The Assessment and Diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Adult Forensic Psychiatric Outpatients

The primary purpose of the present study was to examine the validity of commonly utilized ADHD rating scales within an adult forensic population. Participants were 120 patients assessed for dysfunctional anger and impulsive aggression at a hospital-based clinic. Two psychiatrists made independent diagnoses about the presence or absence of ADHD among individuals presenting with symptoms consistent with this disorder. Following the diagnoses, participants were assessed with multiple ADHD measures, including measures based on self-report, observer-report, or a computerized neuropsychological measure (IVA + Plus). With the exception of the IVA + Plus, the ADHD measures significantly differentiated individuals diagnosed with ADHD from individuals who were not so diagnosed. These measures also demonstrated good diagnostic utility via test specific parameters (sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive power, and negative predictive power). A sub-set of measures demonstrated particularly good classification accuracy, with high sensitivity (91 %) and good specificity (81 %). Implications of these findings for the effective assessment and diagnosis of ADHD in adult outpatient psychiatric settings are discussed.     

Negative support of significant others affects psychological adjustment in breast cancer patients

Significant others play an important role in providing support in patients' lives, but some types of support negatively affect the patients. This study was conducted in early-stage breast cancer patients to examine the structure of support, which was provided by their significant others and assessed negatively by the patients, and to identify negative support relating to the psychological adjustment of these patients. Thus, we first conducted interviews among 28 breast cancer patients to identify these support items assessed as negative; next, we conducted a questionnaire survey using the resulting items in 109 postoperative patients who had early-stage breast cancer. We performed exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and obtained a valid second-order factor structure, including superordinate factors (excessive engagement, avoidance of problems and underestimation) and subordinate factors (overprotection, encouragement and management). Among these factors, the avoidance of problems was the only factor to be negatively associated with psychological adjustment of the patients, suggesting that these patients receive problem-avoiding support. The results of our study suggest that such problem-avoiding support from significant others can be counter-productive and potentially worsen the psychological adjustment of breast cancer patients.     

Correlates of retrospective early life experience with personality in young Japanese women

To examine the influence of early experiences on the development of personality. We used the Temperament and Character Inventory to assess 98 young women who had first entered a company. Different early experiences were linked, albeit weakly, to test scores. Both partial correlations and multiple regression analyses indicated that Self-directedness was higher if women reported more care of parents. Partial correlation, but not multiple regression analyses, showed that Cooperativeness was greater if women reported more care of parents and less frequent abuse. Reports of early parental loss or negative or positive early life events showed no correlation with scores on any of the Temperament and Character Inventory subscales.     

Gender and sexual orientation differences in sexual response to sexual activities versus gender of actors in sexual films

In this study, the authors investigated the hypothesis that women's sexual orientation and sexual responses in the laboratory correlate less highly than do men's because women respond primarily to the sexual activities performed by actors, whereas men respond primarily to the gender of the actors. The participants were 20 homosexual women, 27 heterosexual women, 17 homosexual men, and 27 heterosexual men. The videotaped stimuli included men and women engaging in same-sex intercourse, solitary masturbation, or nude exercise (no sexual activity); human male-female copulation; and animal (bonobo chimpanzee or Pan paniscus) copulation. Genital and subjective sexual arousal were continuously recorded. The genital responses of both sexes were weakest to nude exercise and strongest to intercourse. As predicted, however, actor gender was more important for men than for women, and the level of sexual activity was more important for women than for men. Consistent with this result, women responded genitally to bonobo copulation, whereas men did not. An unexpected result was that homosexual women responded more to nude female targets exercising and masturbating than to nude male targets, whereas heterosexual women responded about the same to both sexes at each activity level.     

The Use of Risk and Need Factors in Forensic Mental Health Decision-Making and the Role of Gender and Index Offense Severity

Canadian legislation makes Review Boards (RBs) responsible for rendering dispositions for individuals found Not Criminally Responsible on account of Mental Disorder (NCRMD) after considering public safety, the mental condition of the accused, and his/her potential for community reintegration. We reviewed 6,743 RB hearings for 1,794 individuals found NCRMD in the three largest Canadian provinces to investigate whether items from two empirically supported risk assessment measures, the Historical Clinical Risk Management-20 and the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide, were considered. Less than half the items were included in expert reports or in RBs' reasons for dispositions, and consideration of these items differed according to gender and index offense severity of the accused. These items included evidence-based risk factors and/or legally specified criteria: mental health, treatment, and criminal history. These results illustrate the gap between research on risk factors and the integration of this evidence into practice. In particular, we recommend the implementation of structured measures to reduce the potential for clinicians to be unduly influenced by gender and offense severity. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Variable coordination of eye and head movements during the early development of attention: A longitudinal study of infants aged 12–36 months

This longitudinal study investigated the effects of attentional development on peripheral stimulus localization by analyzing the eye and head movements of toddlers as they matured from 12 to 36 months. On each trial of an experiment, a central fixation point and a 30° peripheral stimulus were presented, such that in the gap condition the fixation disappeared 300 ms before the peripheral stimulus, whereas in the no-overlap condition it disappeared simultaneously as the peripheral stimulus, and in the overlap condition the fixation remained present when the peripheral target occurred. Results showed that eye and head movement latencies were highly correlated in all conditions and ages. However, at 12 months, head movements were as fast as eye movements, whereas during the subsequent development, eye movements became increasingly faster than head movements. These findings are indicative of a transition between 12 and 36 months due either to a change in attentional control, or to changes in the size of the visual field in which only eye movements occur.     

Individual differences in disengagement of fixation and temperament: Longitudinal research on toddlers

It has been suggested that a shift occurs in the brain's control system from the orienting network in infancy to the executive network by the age of 3–4 years; however, there has been little empirical evidence of this shift during toddlerhood. Therefore, the present study examined how the orienting system in infancy is related to an effortful control system at a later age. Children were assessed longitudinally at 12, 18, 24, and 36 months of age, using a gap-overlap task in which dynamic geometrical-shape stimuli were presented. Parents completed temperament questionnaires about the children at each age. A delayed-gratification task was also given to 36-month-olds. Overall, saccadic latencies in the gap-overlap task were significantly faster at 36 months. At all ages, responses were slower during overlap trials than during gap or no-overlap trials. Longer latencies in the overlap condition were associated with low temperamental orienting/regulation scores at 12 months but with high effortful control scores at 18 and 24 months. The associations at 18 and 24 months are thought to represent a genuine positive association between effortful control and sustained and focused attention.     

Negative support of significant others affects psychological adjustment in breast cancer patients

Significant others play an important role in providing support in patients’ lives, but some types of support negatively affect the patients. This study was conducted in early-stage breast cancer patients to examine the structure of support, which was provided by their significant others and assessed negatively by the patients, and to identify negative support relating to the psychological adjustment of these patients. Thus, we first conducted interviews among 28 breast cancer patients to identify these support items assessed as negative; next, we conducted a questionnaire survey using the resulting items in 109 postoperative patients who had early-stage breast cancer. We performed exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and obtained a valid second-order factor structure, including superordinate factors (excessive engagement, avoidance of problems and underestimation) and subordinate factors (overprotection, encouragement and management). Among these factors, the avoidance of problems was the only factor to be negatively associated with psychological adjustment of the patients, suggesting that these patients receive problem-avoiding support. The results of our study suggest that such problem-avoiding support from significant others can be counter-productive and potentially worsen the psychological adjustment of breast cancer patients.     

PACAP centrally mediates emotional stress-induced corticosterone responses in mice

Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) is a pleiotropic neuropeptide widely distributed in the nervous system. Recently, PACAP was shown to be involved in restraint stress-induced corticosterone release and concomitant expression of the genes involved in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activation. Therefore, in this study, we have addressed the types of stressors and the levels of the HPA axis in which PACAP signaling is involved using mice lacking PACAP (PACAP?/?). Among four different types of stressors, open-field exposure, cold exposure, ether inhalation, and restraint, the corticosterone response to open-field exposure and restraint, which are categorized as emotional stressors, but not the other two, was markedly attenuated in PACAP?/? mice. Peripheral administration of corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) or adrenocorticotropic hormone induced corticosterone increase similarly in PACAP?/? and wild-type mice. In addition, the restraint stress-induced c-Fos expression was significantly decreased in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) and medial amygdala (MeA), but not the medial prefrontal cortex, in PACAP?/? mice. In the PVN of PACAP?/? mice, the stress-induced c-Fos expression was blunted in the CRF neurons. These results suggest that PACAP is critically involved in activation of the MeA and PVN CRF neurons to centrally regulate the HPA axis response to emotional stressors.