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It is unknown whether measures adapted from social neuroscience linked to specific neural systems will demonstrate relationships to external variables. Four paradigms adapted from social neuroscience were administered to 173 clinically stable outpatients with schizophrenia to determine their relationships to functionally meaningful variables and to investigate their incremental validity beyond standard measures of social and nonsocial cognition. The 4 paradigms included 2 that assess perception of nonverbal social and action cues (basic biological motion and emotion in biological motion) and 2 that involve higher level inferences about self and others' mental states (self-referential memory and empathic accuracy). Overall, social neuroscience paradigms showed significant relationships to functional capacity but weak relationships to community functioning; the paradigms also showed weak correlations to clinical symptoms. Evidence for incremental validity beyond standard measures of social and nonsocial cognition was mixed with additional predictive power shown for functional capacity but not community functioning. Of the newly adapted paradigms, the empathic accuracy task had the broadest external validity. These results underscore the difficulty of translating developments from neuroscience into clinically useful tasks with functional significance. © 2013 The Author 2013.

Photochemical reactions which can be activated by the simultaneous absorption of two photons provide a means for single-step fabrication of complex 3D microstructures. These types of structures are needed for a wide range of applications, including microfluidics, electrooptics, and micro-electromechanical systems. We have shown that chromophores can be engineered to have both large two-photon absorptivities as well as an efficient means for activating chemical processes, such as radical polymerization, subsequent to the photoexcitation. Chromophores designed following this strategy two-photon-activate the radical polymerization of acrylates at lower incident laser powers than conventional UV initiators. Efficient two-photon photopolymer resins based on these chromophores were used in the fabrication of complex microarchitectures, such as photonic bandgap structures and tapered waveguides. We have devised a strategy which allows this approach to be extended to other chemical systems.

Large two-photon absorptivities are reported for symmetrical bis-donor stilbene derivatives with dialkylamino or diphenylamino groups. These molecules exhibit strong optical limiting of nanosecond pulses over a broad spectral range in the visible. Relative to bis(di-n-butylamino)stilbene, bis(diphenylamino)stilbene exhibits a 90-nm red shift of its optical limiting band but only a minimal shift of ~13 nm of its lowest one-photon electronic absorption band. Mixtures of these compounds offer an unprecedented combination of broad optical limiting bandwidth and high linear transparency.

This review covers some recent work on: 1. The effects of route of administration on the pharmacokinetics of fluphenazine and some of its metabolites; 2. The clinical pharmacokinetics of fluphenazine in acute patients medicated with oral fluphenazine; 3. The clinical pharmacokinetics of haloperidol in acute patients medicated with oral haloperidol; 4. The clinical pharmacokinetics of fluphenazine in the maintenance of individuals with chronic schizophrenia with fluphenazine decanoate; 5. A systematic dose reduction study in maintenance treatment refractory patients with oral haloperidol. A study in which plasma levels of fluphenazine and fluphenazine sulfoxide were measured in a group of DSM-III-R patients with schizophrenia before and after switching from oral fluphenazine to depot fluphenazine, decanoate revealed much higher levels of fluphenazine sulfoxide with oral medication compared with those found with depot fluphenazine. These data illustrate the effect of "first pass" metabolism after oral fluphenazine. Thus in a group of 33 patients randomly assigned to receive 5 mg, 10 mg or 25 mg oral fluphenazine daily, steady state plasma fluphenazine levels at each dose were significantly lower that those of fluphenazine sulfoxide or 7-hydroxy-fluphenazine, although there were no significant differences between the levels of fluphenazine and fluphenazine N4-oxide. On the other hand, plasma levels of the parent drug were significantly higher than those of any metabolite in a corresponding group of patients at steady state on depot medication. These observations underscore the importance of route dependent differences in the pharmacokinetics of fluphenazine which can lead to problems when switching patients from oral to depot neuroleptics. The concept of "disabling side-effects" is an important development in understanding relationships between plasma levels of neuroleptic drugs and clinical response in patients with schizophrenia. Risk-benefit analysis shows clearly that evaluation of relationships between plasma levels and clinical response must take into account the consequences of side-effects which the patient feels have a negating effect on therapy. Emerging data on putative therapeutic plasma level ranges in maintenance therapy are potentially important and may be particularly useful in the maintenance of patients on low dose therapy. It is noteworthy that in a carefully executed dose reduction study in treatment resistant patients under medication with haloperidol, the mean lowest effective dose (8.7 ng/mL) lay within the optimal therapeutic range (5 ng/mL to 12 ng/mL) found in acutely psychotic patients. The study showed that gradual dose reduction of neuroleptic was possible in chronic treatment resistant patients with schizophrenia who were originally thought by ward staff to require high doses of neuroleptic.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)