Studies of higher nervous activity in functional psychoses

Psychiatric illnesses can be conceived of as experiments of nature, providing a variety of pathopsychological mechanisms which may elucidate normal psychological processes. Clinically the reactive psychoses are predominantly psychogenic reaction types. They present disturbances of higher nervous activity, similar to those of the neuroses. The unconditional reflex activity is practically as in normal controls, and the most outstanding finding was the large effect of psychodynamic complex structures. This is a physiological parallel to the clinical manifestations with great concern over experienced mental trauma. In the manic-depressive psychoses the most characteristic feature is a marked disturbance of unconditional reflex activity. This factor may be an important physiological mechanism underlying the more biological than psychodynamic reaction type and partly explain the changes of mood and associated interferences with sleep, body weight, sexual activity, aggression and other instinctual and vegetative functions. Schizophrenic psychoses also present changes of unconditional reflex activity, predominantly in the direction of inhibition of response. In addition there are severe dissociations within and between the three levels of unconditional reflexes and the two signaling systems. It is suggested that schizophrenia represents a functional maladaptation, which can be explained from the principles of autokinesis and schizokinesis established by Gantt in animal experiments. Prognostic models based on experimentally established impairment of performances were shown to predict long-term risks of schizophrenic defects just as well as models based on constellations of clinical symptoms. I would predict that psychophysiology and experimental psychology will become increasingly more important for establishing diagnosis and prognosis in the functional psychoses. The data of this article point toward a basis for a prophylactic psychiatry.     

Mood variability and the intensity of depressive states

Little is known about the relationship between the variability of moods and the tendency to experience depressed mood. The moods of twenty-five student subjects were measured over a period of some 30 days using scales assessing positive affect and negative affect. An index of mood variability was computed. This was correlated with two measures of average level of depression. The results showed a strong correlation between variability of moods and level of depression. High levels of mood variability accompanied high levels of depressive state in this nonclinical sample.     

Schilder and Pavlov's theory of higher nervous activity. A critique and apologia

In the late 1920s, the Viennese psychoanalyst Paul Schilder, after performing a conditioning experiment with human subjects, criticized I. P. Pavlov's concept of "experimental neurosis." Schilder maintained that subjective reports by conditioned human subjects were more informative than the objectively observed behavior of conditioned dogs. In 1932, Pavlov published a rejoinder to Schilder's critique in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Pavlov maintained that Schilder misunderstood the value and implications of the scientific, objective method in the study of experimental neurosis. In 1934, Schilder subjected Pavlov's theory of higher nervous activity to an incisive critique in a 1935 article in Imago. Schilder objected to Pavlov's narrow, reductionist conceptualization of the conditional reflex. Schilder reiterated his view that the psychological, subjective explanation of the conditional reflex is preferable to the physiological, objective explanation, and that the inference of cortical phenomena from experimental findings might be improper. Neither Pavlov nor any of his disciples replied to Schilder. The author provides an apology for the Pavlovian position, suggesting that Schilder was unfamiliar with early and late writings of Pavlov.     

Vegetative phenomena in the course of depressive states]

Depressive psychoses are accompanied by vegetative disorders. Third-order blood-pressure waves are an expression of vasomotor rhythms which through diencephalic and limbic structures tend to adjust the blood pressure to the respective overall psychovegetative situation. In the case of depressions with an axious increase of impulse, statistical evidence was obtained, within the framework of clinical improvement, for a correlation between a decreasing score of depression and an increasing frequency of third-order waves. The same central trends of these quantities suggest that both of them are different manifestations of a common functional disorder in the limbic system and diencephalon.     

Physiological-behavioral coupling research in the soviet science of higher nervous activity: A visitation report

Behavioral research paradigms presently used by Soviet scientists to explore relations between behavioral and physiological activities are discussed. Each laboratory represented was physically visited by the author during a six month exchange visit to the Soviet Union. Research ranging from central concommitants of language and meaning to biofeedback and peripheral autonomic functions are described.     

Measurement of neo-Pavlovian properties of higher nervous activity by motor reaction-time tasks

Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science - A preliminary study involving 80 paid subjects, 40 of each sex, investigated the usefulness of motor response-time tasks as measures of three...     

Protopopov's ideas on habit formation and their relation to the Pavlovian theory of higher nervous activity

In 1929 Viktor P. Protopopov began to replicate E. L. Thorndike's animal experiments on habit acquisition. To determine the conditions necessary for habit formation, Protopopov used the natural experiment method, in which dogs encountered environments that prevented them from reaching a stimulus-bait. Not all dogs acquired the behavior necessary for obtaining the bait. Explaining the results within the framework of the Pavlovian theory of higher nervous activity, Protopopov concluded that habits were acquired when an active animal provoked by a bait-stimulus encountered an environmental barrier. The dogs tried a series of phylogenetic behaviors until the stimulus-bait was reached. The latter movements were retained, forming an ontogenetic habit. The dogs also learned not to produce the unsuccessful movements. In accord with the Pavlovian theory, individual differences in habit formation were related to temperament types. A critique of the Thorndikian Law of Effect is provided in terms of the Pavlovian theory of higher nervous activity.     

Anticonformity aspects of depression in mild depressive states

Controversial issues regarding the relation of conformity and anticonformity variants of dependency to depression and self-esteem were examined. The Willis-Hollander model of social influence and an experimental paradigm which permits differentiation of dependency responses into conformity and anticonformity subcategories were used. Ninety female college students who had been given the Beck Depression Inventory and a measure of self-esteem engaged in a perceptual judgment task, with two degrees of social influence. Depression and self-esteem were unrelated to independence and conformity. The main finding in the step-wise regression analyses was that depression was significantly related (p less than .001) to the anticonformity variant of dependency. The assumption that depression is related to dependency was supported, but the conventional position that such dependency consists of the conforming variant, involving compliance and approval- and guidance-seeking, was not supported, at least within the range of depression sampled.     

Sympathetic nervous activity, depressive symptoms, and metabolic syndrome in black Africans: the sympathetic activity and ambulatory blood pressure in Africans study

The aim of this study was to examine the association between sympathetic nervous activity, depressive symptoms, and metabolic syndrome in a sample of black and Caucasian Africans. The sample consisted of healthy men and women: 194 blacks (aged, mean?±?SD, 44.1?±?7.9 years) and 206 Caucasians (aged, mean?±?SD, 44.7?±?10.8 years). Salivary 3-methoxy-phenylglycol (MHPG) concentration, the major metabolite of norepinephrine, was measured during the Stroop mental challenge. Depressive symptoms were assessed from the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire. Metabolic syndrome (defined as central obesity plus any other two risk factors including raised serum triglycerides, reduced serum high-density lipoprotein- cholesterol, raised blood pressure, and raised fasting plasma glucose) was prevalent in 43.0% and 36.4% of blacks and Caucasians, respectively. In blacks there was, on average, a 16.4% increase in salivary MHPG concentration following mental stress, although no significant response was observed in Caucasians. The salivary MHPG response in blacks was associated with risk of metabolic syndrome (odds ratio [OR]?=?1.11, 95% CI, 1.00-1.24) after adjusting for age, sex, and baseline salivary MHPG concentration. This association was mainly driven by the central obesity component of the metabolic syndrome. The salivary MHPG response was also related to moderate-severe depressive symptoms (OR?=?1.16, 95% CI, 1.04-1.30), and further adjustment for depressive symptoms attenuated the association between salivary MHPG response and metabolic syndrome (OR?=?1.07, 95% CI, 0.96-1.20). These data indicate an association between sympathetic activity, depressive symptoms, and metabolic syndrome in a sample of black Africans.     

On the development of depressive states from a psychodynamic viewpoint

The author analyzes the temporal dimension of depression by making reference to one of the clinical cases he treated and re-examining a clinical case analyzed by Edith Jacobson. According to the result of his observations, the developmental psychodynamics of a depressive state normally appears to take place in two distinct phases: a first narcissistic loss, which gives rise to an integrative conflict and to the formation of a certain identificatory structure, is later followed by a second narcissistic loss, which leads to the real depressive state. The two phases present a specific, intrinsic connection constituted by the implication of the same identificatory element of the self, recognition of which can favour a clinical work that more closely adheres to the deep dynamics of depression.