Psychotic-like experiences are associated with suicidal feelings and deliberate self-harm behaviors in adolescents aged 12-15 years.Objective: Psychotic disorders are a significant risk factor for suicide, especially among young people. Psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) in the general population may share an etiological background with psychotic disorders. Therefore, the present study examined the association between PLEs and risk of suicide in a community sample of adolescents. Method: Psychotic-like experiences, suicidal feelings, and self-harm behaviors were studied using a self-report questionnaire administered to 5073 Japanese adolescents. Depression and anxiety were evaluated using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). Results: The presence of PLEs was significantly associated with suicidal feelings (OR = 3.1, 95% CI = 2.2-4.5) and deliberate selfharm behaviors (OR = 3.1, 95% CI = 2.0-4.8) after controlling for the effects of age, gender, GHQ-12 score, victimization, and substance use. Suicidal feelings and behaviors were more prevalent in subjects with a greater number of PLEs. Conclusion: Psychotic-like experiences may increase the risk of suicidal problems among adolescents. Significant outcomes• Psychotic-like experiences are associated with suicidal feelings and deliberate self-harm behaviors among adolescents aged 12-15 years.• Suicidal feelings and deliberate self-harm behaviors are more prevalent in subjects with a greater number of psychotic-like experiences. Limitations• This is a cross-sectional study and subjects were recruited from public schools.• A self-report questionnaire was used to assess the psychotic-like experiences, suicidal feelings, and self-harm behaviors.• There was a lack of data about confounding factors, such as individual personality and family circumstances.

Obesity is a major global public health problem, and understanding its pathogenesis is critical for identifying a cure. In this study, a gene knockout strategy was used in post-neonatal mice to delete synoviolin (Syvn)1/Hrd1/Der3, an ER-resident E3 ubiquitin ligase with known roles in homeostasis maintenance. Syvn1 deficiency resulted in weight loss and lower accumulation of white adipose tissue in otherwise wild-type animals as well as in genetically obese (ob/ob and db/db) and adipose tissue-specific knockout mice as compared to control animals. SYVN1 interacted with and ubiquitinated the thermogenic coactivator peroxisome proliferatoractivated receptor coactivator (PGC)-1b, and Syvn1 mutants showed upregulation of PGC-1b target genes and increase in mitochondrion number, respiration, and basal energy expenditure in adipose tissue relative to control animals. Moreover, the selective SYVN1 inhibitor LS-102 abolished the negative regulation of PGC-1b by SYVN1 and prevented weight gain in mice. Thus, SYVN1 is a novel post-translational regulator of PGC-1b and a potential therapeutic target in obesity treatment.

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Aim: To determine whether intrasubject reproducibility could be observed in the frontal cortex and to assess the mental-health status of subjects in each session. Methods:We measured changes in oxygenated hemoglobin concentration ([oxy-Hb]) during a letter version of the verbal fluency task using near-infrared spectroscopy imaging in twenty healthy adults over two sessions approximately two months apart. Additionally, the mental-health status of the subjects in each session was evaluated according to the StateTrait Anxiety Inventory, the Zung Self-rating Depression Scale, the Profile of Mood States, and the revised edition of the Neuroticism-Extroversion-Openness Personality Inventory. The association between those scores and [oxy-Hb] changes during the verbal fluency task in each session was investigated.Results: Performance on the verbal fluency task was about equal across the two sessions, and frontal activation during the task was observed globally in approximately the same region. In the test-retest reliability, acceptable values were shown in both the Intraclass Correlation Coefficients of the mean [oxy-Hb] changes and the correlation coefficients of the whole waveforms for each subject in the two sessions. Mental-health status as measured by several questionnaires was within the healthy range, and no correlation with the frontal activation was seen, except in several channels. Conclusion:The current results suggest that the measurement experience exerted very little influence, except for in a very small region. In addition, the intrasubject reproducibility of frontal activation measured by multi-channel near-infrared spectroscopy was well demonstrated in mentally healthy subjects at intervals of two months.

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