Psychogenic and organic amnesia: a multidimensional assessment of clinical, neuroradiological, neuropsychological and psychopathological features

Psychogenic amnesia is a complex disorder characterised by a wide variety of symptoms. Consequently, in a number of cases it is difficult distinguish it from organic memory impairment. The present study reports a new case of global psychogenic amnesia compared with two patients with amnesia underlain by organic brain damage. Our aim was to identify features useful for distinguishing between psychogenic and organic forms of memory impairment. The findings show the usefulness of a multidimensional evaluation of clinical, neuroradiological, neuropsychological and psychopathological aspects, to provide convergent findings useful for differentiating the two forms of memory disorder.     

New strategies in the assessment of psychological factors affecting medical conditions

In this article, we examine research that may lead to a better assessment of psychological factors affecting medical conditions. We performed a review of the psychosomatic literature using both Medline and manual searches. We selected papers that were judged to be relevant to new strategies of assessment, with particular reference to the use of the Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research. We assessed 8 areas concerned with the assessment of psychological factors in the setting of medical disease: hypochondriasis, disease phobia, persistent somatization, conversion symptoms, illness denial, demoralization, irritable mood, and Type A behavior. A new subclassification of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed. [DSM-V]; not yet published) category of psychological factors affecting physical conditions appears to be feasible and may provide the clinician with better tools for identifying psychological distress.     

Internet addiction disorder: an Italian study.

The Italian version of the Young's Internet Addiction Test (IAT) was administered online to a sample of Italian chatters (n = 236) who were different in terms of gender, age, and occupation. Results revealed that young users are more at-risk subjects for Internet addiction than adults, perceiving a compromised social and individual quality of their life that led them to make a compensatory usage of the Internet. Similarly, employed users perceive their social and individual quality of life as more compromised by the Internet than students. Moreover, subjects who declared spending much time online obtained IAT scores higher than others in all the IAT subscales. Finally, nightly users are more at-risk subjects for developing an Internet addiction disorder, diminishing their individual quality of life and disabling their time control.     

The symbol detachment problem

In situated and embodied approaches it is commonly assumed that the dynamics of sensorimotor engagement between an adaptive agent and its environment are crucial in understanding natural cognition. This perspective permits to address the symbol grounding problem, since the aboutness of any mental state arising during agent-environment engagement is guaranteed by their continuous coupling. However, cognitive agents are also able to formulate representations that are detached from the current state of affairs, such as expectations and goals. Moreover, they can act on their representations before—or instead of—acting directly on the environment, for example building the plan of a bridge and not directly the bridge. On the basis of representations, actions such as planning, remembering or imagining are possible that are disengaged from the current sensorimotor cycle, and often functional to future-oriented conducts. A new problem thus has to be acknowledged, the symbol detachment problem: how and why do situated agents develop representations that are detached from their current sensorimotor interaction, but nevertheless preserve grounding and aboutness? How do cognitive agents progressively acquire a range of capabilities permitting them to deal not only with the current situation but also with alternative, in particular future states of affairs? How do they develop the capability of acting on their representations instead of acting directly on the world? In a theoretical and developmental perspective, we propose that anticipation plays a crucial role in the detachment process: anticipatory representations, originally detached from the sensorimotor cycle for the sake of action control, are successively exapted for bootstrapping increasingly complex cognitive capabilities.     

Yawning frequency and distribution in preterm and near term infants assessed throughout 24-h recordings

Yawning has been observed in foetuses and preterm infants. The aim of this study was to assess the frequency and the 24 h distribution of yawning in preterm infants.Twelve low-risk infants between 31 and 40 weeks of post-conceptional age (PCA) were continuously video-recorded for 24 h in their incubator. Spontaneous yawning was defined as opening of the mouth to its full extension in a dramatic stretch movement.The results showed that the rate of yawning across the 24-h period was 1.10/h. The highest incidence of yawns was in the waking motility pattern when compared to active sleep or quiet sleep motility patterns.Between 31 and 40 weeks, yawn incidence significantly decreased mainly during the day. The marked decrease in yawn frequency with age may be related to the development of circadian and homeostatic control of sleep and wake.     

Calvinist Metaphysics and the Eucharist in the Early Seventeenth Century

This paper wishes to make a contribution to the study of how seventeenth-century scholasticism adapted to the new intellectual challenges presented by the Reformation. I focus in particular on the theory of accidents, which Reformed scholastic philosophers explored in search of a philosophical understanding of the rejection of the Catholic and Lutheran interpretations of the Eucharist. I argue that the Calvinist scholastics chose the view that actual inherence is part of the essence of accidents because it was coherent with their theology. In this paper, I bring to attention the Reformed scholastic philosophy which was taught in the Scottish universities in the first half of the seventeenth century, an area so far neglected by scholars. In so doing, I compare Scottish scholasticism with coeval Calvinist sources, and highlight the differences from authoritative Catholic and Lutheran philosophers. The conclusion is that Calvinist scholasticism, both Scottish and Continental, brought about fundamental changes in seventeenth-century metaphysics, which are coherent with a humanist interpretation of Aristotle, and anticipate some themes of early modern philosophy.     

Neural correlates of attention to emotional facial expressions in dysphoria

The present study investigated whether dysphoric individuals have a difficulty in disengaging attention from negative stimuli and/or reduced attention to positive information. Sad, neutral and happy facial stimuli were presented in an attention-shifting task to 18 dysphoric and 18 control participants. Reaction times to neutral shapes (squares and diamonds) and the event-related potentials to emotional faces were recorded. Dysphoric individuals did not show impaired attentional disengagement from sad faces or facilitated disengagement from happy faces. Right occipital lateralisation of P100 was absent in dysphoric individuals, possibly indicating reduced attention-related sensory facilitation for faces. Frontal P200 was largest for sad faces among dysphoric individuals, whereas controls showed larger amplitude to both sad and happy as compared with neutral expressions, suggesting that dysphoric individuals deployed early attention to sad, but not happy, expressions. Importantly, the results were obtained controlling for the participants' trait anxiety. We conclude that at least under some circumstances the presence of depressive symptoms can modulate early, automatic stages of emotional processing.