Defense Mechanisms in Mania,Bipolar Depression and Unipolar Depression

The present study compared the use of defense mechanisms in ten bipolar manic, ten bipolar depressed and ten unipolar depressed patients. The defense mechanisms were assessed by two methods: TAT stories scored by Defense Mechanism Manual and Defense Mechanism Rating Scale ratings of psychodynamic interviews. The severity of symptoms was assessed by Beck Depression Inventory for depressed patients and Young’s Manic Rating Scale for manic patients. Both bipolar manic and depressed groups used the defense mechanism of denial, borderline level defenses and immature defenses significantly more than the unipolar depression group. The manic group showed greater dependence on narcissistic level defenses as compared to the other two groups. Positive relationships were found between severity of manic symptoms and the defense mechanisms of denial as well as the narcissistic level defenses. The bipolar depression group also used more action level defenses as compared to the unipolar depression group. The unipolar depression group scored higher on the defense mechanism of identification and adaptive level defenses as compared to the manic group. A negative correlation was found between the severity of depressive symptoms for unipolar depression group and the defense mechanism of identification. The neurotic level defenses were used most frequently by unipolar depression group, followed by the bipolar depression group and manic group. Some of these findings are in consonance with the psychoanalytic understanding of mania and depression.     

The Interaction of Mood and Rumination in Depression: Effects on Mood Maintenance and Mood-Congruent Autobiographical Memory

Rumination is a response to distress in which individuals focus repetitively on their feelings and the causes and consequences of those feelings. When induced to ruminate, dysphorics exhibit more negative mood and recall more negative memories, but these effects are not seen in nondysphorics. This pattern of results could be due to trait-like differences between dysphoric and nondysphoric individuals, or to the high levels of negative affect that dysphorics are experiencing at the time of rumination. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of pre-rumination mood on post-rumination mood and subsequent memory. Participants scoring high or low in depressive symptoms were assigned to either a positive or negative emotion induction prior to ruminating and completing an autobiographical memory task. Analysis of self-reported mood indicates that both emotion inductions were effective. Surprisingly, all participants returned to baseline mood levels following the rumination induction, and emotion induction had no effect on the negativity of the memories recalled. Dysphorics recalled significantly more negative memories than nondysphorics, regardless of whether positive, neutral, or negative memories were specifically prompted. Our results indicated that the prolonged experience of dysphoria may have greater effects on post-rumination mood and memory than the transitory experience of sadness.     

Mood and Prospective Memory

This study considered the relationship between mood states, prospective memory, and retrospective memory among a non-clinical sample of undergraduate students. Multiple regression analyses with simultaneous entry of variables were undertaken to examine the unique contributions of the alternate memory test and the emotional states to memory test performance. As expected, retrospective free recall performance and anxiety made unique and significant contributions to performance on the prospective memory task. However, only prospective memory performance emerged as a significant predictor of retrospective free recall. It is suggested that none of the mood measures emerged as a significant predictor of retrospective memory performance because they do not account for unique variance. In contrast, the relationship between anxiety and prospective memory appears to be due to factors uniquely associated with anxiety, and unrelated to depression.     

心境影响自尊的记忆效应的研究

研究了心境在自尊的记忆效应中所起的作用.被试为181名大学生,30个特质形容词为刺激材料,采用2(自尊分组)×2(BDI分组)×2(参照条件)×2(词性)的混合实验设计,要求被试自由回忆特质形容词.以中性词或BDI分数为协变量进行了方差分析及简单效应分析,结果重复证实了既往研究发现的自尊的记忆效应模式,且发现不存在对于负向信息的自我参照效应.更为重要的是,研究结果证实自尊的记忆效应并非暂时的心境使然,而是特质自尊作用的结果.这一结果有助于加深对自尊的认知动力特性的认识.     

Spatial and Selective Attention in the Cerebral Hemispheres in Depression, Mania, and Schizophrenia

Two tachistoscopic tests examining distinct aspects of attention were administered to normal subjects and patients with depression, mania, and schizophrenia. The first examined spatial attentional bias using happy-sad chimeric faces, known to elicit a perceptual bias to the left side of space in normal right-handers provided the right cerebral hemisphere is intact. The second used a lateralized version of the Stroop task, a traditional test of selective attention. Normals showed the expected leftward perceptual bias but showed equivalent susceptibility to the Stroop effect in both visual fields. As previously demonstrated with chimeric faces viewed in free vision, depression and mania were associated with weak and strong biases respectively with schizophrenics showing no bias to either side of space. The relationship between perceptual bias, as assessed by reaction time and absolute performance and the Stroop effect, showed differences according to diagnosis. This may be interpreted as evidence for the dissociability of attentional processes as well as lateralized differences in the pattern of cerebral activation in affective disorders and schizophrenia. The independence of performance variables on these tests in the schizophrenic group points to severe neuropsychological dysfunction.     

Mood state-Dependent Retrieval: The Effects of Induced Mood on Memory Reconsidered

Analysis of studies investigating mood-state-dependent retrieval identifies methodological problems that may have contributed to the controversy surrounding the reliability of the effect-in particular, the possible confounding of encoding and retrieval in previous studies. Five experiments are reported investigating the effects of mood on learning and recall. Mood-state-dependent retrieval was observed in Experiment 1a (using Velten's Mood Induction Procedure); Experiment 1b (using a music MIP); and Experiment 1c (using Velten's MIP at encoding and a music MIP at retrieval). Subjects who learned and recalled in different moods had significantly greater decrements in recall than did subjects in the same moods. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated the effect of observable retrieval cues on moodstate-dependent retrieval. In Experiment 2, the presence of observable retrieval cues at recall overrode state-dependent retrieval. In Experiment 3, by manipulating the presence or absence of observable cues at recall, both the occurrence and the erasure of the mood-state dependency was demonstrated.Moodstate during learning andcued recallwas also shownto affect performance in a third session under conditons of free recall.     

Diurnal Patterns of Unpleasant Mood: Associations with Neuroticism, Depression, and Anxiety

The literature on symptoms of depression has included diurnal changes in mood. The morning-worse pattern is commonly mentioned. This pattern is often associated with endogenous or vegetative symptoms (e.g., weight and appetite loss, loss of pleasure, psychomotor retardation). However, depression researchers have also identified an evening-worse pattern of mood. This pattern is sometimes thought to be associated with milder depressive symptoms, and may characterize chronic dysthymia rather than clinical depression. The present study examines a nonclinical sample to test the hypothesis that an evening-worse diurnal pattern of mood would be associated with trait neuroticism, anxiety, and subclinical depressive symptoms. An experience sampling methodology was employed to assess mood three times a day for 60 consecutive days. This allowed us to calculate a reliable aggregate score for diurnal mood patterns. The evening-worse pattern was associated with many neurotic features, with scores on depression and anxiety measures, and with a cognitive style indicative of hopelessness. Discussion focuses on how an evening-worse diurnal pattern of mood may be indicative of mild subclinical depression, chronic dysthymia, or personality traits associated with negative affectivity.     

Narcissism,Mania and Analysts' Envy

Character traits like narcissism, mania and grandiosity are routinely discussed in the psychoanalytic literature as aspects of psychopathology only. However, many individuals who have both achieved and contributed to society in the most profound ways often have such characteristics. Psychoanalysts, sometimes envious of patients who possess considerable wealth and/or power, may be inclined to overly pathologize such qualities, denying their own desires for the perks of power and material success. Mad Men is discussed largely in this context.     

抑郁症的整合情绪记忆模型述评

多种早期情绪记忆模型尝试揭示抑郁症的认知致病原因和机制。但是,抑郁症的致病因素存在多样性,而各个模型只侧重于某个方面,难以全面、系统、准确对其进行的诠释。整合情绪记忆模型将记忆建构、自我图式、自传体记忆、内隐记忆等认知结构进行系统的整合,从编码和提取的角度对抑郁症的的发生、持续和治疗提供新的解释,为抑郁症的预防、治疗提供了新思路。     

Steroid Hormone Modulation of Hippocampal Dependent Spatial Memory

Recent studies show that the adult CNS is capable of considerable re-structuring and re-growth, a property previously thought limited to the developmental period. Hormones play an important role in many of these plastic processes, and the hippocampus, as a target for all the major classes of steroid hormones, undergoes considerable remodeling. Since it is critical for mediating tasks requiring spatial memory, the hippocampus can serve as an important model for understanding not only the mechanisms underlying plasticity of brain circuits but also how these changes impact on a higher order function, spatial memory. In this review, the effects of steroid hormones on hippocampal remodeling are discussed, and the ability of estradiol to enhance spatial memory as well as the ability of both excessive or diminished corticosteroid levels to impair spatial memory are described. The neural mechanisms for these effects, as well as previous and current contributions of McEwen and colleagues to this expanding area of research, are discussed.     

Mood Regulation and Memory: Repairing Sad Moods with Happy Memories

A total of 106 undergraduates participated in a study examining how individuals retrieve memories to repair negative moods. Participants first completed a measure of depression. Two weeks later, participants were assigned to either a sad or neutral mood induction. After mood induction, they recalled two memories, rated their affective responses to the memories, and indicated why they chose the valence and order of the memories. Consistent with mood-congruent recall, participants in the sad condition reported sadder memories than those in the neutral condition. However, participants with prior low depression scores tended to recall more positive second memories, whereas participants with higher prior depression scores recalled consecutive negative memories. Sixty-eight per cent of sad participants who retrieved a negative first and positive second memory mentioned mood repair as motivating the recruitment of the more positive second memory.     

Self-Report Differentiation of Anxiety and Depression in a Mood Disorders Sample

Several lines of research suggest there is considerable overlap between anxiety and depression and that it is difficult to distinguish between these two constructs. However, a few studies utilizing factor analytic procedures have provided evidence that anxiety and depression can be differentiated when measures of these constructs are considered at the item level. In addition, there is some evidence that differentiation can be accomplished in samples experiencing high levels of anxiety (i.e., a clinically anxious sample; B. J. Cox, R. P. Swinson, L. Kuch, & J. Reichman, 1993). In the present study, this research strategy was extended to a sample of patients with high levels of depressed mood (i.e., a mood disorders sample; N = 378). Their responses to widely used measures of depression (i.e., Beck Depression Inventory; A. T. Beck, C. H. Ward, M. Mendelson, J. Mock, & J. Erbaugh, 1961) and anxiety (i.e., Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory—State subscale; C. D. Spielberger, R. L. Gorsuch, & R. E. Lushene, 1970) were entered into a principal-components analysis with oblique rotation. A 4-factor solution was retained. This solution was comprised of factors representing anxiety, anxiety absent (a reverse scored factor), cognitive symptoms of depression, and somatic/vegetative symptoms of depression. These findings indicated that anxiety and depression, as emotional states, can be differentiated within a mood disorders sample, using existing popular self-report measures. The clinical and research implications of these findings are briefly discussed.     

慢性腰背痛患者和抑郁症患者的情绪、睡眠及疼痛症状

本研究对慢性腰背痛患者、抑郁症患者和对照人群的疼痛、抑郁水平、焦虑水平和睡眠质量进行测评,发现慢性腰背痛患者的抑郁、焦虑程度增高,失眠较常见;抑郁症患者的焦虑和失眠现象严重,疼痛是其常见症状。结果提示临床上对慢性疼痛患者和抑郁症患者的疼痛、情绪和睡眠问题予以评定和治疗具有重要意义。     

慢性腰背痛患者和抑郁症患者的情绪、睡眠及疼痛症状

本研究对慢性腰背痛患者、抑郁症患者和对照人群的疼痛、抑郁水平、焦虑水平和睡眠质量进行测评,发现慢性腰背痛患者的抑郁、焦虑程度增高,失眠较常见;抑郁症患者的焦虑和失眠现象严重,疼痛是其常见症状.结果提示临床上对慢性疼痛患者和抑郁症患者的疼痛、情绪和睡眠问题予以评定和治疗具有重要意义.     

Memory Consolidation for Contextual and Auditory Fear Conditioning Is Dependent on Protein Synthesis, PKA, and MAP Kinase

Fear conditioning has received extensive experimental attention. However, little is known about the molecular mechanisms that underlie fear memory consolidation. Previous studies have shown that long-term potentiation (LTP) exists in pathways known to be relevant to fear conditioning and that fear conditioning modifies neural processing in these pathways in a manner similar to LTP induction. The present experiments examined whether inhibition of protein synthesis, PKA, and MAP kinase activity, treatments that block LTP, also interfere with the consolidation of fear conditioning. Rats were injected intraventricularly with Anisomycin (100 or 300 μg), Rp-cAMPS (90 or 180 μg), or PD098059 (1 or 3 μg) prior to conditioning and assessed for retention of contextual and auditory fear memory both within an hour and 24 hr later. Results indicated that injection of these compounds selectively interfered with long-term memory for contextual and auditory fear, while leaving short-term memory intact. Additional control groups indicated that this effect was likely due to impaired memory consolidation rather than to nonspecific effects of the drugs on fear expression. Results suggest that fear conditioning and LTP may share common molecular mechanisms.     

焦虑情绪和年龄因素对前瞻记忆成绩影响的研究

本研究使用了嵌入焦虑量表和前瞻记忆自评问卷的前瞻记忆测验材料．对85名初中学生和152名大学生分别进行测试。结果发现,不同水平的焦虑情绪对前瞻记忆没有显着影响．但对前瞻记忆自我评价影响显着。从年龄因素上看,大学生的前瞻记忆成绩高于初中学生。