Role of serotonin in human aggressive behaviour

This study aimed to evaluate a peripheral serotonergic marker, ³H-imipramine (³H-IMI) binding to platelet membranes, in a group of severely aggressive subjects (A), institutionalized since childhood for mental retardation, as compared with suicide attempters (S) and healthy controls (H). The maximum binding capacity of ³H-IMI to platelet membranes was statistically lower in (A) and (S) than in (H). In addition, a statistically significant difference was observed between the Bmax values of aggressive subjects and those of suicide attempters. No changes in the dissociation constant (Kd) of IMI binding were observed. These data provide further supporting evidence for the hypothesis of an abnormality of the 5HT system in aggressive behaviour and suggest that such an abnormality, as reflected by platelet markers, is more severe in suicide attempters. © 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Offensive and defensive bite-target topographies in attacks by lactating rats

The attacks by resident lactating Wistar rats on sexually naive conspecifics of both sexes were examined. Male and female intruders were equally attacked in terms of frequency and number of bites, but the topographies of biting seen in these encounters were different. Similarly to male-male agonistic interactions, females were attacked in a fashion which avoided bites to the head and snout (“offensive” attack), whereas males were frequently bitten on such vulnerable regions (“defensive” attack). This dichotomy in bite pattern suggests that different motivations and functions underlay maternal aggression in these situations. The defensive attack on males may be a deterrent to infanticide since only male intruders counterattack lactating females and kill their pups. The attack on females may be concerned with resource competition.     

Disorganized Narratives: Problems In Treatment And Therapist Intervention Hierarchy

The way in which patients tell therapists their stories has an impact on treatment. They try to put their emotions and the events generating them, their goals and the behavior they adopt to achieve them, and so on, together in a coherent discourse. But some patients fail in organizing their narratives. They might describe a diffuse arousal without letting the reasons for their discomfort be known, switch from one subject to another without any apparent connection, or pile up one topic after another, thus overwhelming a listener, who is unable to see which is the main one. We call such narratives disorganized. They do not help a patient to make sense of experience or achieve consistency in behavior. A therapist listening has difficulty in planning treatment and often reacts negatively to such patients. Here we propose a series of interventions aimed at improving narrative coherence, creating a sound therapeutic relationship and making treatment effective. We will describe the therapy with a seriously dissociated patient in which this intervention has proven useful.     

General principles for treating personality disorder with a prominent inhibitedness trait: towards an operationalizing integrated technique

Psychotherapists need to perform tasks such as being empathetic, performing an ongoing assessment of cases, self-disclosing, making explicit treatment contracts, validating patients' experiences and promoting awareness of psychological experience, if they are to be effective in treating personality disorder (PD). Successful therapy also requires a systematic accurate PD model. We suggest here that it is still unclear how, when, and according to what session markers therapists need to perform specific operations to maximize therapeutic gains. This article describes and operationalizes a step-by-step procedure for organizing and delivering the interventions necessary for effective outcomes, such as maintaining a good therapeutic relationship, increasing understanding of mental states, reducing symptoms and improving social adaptation. The procedure is illustrated by reference to the treatment of cases of emotionally overly-constricted PDs. We include a theoretical proposal to facilitate the development of measures for evaluating the efficacy of therapist actions.     

Focusing effects in predecisional information acquisition

Legrenzi et al. [Legrenzi, P., Girotto, V., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1993). Focusing in reasoning and decision making. Cognition, 49, 37-66] showed that when a single option is proposed for consideration the decision makers limit their information acquisition to this one option, failing to take into account potential alternatives. Unfortunately, the evidence supporting this focusing effect is weak and its determinants are largely unknown. In three experiments, we provided stronger support for the reality of the focusing effect and we identified two significant determinants of this phenomenon. The results show that both representational and value-related manipulations are able to reduce the effect. Results also suggest the need to distinguish between two different types of focusing: representational focusing and search-related focusing.     

Effectiveness of risperidone in psychogenic stiff neck

A 48-year-old woman suffering from treatment-resistant psychogenic stiff neck and severe depression had been treated with a varied regimen of medications, including antidepressants, neuroleptics, and antiepileptics. These treatments did not result in improvement. Therefore, she was treated with a combination of sertraline and risperidone. Depressive symptoms decreased within a few weeks of treatment initiation. The psychogenic stiff neck, which had begun to improve within the first 2 weeks, had disappeared completely after 6 months of treatment with risperidone alone. This case report suggests that risperidone may be effective in some neurological motor disorders comorbid with mood disorders.     

Word length effect in early reading and in developmental dyslexia

Vocal reaction times were measured in Italian dyslexics and in proficient readers while they read single words. Three groups of control participants (for a total of 79) were tested. All were in the first, second or third grade of elementary school. Nine third graders with a low level of reading ability when assessed by standard reading procedures were also tested. Results indicated that vocal RTs of control participants were faster and less sensitive to word length as a function of age; also, there was a particularly marked change between first and second graders. Dyslexics' vocal RTs and errors were much worse than those of peer control participants and resembled those of first grade controls. It is suggested that normal readers in an orthographically transparent language (Italian) adopt a lexical strategy quite early in their learning. On the contrary, dyslexics seem unable to learn this mode of processing and continue to use a sub-lexical reading procedure.     

Intermittent exposure to social defeat and open-field test in rats: acute and long-term effects on ECG,body temperature and physical activity

This study investigated the effects of exposure to an intermittent homotypic stressor on: (i) habituation of acute autonomic responsivity (i.e. cardiac sympathovagal balance and susceptibility to arrhythmias), and (ii) circadian rhythmicity of heart rate, body temperature, and physical activity. After implantation of a transmitter for the radiotelemetric recording of electrocardiogram (ECG), body temperature and physical activity, adult male rats (Rattus norvegicus, Wild Type Groningen strain) were repeatedly exposed (10 consecutive times, on alternate days) to either a social stressor (defeat by a con-specific, n = 15) or an open-field, control challenge (transfer to a new cage; n = 8). ECGs, body temperature and physical activity were continuously recorded in baseline, test and recovery periods (each lasting 15 min), at the 1st and 10th episodes of both defeat and open-field challenge. The circadian rhythms of heart rate, body temperature and physical activity were monitored before (5 days), during (16 days) and after (21 days) the intermittent stress protocol. This study indicates that there is no clear habituation of either acute cardiac autonomic responsivity (as estimated by means of time-domain indexes of heart rate variability) or arrhythmia occurrence to a brief, intermittent, homotypic challenge, regardless of the nature of the stressor (social or non-social). On the other hand, rats exposed to social challenge also failed to show adaptation of acute temperature and activity stress responsiveness, whereas rats facing open-field challenge developed habituation of activity and sensitization of temperature responses. Repeated social challenge produced remarkable reductions of the heart rate circadian rhythm amplitude (this effect being significantly greater than that produced by intermittent open-field), but only minor changes in the daily rhythms of body temperature and physical activity.     

Testing Children’s Mentalizing in Middle Childhood: Adopting the Child and Adolescent Reflective Functioning Scale with Clinical and Community Children

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Beginning with Ensink’s seminal study (2015), the field entered a new era in which we were able to measure mentalizing in school-aged children. The goal...