As COVID-19 pandemic spread all over the world, it brought serious health consequences in every medical field, including mental health. Not only healthcare professionals were more prone to develop anxiety, depression, and stress, but the general population suffered as well. Some of those who had no prior history of a psychiatric disease developed peculiar symptoms following infection with SARS-CoV-2, mostly because of psychological and social issues triggered by the pandemic. People developed traumatic memories, and hypochondria, probably triggered by social isolation and stress. Infection with SARS-CoV-2 has influenced the mental health of psychiatric patients as well, exacerbating prior psychiatric conditions. In this review, we focus on analyzing those cases of mania in the context of bipolar disorder (BD) reported after COVID-19 disease, both in people with no prior psychiatric history and in psychiatric patients who suffered an exacerbation of the disease. Results have shown that COVID-19 may trigger a pre-existing BD or unmask an unknown BD, due to social and psychological influences (decreased social interaction, change in sleep patterns) and through biological pathways both (neuroinflammation and neuroinvasion through ACE-2 receptors expressed in the peripheral and central nervous systems (PNS and CNS respectively). No direct correlation was found between the severity of COVID-19 disease and manic symptoms. All cases presenting severe symptoms of both diseases needed specific medical treatment, meaning that they concur but are separate in the treatment strategy needed. This review highlights the importance of a now widespread viral disease as a potential agent unmasking and exacerbating bipolar mood disorder, and it can hopefully help physicians in establishing a rapid diagnosis and treatment, and pave the road for future research on neuroinflammation triggered by SARS-CoV-2.

Purpose We hypothesized that during the 2020 pandemic there has been a significant change along the year, depending on the SARS-CoV-2 impact on the population and varying difficulties implied in the norms that were adopted to embank the pandemic. Our objectives were to verify how the phenomenon of domestic violence has evolved and changed along 2020, and to clarify if these changes were correlated to the evolution of the pandemic. Methods Though the analysis of the number of daily calls from women to the national anti-violence number and the parameters related to COVID-19 pandemic (daily cases, deaths, hospitalizations, and admissions in ICU), a positive correlation was found between daily deaths due to COVID-19 and the number of calls to the anti-violence number, while daily hospitalizations and admissions in ICU negatively correlated with calls of women reporting at the national anti-violence number. Results The number of daily calls from women reporting at the national anti-violence number positively correlated with the number of quarantined people shifted of 30 days from the beginning of isolation at home, as well. We also analyzed temporal trends of daily calls from women to the national anti-violence number from 25th of February 2020 to 31st of December 2020. Conclusions These findings demonstrate the importance of an active anti-violence telephone service and may help in developing a strategy to improve anti-violence facilities, especially during crises, such as specific sources of psychological support for women who have survived violence episodes.

Background: Dissociative disorders encompass loss of integration in essential functions such as memory, consciousness, perception, motor control, and identity. Nevertheless, neuroimaging studies, albeit scarce, have suggested the existence of particular brain activation patterns in patients belonging to this diagnostic category. The aim of this review is to identify the main functional neuroimaging correlates of dissociative disorders. Methods: we searched the PubMed database to identify functional neuroimaging studies conducted on subjects with a diagnosis of a dissociative disorder, following the PRISMA guidelines. In the end, we included 13 studies in this systematic review, conducted on 51 patients with dissociative identity disorder (DID), 28 subjects affected by depersonalization disorder, 24 with dissociative amnesia, and 6 with other or not specified dissociative disorders. Results: Prefrontal cortex dysfunction seems prominent. In addition, changes in the functional neural network of the caudate are related to alterations of identity state and maintenance of an altered mental status in DID. Another role in DID seems to be played by a dysfunction of the anterior cingulate gyrus. Other regions, including parietal, temporal, and insular cortices, and subcortical areas were reported to be dysfunctional in dissociative disorders. Conclusions: Prefrontal dysfunction is frequently reported in dissociative disorders. Functional changes in other cortical and subcortical areas can be correlated with these diagnoses. Further studies are needed to clarify the neurofunctional correlations of each dissociative disorder in affected patients, in order to identify better tailored treatments.

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