Clinical involvement of the nervous system occurs in about 5% of patients with sarcoidosis. We describe a fatal case of a young patient with neurosarcoidosis with a relatively rare psychotic syndrome in the course of neurosarcoidosis, presenting itself as a depressive syndrome with delusions. The neurological manifestations consisted of cerebellar symptoms, peripheral neuropathy and general epileptic seizures. Cerebrospinal fluid examination, serum angiotensin-converting enzyme level, magnetic resonance imaging, chest radiography, gallium isotope scanning and other tests were used as diagnostic tools. He was treated with steroids, methotrexate and neuroleptics ineffectively. The patient died because of complications related to neurosarcoidosis. The diagnosis of neurosarcoidosis was confirmed by autopsy.

Prosody plays an important role in the process of verbal communication, complementing and emphasising the linguistic and emotional aspects of language. Disturbances of speech prosody are rarely recognised, although aprosodia occurs frequently in patients with schizophrenia. Prosodic disturbance of speech can significantly impair verbal communication and social functioning of patients with schizophrenia. Right-hemisphere is connected with emotional prosody deficits and left-hemisphere with linguistic prosody. The aim of the study is to describe. The Right Hemisphere Language Battery by Karen L. Bryan in the examination of patients with schizophrenia.

Clinical observations and the results of many experimental researches indicate that individuals suffering from schizophrenia reveal difficulties in the recognition of emotional states experienced by other people; however the causes and the range of these problems have not been clearly described. Despite early research results confirming that difficulties in emotion recognition are related only to negative emotions, the results of the researches conducted over the lat 30 years indicate that emotion recognition problems are a manifestation of a general cognitive deficit, and they do not concern specific emotions. The article contains a review of the research on face affect recognition in schizophrenia. It discusses the causes of these difficulties, the differences in the accuracy of the recognition of specific emotions, the relationship between the symptoms of schizophrenia and the severity of problems with face perception, and the types of cognitive processes which influence the disturbances in face affect recognition. Particular attention was paid to the methodology of the research on face affect recognition, including the methods used in control tasks relying on the identification of neutral faces designed to assess the range of deficit underlying the face affect recognition problems. The analysis of methods used in particular researches revealed some weaknesses. The article also deals with the question of the possibilities of improving the ability to recognise the emotions, and briefly discusses the efficiency of emotion recognition training programs designed for patients suffering from schizophrenia.

Multiple functional imaging techniques help to a better understanding of the neurobiological basis of autism-spectrum disorders (ASD). The early functional imaging studies on ASD focused on task-specific methods related to core symptom domains and explored patterns of activation in response to face processing, theory of mind tasks, language processing and executive function tasks. On the other hand, fMRI research in ASD focused on the development of functional connectivity methods and has provided evidence of alterations in cortical connectivity in ASD and establish autism as a disorder of under-connectivity among the brain regions participating in cortical networks. This atypical functional connectivity in ASD results in inefficiency and poor integration of processing in network connections to achieve task performance. The goal of this review is to summarise the actual neuroimaging functional data and examine their implication for understanding of the neurobiology of ASD.

Although the aetiology of autistic-spectrum disorder (ASD) remains unclear, great advances have been made to clarify the underlying neuroanatomical abnormalities and brain-behaviour relationships in autism. There is variability in the literature on structural neuroimaging findings in ASD. Early brain overgrowth is probably the most replicated finding in this subgroup. Additionally some specific brain regions are particularly implicated, including the frontal, limbic, basal ganglia and cerebellar regions. There is also evidence of volume abnormalities in both grey and white matter. New techniques, such as cortical-thickness measurements, surface morphometry and diffusion tensor imaging help to understand in more detail the patterns of abnormalities. More work is required, involving the use of large and homogeneous samples, to investigate the neuroanatomical determinants and their role in aetiology of ASD. The goal of this review is to summarise the available structural neuroimaging data and examine their implication for understanding of the neurobiology of ASD.

Oxytocin and vasopressin, "peptides of love and fear", except for their classic role in control of labor and breastfeeding and blood pressure regulation, are also implicated in various processes like sexual behaviours, social recognition and stress response. These hormones seems to be essential for appropriate and beneficial social interactions, play a very important role in maternal care and closeness, promote general trust and cooperation and prolong social memory. They also play a very important role in modulating fear and anxiety response, especially by regulating the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and amygdala activity by its projections to the brain stem and hypothalamic structures. Both hormones, particularly oxytocin, appears to be activating sexual behaviour or is responsible for increased sexual arousal. Evidence from clinical trials suggests their potential role in pathogenesis of schizophrenia, depression, autism and addiction together with possible therapeutic use in the above conditions. In schizophrenia, patients with higher peripheral oxytocin levels showed less severe positive, general and social symptoms and better prosocial behaviours. Literature suggests that exogenous oxytocin may be effective as an adjunctive therapy for that illness. Some data suggest that naturally occurring autoantibodies reacting with oxytocin and vasopressin are involved in depression, eating disorders and conduct disorder genesis.

In autoimmune diseases, also called connective tissue diseases, many systems and organs are involved, including the central, peripheral and autonomic nervous system. The frequency of neurological and neuropsychiatric manifestations varies in certain autoimmune diseases. One of the most common causes of these symptoms are vascular pathologies, including inflammatory and thrombotic, immunologic and atherosclerotic changes. Neuropsychiatric complications may present as a single symptom or might form a syndrome. In a particular patient, a syndrome might change its form in time, presenting itself as a different syndrome. Quite a lot of these symptoms are not a result of a disease itself but its treatment, metabolic abnormalities, arterial hypertension or infection. Steroids play a particular role in the induction of these complications. The role of increasingly used biological agents is uncertain. The most frequent psychiatric manifestations of the connective tissue diseases are: benign behavioural changes, emotional instability and sleep impairment. Neuropsychiatric symptoms are most frequently seen in systemic lupus erythematosus (up to 80% of these patients), particularly with the co-existent antiphospholipidsyndrome. Psychoses with or without seizures are included in the diagnostic criteria of the disease. A separate clinical problem is an induction of a synthesis of autoantiobodies by some drugs, including psychiatric drugs. These antibodies induce clinical symptoms of an autoimmune disease only in some patients, most frequently the symptoms of lupus erythematous, co called: drug induced lupus, including arthralgia, myalgia, fever, skin lesions and serositis. The diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric complications of autoimmune diseases is quite complicated. It is extremely important to distinguish whether a particular symptom is primary to the disease itself or secondary to its treatment. The most important recommendations are treatment of the underlying disease, its exacerbations and chronic phase, and prevention and treatment of vascular problems.

There is constant interest in possible relations between obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and eating disorders, particularly anorexia nervosa (AN). The comorbidity rate for OCD and AN is reported to be between 10% and even 40%. There is also an increased incidence of prior AN in OCD patients and high number of anorectic patients with obsessional premorbid personality. Similarities between AN and OCD lie in the symptoms of the disorders: intrusive, fearful thoughts, a compulsive need to perform rituals aimed at reducing the level of anxiety and obsessions maintaining these rituals. In case of AN, these behaviours revolve around food and thinness, whereas in OCD they are of more general and differential in type. Research on AN-OCD relations provides interesting insights, but also presents some limitations. The purpose of this review is to analyse and discuss the specificity of relations between symptoms of AN and OCD.

In recent years there has been increasingly emphasised the importance of developing a sense of humour in patients with depression, which is considered an important competence promoting recovery processes and preventing relapse. Research on the sense of humour in depression focuses on two main areas. The first one concerns the answer to the question whether depressed patients are able to make use of their sense of humour. Results of current studies in this field lead to ambiguous conclusions. Some of them point to the deficits held by these patients in terms of perception, understanding and appreciation of humour, while others demonstrate the presence of the general susceptibility to humorous stimuli and the readiness to use the sense of humour. The second area of research focuses on the effectiveness of therapeutic programmes aimed at developing a sense of humour in depression. The results showed that they have limited efficacy--short-term, observed only in some aspects or determined to a greater extent by pharmacological treatment than by implemented programmes. The reasons for their limited effectiveness seem to be largely due to an excessively wide range of impacts, not focused on the most desirable styles of humour, as well as specific needs, preferences and attitudes for patients with depression.

In many countries there is a growing awareness of the significance of mutual help among patients suffering from mental illnesses. Such acts provide benefits in terms of a sense of greater activity, self-dependance, it empowers and restores the feeling of influence over one's own and the other's fate. It is a path facilitating the process of recovery. In the last twenty years, the new role of patients in the humanisation of the treatment process in psychiatry was most fully expressed by the creation of independent non-governmental organisations. Those organisations took mutual aid activities, participation in self-education, in the therapeutic process and recently, in scientific research as their main goals. In Poland, an independent movement of patients has been growing since 2003, firstly as an organisation of people suffering from mental illnesses, named as the "Open the doors" Association in Kraków. The authors, in ajoint voice, describe the history, various activities and the significance of this movement, expressing a conviction that the time has come in Poland to formulate a long-term programme of promoting activities which support the process of empowerment and recovery in psychiatric and social institutions. They share the opinion, that the time for radical changes in Polish psychiatry has come with the implementation of the National Program of Mental Health Care. The time for patients to take over more responsibility and for us all to cooperate.