Juan Evangelista Tercero Gaitán Buitrago, Dr., Quindío, Columbia

Psychiatrist Addiction specialist Fellow in Dementia and Cognitive decline
Specialist in Cognitive Behavioral therapy Member of the International scientific commitee – Argentinian society of Personality disorders and psychopaties.
Member of the International Foundation for the development of neuroscience
Chair of the scientific commitee – Global Psychiatric Association
Member of the section on psychoneuroendocrinology – World Psychiatric Association
Member of the section on evidence based psychiatry – World Psychiatric Association
CEO Grupo T.E.C.

The treatment of the patient suffering from dementia has been a complex clinical challenge, this presentation focuses on the topic of supplementing current interdisciplinary approaches with the addition of musical stimulation. This approach aims to facilitate the daily interaction of the patient and its caretakers, presenting it as a neurobiological, social and occupational intervention, by facilitating the activation of the default mode network, the social engagement of the patient and the promotion of physical wellbeing. The author gives an overview of the the different strategies of musical therapy, ranging from individual, group and familiar modes of treatment. Also presented is a successful case where music therapy helped an otherwise difficult dementia patient with severe behavioral disturbance.

Prof. Petr Morozov, MD, PhD, DMedSc (Psychiatry), Russia

Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Advanced Medical Studies, Russian
National Medical Research University n.a. Pirogov, Moscow, Russia
Russian Society of Psychiatrists Vice-President
World Psychiatric Association General Secretary

This lecture discovers unique historical, clinical and prognostic issues of the Kandinsky-Clerambault syndrome. Though the syndrome, its symptomatology and relation to schizophrenia are well known, many professionals are not familiar with its eponymic term. Clinical representations of the syndrome and its biological correlates are discussed through the prism of impressive historical retrospective.

Prof. Xenia Gonda, MA (Psychology), PhD (Psychiatry), PharmD, Budapest, Hungary

Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Semmelweis University New Antidepressant Target Group & MTA-SE Neurochemistry and Neuropsychopharmacology Research group, Semmelweis University and Hungarian Academy of Sciences Laboratory of Suicide Prevention and Research, National Institute for Psychiatry and Addictology

Suicide has a huge impact not only on the lives of patients and their families but also mental healthcare, public health and the society in general. In spite of these, we face several unmet needs in understanding, prevention and management of suicide. Our current methods of screening and predicting are highly unspecific and have a low predictive value, thus novel approaches to the etiology of suicide are needed to develop reliable biomarkers. An increased inflammatory state is present in suicidal patients with elevated levels of proinflammatory cytokines and a typical inflammatory signature profile. Based on understanding these processes we have the hope of repurposing currently used antiinflammatory molecules and developing novel ones which specifically target neuroinflammatory components of suicide.

Speaker: Assoc. Prof. Daria Smirnova, MD, PhD (Psychiatry), Russia

Director, Moscow Institute of Mental Health, Moscow Medical University “Reaviz”, Moscow, Russia

This lecture introduces the psycholinguistic approach in schizophrenia research and the central role of language disturbances in the etiopathogenesis of schizophrenia. The variety of manifestations of thought, language and communication disorder in schizophrenia, represents the core features of this heterogenous group of disorders. The topic of language decline in schizophrenia, from the historical perspective of its origins in the early 20th century and through the prism of current research in applied neurosciences, is reviewed in details. In current linguistic models, language neural circuits are described as underlying the basic symptoms of schizophrenia, such as auditory verbal hallucinations, delusions, and formal thought disorder. Moreover, language deterioration is associated with impaired cognition, negative symptoms domain, poor social functioning and poor outcome for people with schizophrenia. Language impairments of schizophrenia, in particular, decreased verbal fluency and a selective deficit in the production of action verbs, are considered to have hereditary nature and to be the part of cognitive endophenotype of schizophrenia. On the other hand, second language acquisition is not impaired in schizophrenia, and bilingualism may serve as a compensatory resource to maintain verbal fluency. Therapeutic strategies such as cognitive remediation or action language treatment, which target to restore language dysfunction, hold some promise for supporting high quality remission from devastating symptoms in schizophrenia.

Prof. Vladimir Mendelevich, MD, PhD, DMSc, Russia

Mental Health Research Centre, Department of Psychiatry and Medical Psychology, Kazan State Medical University, Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, Russia

The problem of self-harm behaviour is described in a comparative aspects from the standpoint of hierarchical and traditional approaches in psychiatry towards the innovative network analysis. The rationale for highlighting non-suicidal behaviour as an independent diagnosis is discussed in detail. The analysis of the problem of self-harm behaviour demonstrates the presence of many unresolved issues, such as defining the boundaries of “normative” behaviour (based on the youth style preferences), psychopathological self-harm patterns, as well as the search of significant interrelationships between suicidal and parasuicidal behaviour. The innovative approach to the psychopathology network analysis needs further research to evaluate this complicated self-harm behaviour phenomenon.

Professor Paul Cumming, BSc, MSc, PhD, Switzerland

Department of Nuclear Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

School of Psychology and Counselling, Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane Australia The technology of molecular imaging of biomarkers in brain has attained considerable maturity as a tool for investigating the pathophysiological basis of schizophrenia. Since the early days of positron emission tomography, much emphasis was placed on positron emission tomography (PET) studies of dopamine synthesis capacity in brain using positron-emitting DOPA decarboxylase substrate such as fluorine-18 FDOPA. Meta-analysis of many such studies confirmed that a group of 300+ untreated patients with schizophrenia had significantly increased dopamine synthesis capacity in striatum. However, there two kinds of schizophrenia with respect to FDOPA-PET results; nearly one half of patients have entirely normal PET results. Other research suggests that high dopamine synthesis in prodromal individuals, and predicts for conversion to psychosis, especially regarding positive symptoms. Other molecular studies link reduced binding sites for muscarinic acetylcholine receptors in patients with schizophrenia, or specific patterns of reduced brain energy metabolism (i.e., glucose consumption) in relation to specific positive or negative symptomatologies. Schizophrenia is a heterogeneous disorder; molecular imaging across a range of markers may eventually support a biochemical typology of its variants, and guide individualized medical therapy.