It is increasingly recognized that the brain continuously interacts with other body systems such as the immune system, the gut-brain axis, and the endocrine system. Dysfunctions in these systems can impact mental health by altering neurotransmitter levels and the neurochemical environment. This shift in understanding underscores the need for therapeutic strategies that address systemic health and mitochondrial function, alongside psychosocial aspects of the disease, offering a more personalized and adaptive approach to treatment.

This study utilizes a translational research approach structured through the Work Breakdown Structure methodology, dividing the process into six interconnected Work Packages (WPs). These include systematic literature reviews on endocrine dysfunctions and hormonal therapies in mental disorders, application of Design Thinking for neuroendocrine innovation, and hypothesis exploration of hCG as a systemic adjunctive treatment for psychiatric disorders, culminating in result dissemination and evaluation.

Work The study identified multiple mechanistic impacts of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) relevant to psychiatric treatment. Key findings from hCG Hormetic Therapy (HHT) include stimulation of sex hormone production, reduction of insulin resistance and systemic inflammation, enhancement of hypothalamic activity to regulate appetite, sleep, and emotions, and LH-like effects on cognition. HHT also increases IGF-1 availability, promoting neuroprotection, cognitive improvements, and reduced mitochondrial dysfunction, restoring cellular function critical for brain health.

The findings underscore the significance of enhancing endocrine and metabolic functions as a viable strategy for improving psychiatric care, aligning with trends that advocate holistic treatment strategies. The suggested dose for future research protocols is 500 IU IM per week for at least 10 weeks.

Supporting diverse and varied research is crucial for advancing medical knowledge. Continuous exploration of neuroendocrine dysfunctions in mental disorders using advanced tools from neuroscience, endocrinology, and psychiatry can provide new pathways for more effective and personalized treatments. The study of HHT effects offers insights into complex neuroendocrine interactions, underscoring the potential for innovative therapeutic strategies in psychiatry.

The article aims at reiterating the importance of a biopsychosocial approach to mental health, taking stock of the critiques that have been raised and moving forward throughout a reconsideration of the theoretical background of systems thinking and emphasizing the relevance of the concept of thick description for the promotion of an adequate reflection on methodology and case formulation.

It is our opinion that the biopsychosocial approach is still a powerful framework for making sense of the growing data collected in the different fields related to mental health and for designing proper treatment plans. A crucial challenge for mental health is that of surpassing the dichotomies and ideological disputes that still contaminate the field with detrimental effects on the advancement of knowledge and on the integration and continuity of different kind of interventions.

The time is ripe for building bridges among neuroscience, humanities and social sciences, and this can only happen within the umbrella of a biopsychosocial perspective reinstated into its systems thinking background.

Copy number variations (CNVs) are rare genomic deletions and duplications that can affect brain and behaviour. Previous reports of CNV pleiotropy imply that they converge on shared mechanisms at some level of pathway cascades, from genes to large-scale neural circuits to the phenome. However, existing studies have primarily examined single CNV loci in small clinical cohorts. It remains unknown, for example, how distinct CNVs escalate vulnerability for the same developmental and psychiatric disorders. Here we quantitatively dissect the associations between brain organization and behavioural differentiation across 8 key CNVs. In 534 CNV carriers, we explored CNV-specific brain morphology patterns. CNVs were characteristic of disparate morphological changes involving multiple large-scale networks. We extensively annotated these CNV-associated patterns with ~1,000 lifestyle indicators through the UK Biobank resource. The resulting phenotypic profiles largely overlap and have body-wide implications, including the cardiovascular, endocrine, skeletal and nervous systems. Our population-level investigation established brain structural divergences and phenotypical convergences of CNVs, with direct relevance to major brain disorders.

Several psychological factors, including anxiety and depression, are associated with poor surgical outcomes, likely as a result of chronic dysfunction of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. However, despite some encouraging results, a lack of high-quality studies means that there is limited evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to improve surgical outcomes.

Self-rated health (SRH) is a salient outcome for cancer survivors. Although depression is a well-studied correlate with SRH, few studies have focused on the role of cancer survivors' age on the association between depression and SRH. This study evaluates demographic and psychosocial factors associated with cancer survivors' SRH. We also assess the moderating role of age to the association between depression and SRH.

This paper analyzed 2,470 U.S. cancer survivors from the 2019 National Health Interview Survey. Two ordered logistic regression models with complex survey weights were used for analyses. Missing data was addressed using multiple imputations by chained equations.

Being female, higher education and higher income were positively associated with better SRH. While the relationship between higher education and higher income was consistent with previous findings, the positive association between being female and SRH was different from previous studies. Age significantly moderated the association between depression and SRH, evidenced by results of the joint tests of all interaction term coefficients being statistically significant, F(2, 544.6) = 5.13, p < 0.01.

The findings of the study highlighted the significance of screening for social determinants of health and health disparity when supporting cancer survivors. Additionally, findings of this study emphasized the significance of adopting an age-specific approach when evaluating and addressing depression across different age groups of cancer survivors.

Chronic exposure to stress is a major risk factor in anxiety disorders (ADs) and can be accompanied by an altered microbiome-gut-brain axis and a compromised immune system. In recent years, the study of inflammatory processes in AD has gained special attention. Continued stress causes the reactivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, the alteration of the intestinal microbiota and the consequent release of pro-inflammatory cytokines, affecting the sensitivity to stress and the similar behavior of anxiety.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the interrelationships between measures of proinflammatory cytokines and cortisol in patients with panic disorder (PD).

The main results of the correlation analysis revealed that the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-12, and tumor necrosis factor gamma were negatively correlated with cortisol scores (area under the curve with respect to the ground).

These results suggest that the inflammatory response is associated with the reactivity of the HPA axis in patients with PD and may influence the maintenance of anxiety behavior.

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the most common neurodevelopmental disorder diagnosed in children. Questions regarding its increased diagnostic rates and pharmacological treatments in developing children have led to a more holistic review of the multi-system pathophysiology observed in ADHD. The dopaminergic neurotransmitter system, known for its influence on reward-motivated behaviors and motor control, and the frontostriatal systems, that mediate motor, cognition, and behavior, are associated with ADHD's development. However, studies have shown that these neural systems do not wholly account for ADHD's multilayered and heterogeneous symptom presentation. For instance, the literature suggests that emotional dysregulation, the inability to regulate one's emotional responses to provoking stimuli, is associated with increased risk for social impairment in ADHD. A broader examination of physiological systems in children with ADHD has found potential markers in the heart-brain and gut-brain axes that correspond with certain behaviors associated with emotional dysregulation in recent studies. Hence, the purpose of this meta-analysis is to aggregate ten applicable published case studies and analyze task-related heart rate reactivity (HRR; n = 5 studies) and gut microbiota (n = 5 studies) data in children with and without ADHD. Data from a total of 531 youth with ADHD and 603 youth without ADHD revealed significant small and medium effect sizes for higher Chao1 levels and Actinobacteria levels in the ADHD group, respectively, but no evidence of altered task-related HRR. Thus, further research into multi-system psychophysiological measures of emotional dysregulation and ADHD is warranted. The clinical, empirical, and educational implications of these findings are discussed.

https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, identifier PROSPERO (CRD42021236819).

Many people experience psychological trauma during their lifetime, often negatively affecting their mental and physical health. Post-traumatic growth is a positive psychological change that may occur in an individual after having processed and coped with trauma. This journey, however, has not been studied enough.

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore people's experience of suffering psychological trauma, the personal effects of the trauma and the transition from trauma to post-traumatic growth.

A purposeful sample of seven women and five men, aged 34-52, were selected whose backgrounds and history of trauma varied, but who had all experienced post-traumatic growth. One to two interviews were conducted with each one, in all 14 interviews.

This study introduces a unique mapping of the challenging journey from trauma to post-traumatic growth through lived experiences of people who have experienced trauma as well as post-traumatic growth. Participants had different trauma experience, but their suffering shaped them all as persons and influenced their wellbeing, health and view of life. Participants described post-traumatic growth as a journey, rather than a destination. There was a prologue to their journey which some described as a hindering factor while others felt it was a good preparation for post-traumatic growth, i.e. to overcome difficulties at an early age. Participants described six main influencing factors on their post-traumatic growth, both facilitating and hindering ones. They also described the positive personal changes they had undergone when experiencing post-traumatic growth even though the epilogue also included heavy days. A new theoretical definition of post-traumatic growth was constructed from the findings.

The results suggest that the journey to post-traumatic growth includes a recovery process and certain influencing factors that must be considered. This information has implications for professionals treating and supporting people who have suffered traumas.

Although evidence supporting psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) models of toxic stress have emerged over the past decade, the PNI field has struggled to integrate these important findings into real-world practical applications. There is great potential for these models to reduce the societal burden of childhood adversity by facilitating early detection and prevention with those children and adolescents at greatest risk for stress-related physical and psychological disorders. But further research is needed to validate and scale developmentally appropriate interventions with specific immune and endocrine mechanism-based targets that are developmentally sensitive. The allostatic load and additive PNI models of toxic stress exposure in youth are summarized. These models highlight the importance of integrating a standardized screening of environmental and interpersonal risk factors with stable and scalable cognitive and biological markers of risk. PNI models of toxic stress illustrate the need for intervention delivery as early as possible to prevent negative health outcomes in youth and comprehensive screening efforts would facilitate the deployment of community and family level interventions. This review discusses practical applications of toxic stress models that are currently under investigation, clarifies key obstacles, such as research gaps and scalability, and provides potential solutions, including cross-disciplinary partnerships.

To cope physical and/or psychological threats, the human body activates multiple processes, mediated by a close interconnection among brain, endocrine and inflammatory systems. The aim of the study was to assess the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) and hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axes involvement after an acute stressful event (Emilia Romagna earthquake swarm) with a big data approach.

A retrospective, observational trial was performed, collecting all biochemical examinations regarding HPA and HPT axes performed in the same laboratory the year before and the year after the earthquake swarm (20-29 May 2012).

Comparing 2576 pre-earthquake to 3021 post-earthquake measurements, a cortisol serum level increase was observed (p < 0.001). Similar increase was evident for urinary free cortisol (p = 0.016), but not for adrenocorticotropic hormone (p = 0.222). The biochemical hypercortisolism incidence increased from 7.6 to 10.3% after earthquakes (p = 0.001). Comparing 68,456 pre-earthquake to 116,521 post-earthquake measurements, a reduction in thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels was evident (p = 0.018), together with an increase in free triiodothyronine and free thyroxine levels (p < 0.001 and p < 0.001). Moreover, a significant increase in altered TSH after earthquakes was registered considering the epicenter-nearest measurements (p < 0.001). No clinically relevant alterations were observed considering thyroid-specific autoantibodies.

A long-term HPA axis activation in the inhabitants of the earthquake-affected areas was highlighted for the first time. Moreover, an increased incidence of biochemical hypercortisolism emerged after earthquakes. We confirmed a recruitment of HPT axis after stressful events, together with increased incidence of altered TSH in the. Our big data study allowed to increase knowledge about the connection between external stressors and endocrine regulation.