Phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) tasting in paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenic patients.

The present study reports on the association between Phenylthiocarbamide tasting for paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenic patients. The incidence of PTC tasting is highly variable, and tasters and nontasters are frequently associated with some pathological states. 25 paranoid and 25 nonparanoid schizophrenic patients were examined for their PTC taste sensitivity. Frequency of paranoid tasters resembles the distribution of the normal population, whereas the nonparanoid patients are significantly different in their taste thresholds, with a higher incidence of nontasters. The members of this latter group have twice the incidence of psychiatric illness in their family histories as those of the former group. The significance of these findings is discussed as related to vulnerability for schizophrenia.     

Recognition of posed and genuine facial expressions of emotion in paranoid and nonparanoid schizophrenia

Most previous research reporting emotion-recognition deficits in schizophrenia has used posed facial expressions of emotion and chronic-schizophrenia patients. In contrast, the present research examined the ability of patients with acute paranoid and nonparanoid (disorganized) schizophrenia to recognize genuine as well as posed facial expressions of emotion. Evidence of an emotion-recognition deficit in schizophrenia was replicated, but only when posed facial expressions were used. For genuine expressions of emotion, the paranoid-schizophrenia group was more accurate than controls, nonparanoid-schizophrenia patients, and depressed patients. Future research clearly needs to consider the posed versus genuine nature of the emotional stimuli used and the type of schizophrenia patients examined.     

Temperament and character inventory in homicidal, nonaddicted paranoid schizophrenic patients: a preliminary study

This study assessed the personalities of 13 murderer schizophrenics using Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory, controlling different factors such as institution, treatment, detention or loss of liberty, and can discriminate between schizophrenic patients involved in homicide, schizophrenics with no past violent behavior, paranoiac murderers, and imprisoned murderers with no psychiatric history. Results show significantly that murderer schizophrenics had significantly higher scores on the subscale, Self-transcendence, than other groups, which suggests that Self-transcendence as measured may be an aggravating factor for schizophrenia and may be found in the personality of schizophrenic subjects who performed homicidal acts. This dimension constitutes a way and an additional element for diagnosis not available with the DSM-IV criteria. It may help understanding and predicting violent behavior among schizophrenic patients.     

Social anxiety and premorbid personality disorders in paranoid schizophrenic patients treated with clozapine

The concept of anxiety as a distinct comorbid disorder in schizophrenia has recently been rediscovered after having been neglected for a long period of time due to both theoretical and clinical approaches adopted from the appearance of the first edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1950. This rediscovery was accentuated by the fact that the concept of comorbidity in various psychiatric disorders has recently won widespread favor within the scientific community, and that the use of atypical neuroleptic medication to treat patients with schizophrenia has been reported to lead to the emergence of anxiety symptoms. Of the atypical neuroleptic medications used to treat schizophrenia, clozapine has most frequently been reported to induce anxiety symptoms. In this paper, 12 cases of patients with paranoid schizophrenia who developed social phobia during clozapine treatment are reported, and their response to fluoxetine augmentation is assessed. Premorbid personality disorders were also investigated; patients were assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R-Patient Version and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorders (DSM-III-R=Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition Revised; DSM-IV=Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition). In addition, the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms, the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms, the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS), the Frankfurt Beschwerde Fragebogen (Frankfurt Questionnaire of Complaints), and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale were used to rate clinical symptomatology. All patients were reevaluated after 12 weeks of cotreatment with clozapine and fluoxetine. In 8 (66.6%) of the 12 cases, symptoms responded (>/=35% LSAS score reduction) to an adjunctive regimen of fluoxetine. Furthermore, in 7 (58.3%) of the 12 cases, an anxious personality disorder (avoidant=33.3%; dependent=25%) was identified, but no significant differences in the prevalence of comorbid personality disorders emerged in comparison with a group of 16 patients with paranoid schizophrenia treated with clozapine who did not show symptoms of social phobia. The clinical relevance of the assessment and treatment of anxiety disorders is discussed in light of a clinical therapeutic approach that overcomes the implicit hierarchy of classification. Considering that the onset of anxiety-spectrum disorders (such as social phobia) can occur during the remission of psychotic symptoms in clozapine-treated patients with schizophrenia, a comprehensive approach to pharmacological therapy for patients with schizophrenia (or, at least for those treated with clozapine) should be adopted.     

An event-related brain potential substrate of disturbed response monitoring in paranoid schizophrenic patients.

Response monitoring in schizophrenic patients and healthy controls was assessed by measuring performance and event-related brain potentials in the flanker priming task. Three visual-context conditions were construed: Flankers and targets pointed either into the same direction or into different directions. Stimuli without any response assignment were used as flankers in the neutral context condition. The schizophrenic patients were further subdivided into paranoid (n = 19) and nonparanoid (n = 10) patients and compared with healthy controls (n = 18). Performance scores revealed that the flankers induced a similar degree of distraction by visual context in all 3 groups. Although the schizophrenic patients showed normal error correction performance, the error negativity (NE) was significantly reduced in paranoid schizophrenic patients. The attenuation of the NE possibly reflects disturbed response monitoring in these patients.     

Effects of "favorability" and type of assessment device upon acceptance of general personality interpretations

College students' acceptance of general personality interpretations was evaluated as a function of type of test and assessment device employed and interpretation favorability. Unlike previous studies, only interpretation favorability influenced acceptance. The effect of interpretation favorability upon acceptance, however, was shown to be due to the higher base-rate accuracy of favorable, relative to unfavorable, interpretations. It was concluded that the universal validity of general interpretations may supersede the effects of situational factors upon acceptance.     

The conceptual structure of aphasic and schizophrenic patients in a nonverbal sorting task

Hierarchical and overlapping cluster methods were applied to the sortings of aphasic, nonaphasic brain-damaged, schizophrenic, and normal subjects presented with 30 pictures of animals. The hierarchical structure solutions were most diffuse for the groups of the schizophrenics and the fluent aphasics. The structure for the nonfluent aphasics showed more clarity, but was also deviant from the structures of the normals and the brain-damaged without aphasia. Fluent aphasics but not nonfluent aphasics tended to sort pictures which they could not name into smaller groups. For the nonfluent aphasics, there was a significant correlation between the commonality of the sortings and the severity of aphasic disturbances as measured by the Token Test. The relationship between conceptual disorganization and language impairment seems to be functionally different for fluent and nonfluent aphasics.This research was supported by a research grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.     

Communication deviance in families of schizophrenic and manic patients

Levels of communication deviance (CD) distinguish parents of schizophrenic patients from parents of nonpsychotic patients, but the prevalence of intrafamilial CD in other psychotic disorders has not been examined. Levels of CD were compared across biological parents of schizophrenic (n = 39) and bipolar manic (n = 16) patients and across patients themselves. CD ratings were based on Thematic Apperception Test protocols (parents only) and family interactions (parents and patients). Total levels of CD did not distinguish between groups of parents or patients. However, instances of odd word usage were more frequent among parents of manic patients than among parents of schizophrenic patients on both CD measures. Also, during the interaction task, odd word usage was more frequent among manic patients, whereas schizophrenic patients made more ambiguous references. Results suggest that high levels of intrafamilial CD are not unique to schizophrenia.     

Span of apprehension in schizophrenic patients as a function of distractor masking and laterality.

Twenty schizophrenic patients, 10 depressed control patients, and 20 normal control subjects were compared in a forced-choice, target-detection method for assessing the span of apprehension. The detection task required the subject to report which of 2 target letters was presented among 7 other (distractor) letters. Performance accuracy was examined as a function of target location and whether the distractor letters were masked after their presentation. The backward masking of the distractors improved target-detection accuracy of both control groups but reduced accuracy of the schizophrenic group. In addition, schizophrenics performed particularly poorly on targets located in the left half or lower half of the display. These results suggest that response to the masking of distractors may be a new index of attentional shortcoming in schizophrenia. Various theoretical explanations for the target location findings are also discussed.     

Effects of a pre-aversive stimulus upon oddity performance in monkeys

Two monkeys (Macaca mulatta) were trained to perform an oddity discrimination using automatically projected patterned stimuli. After criteria for both response and discrimination stability were met, a tone followed by shock was superimposed upon the ongoing behavior. Each 60-sec tone was terminated with the onset of a 0.3-sec, 1 to 1.5-ma electric shock. During the tone, baseline responding was partially suppressed but discrimination performance was little altered from the pre-tone period. When shock was raised to 2 to 3 ma, responding was further suppressed, but discrimination performance was again essentially unaltered.     

计算模型视角下信任形成的心理和神经机制——基于信任博弈中投资者的角度

人际信任渗透在社会交互的各个方面, 是促进和维持合作的重要基石。以往研究者借助信任博弈范式, 主要探讨了人际信任的理论模型、生物基础和影响因素等方面。近年来, 研究者开始将计算模型应用于信任博弈的数据分析中, 深入挖掘人际信任行为背后的心理机制, 将计算模型与神经影像技术结合, 加深对信任行为背后脑机制的理解。目前将计算模型应用于信任博弈范式中的研究主要针对“信任是如何形成的”这一科学问题, 未来要进一步发展计算模型方法, 结合非侵入性脑刺激技术, 应用于精神疾病人群中, 以深入理解正常和异常信任形成的心理和神经机制。