Chronic gamma-hydroxybutyric-acid use followed by gamma-hydroxybutyric-acid withdrawal mimic schizophrenia: a case report
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Gamma-hydroxybutyric-acid is a potentially addictive drug known for its use in "rave" parties. Users have described heightened sexual drive, sensuality and emotional warmth. Its euphoric, sedative and anxiolytic-like properties are also sought by frequent users. Abrupt gamma-hydroxybutyric-acid withdrawal can rapidly cause tremor, autonomic dysfunction and anxiety, and may later culminate in severe confusion, delirium, auditory, visual or tactile hallucinations, or even death. CASE PRESENTATION: A 23-year-old woman presented to the emergency room with paranoid delusions and auditory hallucinations. Her psychiatric history included two brief psychotic episodes induced by amphetamines and marijuana. In the last six months, she had demonstrated bizarre behaviour, had been more isolated and apathetic, and unable to take care of daily chores. The patient reported occasional use of gamma-hydroxybutyric-acid, but her initial accounts of drug use were contradictory. Since the toxicology urine screen was negative, a schizophrenic disorder was initially suspected and an antipsychotic medication was prescribed. A few hours after her admission, signs of autonomic dysfunction (tachycardia and hypertension) appeared, lasting 24 hours. Severe agitation and confusion were also present. Restraints and a cumulative dose of 7 mg lorazepam were used to stabilize her. The confusion resolved in less than 72 hours. The patient then revealed that she had been using gamma-hydroxybutyric-acid daily for the last six months as self-medication to treat insomnia and anxiety, before stopping it abruptly 24 hours prior to her visit. CONCLUSIONS: In our opinion, this original case illustrates the importance of considering gamma-hydroxybutyric-acid withdrawal delirium in the differential diagnosis of a first-break psychosis. In this case, the effects of chronic GHB use were incorrectly identified as the negative symptoms of schizophrenia prodrome. Likewise, severe gamma-hydroxybutyric-acid withdrawal syndrome was initially mistaken for acute positive symptoms of schizophrenia, until autonomic dysfunction manifested itself more clearly.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".