Neuropathologies of the self: clinical and anatomical features

The neuropathologies of the self (NPS) are disorders of the self and identity that occur in association with neuropathology and include perturbations of the bodily, relational, and narrative self. Right, especially medial-frontal and orbitofrontal lesions, are associated with these conditions. The ego disequilibrium theory proposes this brain pathology causes a disturbance of ego boundaries and functions and the emergence of developmentally immature styles of thought, ego functioning, and psychological defenses including denial, projection, splitting, and fantasy that the NPS patient has in common with the child. I hypothesize that during brain development between approximately ages 3 and 7 immature defensive functions and fantasies tend to be replaced by mature defenses and the inhibition of fantasy a process that depends upon maturational processes within the right hemisphere. I propose a four-tiered model of the NPS that emphasizes a multifactorial approach and includes both negative and positive, bottom up and top down, and neuropsychological and psychological factors.     

Organization of the narrative components in autobiographical speech of anorexic adolescents: A statistical and non-linear dynamical analysis

Family theories of anorexia nervosa point out that patients’ autobiographic speech may reflect internalized family interactions. Our study characterizes the statistical distribution and temporal organization of the narrative components describing personal relationships in anorexic and control subjects. Semantic components related to personal interactions were encoded from life narratives of 14 adolescent girls with anorexia nervosa (restrictive type) and of 13 matched healthy adolescent girls. Speech analysis was performed using both statistical methods and non-linear time-series analysis. Static indices showed an over-representation of family relations and an under-representation of love relations in anorexic patients. Dynamical indices showed the independence between relational systems in anorexic patients. Dynamical analysis reveals that interactional patterns are internalized through the temporal organization of autobiographical speech. Moreover, these results support the existence of a specific temporal organization in anorexic adolescents’ life narratives which express the internalization of stationary family patterns and indicate relative inability to disengage from active previous relational patterns and to create new ones.     

Cross-cultural differences in memory: the role of culture-based stereotypes about aging

The extent to which cultural stereotypes about aging contribute to age differences in memory performance is investigated by comparing younger and older Anglophone Canadians to demographically matched Chinese Canadians, who tend to hold more positive views of aging. Four memory tests were administered. In contrast to B. Levy and E. Langer's (1994) findings, younger adults in both cultural groups outperformed their older comparison group on all memory tests. For 2 tests, which made use of visual stimuli resembling ideographic characters in written Chinese, the older Chinese Canadians approached, but did not reach, the performance achieved by their younger counterparts, as well as outperformed the older Anglophone Canadians. However, on the other two tests, which assess memory for complex figures and abstract designs, no differences were observed between the older Chinese and Anglophone Canadians. Path analysis results suggest that this pattern of findings is not easily attributed to a wholly culturally based account of age differences in memory performance.     

BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT OF INFANT SLEEP DISTURBANCE

Using a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design, we evaluated the effects of extinction and stimulus control on nighttime sleep disturbances exhibited by 7 infants. Results showed that frequency and duration of night wakings decreased for all subjects, with corresponding improvements reflected through changes in responses to the sleep behavior scale. Observed improvements maintained at 3 and 24 months posttreatment.     

AX+, BX- discrimination learning in the fear-potentiated startle paradigm: possible relevance to inhibitory fear learning in extinction

The neural mechanisms of fear suppression most commonly are studied through the use of extinction, a behavioral procedure in which a feared stimulus (i.e., one previously paired with shock) is nonreinforced repeatedly, leading to a reduction or elimination of the fear response. Although extinction is perhaps the most convenient index of fear inhibition, a great deal of behavioral work suggests that postextinction training conditioned stimuli are both excitatory and inhibitory, making it difficult to determine whether a neural manipulation affects inhibition, excitation, or some combination thereof. For this reason we sought to develop a behavioral procedure that would render a stimulus primarily inhibitory while at the same time avoiding some of the issues raised by the traditional conditioned inhibition paradigm, namely second-order conditioning, external inhibition, and configural learning. Using the fear-potentiated startle paradigm, we adapted an AX+, BX- training procedure in which stimuli A and X were presented simultaneously and paired with shock, and stimuli B and X were presented simultaneously in the absence of shock. In testing, high levels of fear-potentiated startle were seen in the presence of A and AX and much lower levels were seen in the presence of B and AB, as would be predicted if stimulus B were a conditioned inhibitor. We believe this method is a viable alternative to the traditional conditioned inhibition training procedure and will be useful for studying the neural mechanisms of fear inhibition.