS consensus cognitive battery, were administered. RESULTS.Relative HDAC expression was lower in the DLPFC of patients with SCZ/SAD compared with controls, and HDAC expression positively correlated with cognitive performance scores across groups. Patients with SCZ/SAD also showed lower relative HDAC expression in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and orbitofrontal gyrus, and higher relative HDAC expression in the cerebral white matter, pons, and cerebellum compared with controls.CONCLUSIONS. These findings provide in vivo evidence of HDAC dysregulation in patients with SCZ and suggest that altered HDAC expression may impact cognitive function in humans.The severity of cognitive deficits strongly impacts functional outcomes including quality of life (45,46). Thus, amelioration of this highly debilitating form of cognitive impairment represents an important unmet need for SCZ treatment (46).We find that patients with SCZ/schizoaffective disorder (SAD) show differential [ 11 C]Martinostat brain uptake patterns compared with healthy controls, and regional [ 11 C]Martinostat brain uptake correlates with cognitive performance scores.

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A measure of planning and impulse control, the delay-discounting (DD) task estimates the extent to which an individual decreases the perceived value of a reward as the reward is delayed. We examined cross-disorder performance between healthy controls (n = 88), individuals with bipolar disorder (n = 23), major depressive disorder (n = 43), and primary psychotic disorders (schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder; n = 51) on the DD task (using a $10 delayed larger reward), as well as the interaction of DD scores with other symptom domains (cognition, psychosis, and affect). We found that individuals with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder display significantly greater rates of discounting compared to healthy controls, while individuals with a primary mood disorder do not differ from healthy controls after adjustment for IQ. Further, impairment in working memory is associated with higher discounting rates among individuals with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, but cognitive dysfunction alone does not account for the extent of impairment in DD. Taken together, these results suggest an impaired ability to plan for the future and make adaptive decisions that are specific to individuals with psychotic disorders, and likely related to adverse functional outcomes. More generally, this work demonstrates the presence of variation in impulsivity across major psychiatric illnesses, supporting the use of a trans-diagnostic perspective.

Natural language processing identifies dimensional phenotypes that may facilitate the discovery of common genetic variation that is relevant to psychopathology.

Objective: This study evaluates the distribution of authorship by sex over the last 10 years among the top 25 surgical journals. Summary of Background Data: Despite an increase in women entering surgical residency, there remains a sex disparity in surgical leadership. Scholarly activity is the foundation for academic promotion. However, few studies have evaluated productivity by sex in surgical literature. Methods: Original research in the 25 highest-impact general surgery/subspecialty journals were included (1/2008-5/2018). Journals with <70% identified author sex were excluded. Articles were categorized by sex of first, last, and overall authorship. We examined changes in proportions of female first, last, and overall authorship over time, and analyzed the correlation between these measurements and journal impact factor. Results: There were 71,867 articles from 19 journals included. Sex was successfully predicted for 87.3% of authors (79.1%-92.5%). There were significant increases in the overall percentage of female authors (b ¼ 0.55, P < 0.001), female first authors (b ¼ 0.97, P < 0.001), and female last authors (b ¼ 0.53, P < 0.001) over the study period. Notably, all cardiothoracic subspecialty journals did not significantly increase the proportion of female last authors over the study period. There were no correlations between journal impact factor and percentage of overall female authors (r s ¼ 0.39, P ¼ 0.09), female first authors (r s ¼ 0.29, P ¼ 0.22), or female last author (r s ¼ 0.35, P ¼ 0.13).Conclusions: This study identifies continued but slow improvement in female authorship of high-impact surgical journals during the contemporary era. However, the improvement was more apparent in the first compared to senior author positions.