PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

Luc Staner

Publications and source records attributed to Luc Staner.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

Double-blind, placebo-controlled study of the efficacy of trazodone in alcohol post-withdrawal syndrome: polysomnographic and clinical evaluations.

Alcohol detoxification is accompanied by sustained difficulties in sleep initiation and maintenance. These difficulties are thought to be an important cause of relapse to alcohol use. However, the treatment of sleep problems with hypnotic drug is made difficult by cross-tolerance between benzodiazepines and alcohol. In this report, we evaluated the capacity of trazodone (TRZ), a second-generation antidepressant with anxiolytic and sedative properties, to increase the sleep efficiency in alcohol-dependent patients after detoxification. Sixteen patients completed the TRZ (n = 8) or the placebo (PL; n = 8) treatment arms. Polysomnographies were performed at baseline, after the 1st drug dose, and after 4 weeks of treatment. The main outcome was sleep efficiency. Secondary outcomes included changes in other sleep parameters, Hamilton Depression Rating and Clinical Global Impression scales. Sleep efficiency was increased in the TRZ group when it was computed after sleep onset, both immediately after 1st administration of the drug and after 4 weeks of treatment. No benefit was observed in the PL group. Sleep improvement under TRZ also included the number of awakenings, intermittent wake sleep time, and non-rapid eye movement sleep. Hamilton and Clinical Global scales were better for the TRZ group. TRZ is thus a potential option in the treatment of alcohol post-withdrawal insomnia.

Adolescent↗

A dimensional impulsive-aggressive phenotype is associated with the A218C polymorphism of the tryptophan hydroxylase gene: a pilot study in well-characterized impulsive inpatients.

Tryptophan hydroxylase (TPH) is the rate-limiting enzyme in the biosynthesis of serotonin, and association and linkage studies of its variants in suicidal and impulsive-aggressive behavior have brought conflicting results. This pilot study was designed to investigate whether TPH A218C genotypes could be associated with impulsive behavioral tendencies (IBTs) in consecutively admitted nonpsychotic nonorganic inpatients. Patients (20 females and 34 males; age, 38.8 +/- 11.8) did not differ from healthy nonimpulsive controls (16 females and 11 males; age, 35.2 +/- 10.2) regarding TPH genotypes, but in the patients, the number of IBT was related to the presence of the 218C allele. It was concluded that impulsive-aggressive behavior may be associated with the TPH genotype in well-characterized impulsive patients and that the present results stress the importance of considering impulsiveness-aggressiveness in studies investigating the relationship between suicidal behavior and TPH genotypes.

Adult↗

Serotonergic function and suicidal behavior in schizophrenia.

Recent studies suggest that altered serotonergic (5-HT) function, as assessed by lower prolactin (PRL) response to fenfluramine (FEN), a specific 5-HT releaser and uptake inhibitor, is associated with suicidal behavior in either depressed and personality disordered patients. The purpose of this study was to investigate, in schizophrenic patients, the relationship between suicidal behavior and PRL response to D-fenfluramine (D-FEN). A D-FEN test was performed in 18 healthy controls and 33 drug-free DSM-IV schizophrenic patients (12 with a history of suicide attempts, 21 without it). Schizophrenic patients with a history of suicide attempts showed a lower PRL response to D-FEN (Delta PRL) compared to schizophrenic patients without such history (P<0.04) and also compared to healthy controls (P<0.0003). Delta PRL did not differentiate schizophrenic patients without suicide attempts and controls. These findings could not be explained by PRL basal hormonal levels, age, sex, menstrual status, demographic or clinical characteristics. These results suggest that PRL response to D-FEN is a marker of suicidal tendencies also in schizophrenia, supporting the hypothesis that a dysfunction in serotonergic function is associated with suicidal behavior regardless of the psychiatric diagnosis.

Adult↗

Positive association of dopamine D2 receptor polymorphism with bipolar affective disorder in a European Multicenter Association Study of affective disorders.

Convincing evidence for a genetic component in the etiology of affective disorders (AD), including bipolar affective disorder (BPAD) and unipolar affective disorder (UPAD), is supported by traditional and molecular genetic studies. Most arguments lead to the complex inheritance hypothesis, suggesting that the mode of inheritance is probably not Mendelian but most likely oligogenic (or polygenic) and that the contribution of genes could be moderate or weak. The purpose of the present European multicenter study (13 centers) was to test the potential role in BPAD and UPAD of two candidate dopaminergic markers, DRD2 and DRD3, using a case-control association design. The following samples were analyzed for DRD2: 358 BPAD/358 control (C) and 133 UPAD/ 133 C subjects, and for DRD3: 325 BPAD/ 325 C and 136 UPAD/136 C subjects. Patients and controls were individually matched for sex, age ( plus minus five years) and geographical origin. Evidence for significant association between BPAD and DRD2 emerged, with an over-representation of genotype 5-5 (P=0.004) and allele 5 (P=0.002) in BPAD cases compared to controls. No association was found for DRD2 in UPAD, and for DRD3 neither in BPAD or UPAD. Our results suggest that the DRD2 microsatellite may be in linkage disequilibrium with a nearby genetic variant involved in the susceptibility to BPAD. Our large European sample allowed for replicating of some previous reported positive findings obtained in other study populations.

Alleles↗

EEG source identification: frequency analysis during sleep.

This article deals with a new approach in sleep characterization that combines EEG source localisation methods with standard frequency analysis of multielectrode EEGs. First, we describe the theoretical methodology and the benefits that we get from a three-dimensional image (LORETA) of the cerebral activity related to a frequency band. Then, this new application is used as signal-processing technique on sleep EEG recordings obtained from young male adults using four frequency bands (delta 0.5-3.5 Hz, theta 4.0-7.5 Hz, alpha 8.0-12.5 Hz and beta 13.0-32.0 Hz) in different sleep stages. Finally, we show that the obtained results are highly consistent with other physiological assessments (standard EEG mapping, functional magnetic resonance imaging, etc.), but give us more realistic additional information on the generators of electromagnetic cerebral activity.

Adult↗