Amygdala activation during masked presentation of emotional faces predicts conscious detection of threat-related faces

It has been argued that critical functions of the human amygdala are to modulate the moment-to-moment vigilance level and to enhance the processing and the consolidation of memories of emotionally arousing material. In this functional magnetic resonance study, pictures of human faces bearing fearful, angry, and happy expressions were presented to nine healthy volunteers using a backward masking procedure based on neutral facial expression. Activation of the left and right amygdala in response to the masked fearful faces (compared to neutral faces) was significantly correlated with the number of fearful faces detected. In addition, right but not left amygdala activation in response to the masked angry faces was significantly related to the number of angry faces detected. The present findings underscore the role of the amygdala in the detection and consolidation of memory for marginally perceptible threatening facial expression.     

Behavioral Approach System (BAS) Sensitivity and Bipolar Spectrum Disorders: A Retrospective and Concurrent Behavioral High-Risk Design

In this article, we tested the vulnerability hypothesis of the behavioral approach system (BAS) hypersensitivity model of bipolar disorders. We examined whether self-reported BAS sensitivity predicts lifetime bipolar spectrum diagnoses as well as symptoms and personality characteristics associated with bipolar disorder using a retrospective and concurrent behavioral high-risk design. Participants with high (HBAS; n=28) or moderate (MBAS; n=24) BAS sensitivity were selected and given a lifetime psychiatric diagnostic interview and self-report measures of proneness to bipolar symptoms, current symptoms, and personality characteristics relevant to bipolarity. HBAS participants were significantly and substantially more likely to have a lifetime bipolar spectrum disorder diagnosis than were MBAS participants, but did not differ from MBAS participants in their likelihood of a unipolar depression diagnosis. Also, the HBAS group exhibited higher impulsivity and proneness to hypomanic symptoms than the MBAS group, and BAS-reward responsiveness predicted hypomanic personality characteristics. Finally, high behavioral inhibition system (BIS) sensitivity was associated with proneness to and current depressive symptoms.

Constructing a past in infancy: a neuro-developmental account

The ability to recall the past is fundamental yet until relatively recently, infants were assumed to lack the capacity. Contrary to this perspective, non-verbal tests indicate that developments in recall are well underway by late in the first year of life; by the end of the second year, long-term recall is reliable and robust. New research combining electrophysiological and behavioral measures is identifying the loci of age-related changes: they are attributed to more effective and efficient encoding, consolidation and storage processes associated with developments in the temporal-cortical network that subserves recall. The emerging framework, which applies to episodic and autobiographical memory, highlights the essential developmental continuities in memory from infancy onwards and sheds new light on the phenomenon of childhood amnesia.     

Development of multisensory spatial integration and perception in humans

Previous studies have shown that adults respond faster and more reliably to bimodal compared to unimodal localization cues. The current study investigated for the first time the development of audiovisual (A-V) integration in spatial localization behavior in infants between 1 and 10 months of age. We observed infants' head and eye movements in response to auditory, visual, or both kinds of stimuli presented either 25 degrees or 45 degrees to the right or left of midline. Infants under 8 months of age intermittently showed response latencies significantly faster toward audiovisual targets than toward either auditory or visual targets alone They did so, however, without exhibiting a reliable violation of the Race Model, suggesting that probability summation alone could explain the faster bimodal response. In contrast, infants between 8 and 10 months of age exhibited bimodal response latencies significantly faster than unimodal latencies for both eccentricity conditions and their latencies violated the Race Model at 25 degrees eccentricity. In addition to this main finding, we found age-dependent eccentricity and modality effects on response latencies. Together, these findings suggest that audiovisual integration emerges late in the first year of life and are consistent with neurophysiological findings from multisensory sites in the superior colliculus of infant monkeys showing that multisensory enhancement of responsiveness is not present at birth but emerges later in life.     

Relative impact of young adult personality disorders on subsequent quality of life: findings of a community-based longitudinal study

Little is known about long-term prognostic implications of personality disorder (PD) for quality of life (QOL) in the young adult population not selected for psychiatric treatment. The purpose of this study was to determine the association of PDs with QOL assessed after an 11-year interval. PDs were assessed in 1991-1994 at mean age 22, and indicators of QOL were assessed in 2001-2004 at mean age 33 based on a community sample of 588 young adults. Findings indicated that any PD, or a cluster A, B, or C PD each were independently associated with elevated impairment in overall QOL after adjusting for demographic variables, co-occurring Axis I disorder, and physical illness, and PDs in other clusters. Cluster B PD had a greatest adverse impact on QOL. Symptoms of antisocial, borderline, and schizotypal PD symptoms were independently associated with significant reductions in QOL; avoidant, paranoid, and dependent PD symptoms were associated with smaller reductions, not reaching statistical significance. Symptoms of other individual PDs were not associated with reduced QOL. PDs in young adults in the community have an enduring and adverse impact on subsequent QOL that cannot be attributed to physical illness or Axis I psychiatric disorder.     

The role of anxiety sensitivity in subjective and physiological responses to social and physical stressors

This study examined the specificity of the relationship between anxiety sensitivity (AS), a measure of catastrophizing about arousal-related sensations, and pain responses, by examining the effect of AS on responses to stressors of a physical and social nature. Healthy men and women (n = 129) between the ages of 18 and 25 years were recruited from the community to participate in a study examining subjective, cognitive and behavioural responses to different types of stressors. Participants were randomly assigned to one of 3 groups: (i) a neutral condition in which they sat quietly and read a popular magazine; (ii) a social stress condition in which they anticipated having to give a self-disclosing speech; and (iii) a physical stress condition in which they were presented with 3 countdown to shock trials where a mild electrical shock was administered on the non-dominant arm. Subjective ratings and physiological responses were recorded in anticipation of the stressor and immediately after stress exposure. Results indicated that AS was indirectly related to pain ratings via its effect on anticipatory anxiety ratings. AS was associated with anticipatory anxiety ratings, regardless of whether the stressor was of a physical or social nature. Furthermore, AS was not shown to be directly associated with exaggerated subjective or physiological reactions to the physical stressor. These results indicate that the role of AS in pain responses may be mediated through a global effect on anxiety, and limited to the anticipatory stage of the pain experience. If future studies yield similar findings in pain patients, then they would suggest that interventions for helping individuals high in AS should focus on catastrophic thinking in anticipation of stressors in general, rather than on pain-specific stressors.     

Do obsessional beliefs discriminate OCD without tic patients from OCD with tic and Tourette's syndrome patients?

There is considerable overlap in symptomatology between Tourette's syndrome (TS) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Increased rates of tics are found in OCD and up to 60% obsessive-compulsive symptoms in TS. However, in OCD obsessive-compulsive symptoms are more often anxiety-related and, as a consequence, aimed at anxiety-reduction, whereas in TS these symptoms are more stimulus-bound. Therefore, it is of clinical interest to study whether these phenomenological differences are reflected in differences between dysfunctional cognitions accompanying OC symptoms in OCD with or without tics and TS. Current cognitive theory of OCD ascertains that specific dysfunctional beliefs are important in the etiology and maintenance of OCD. To assess these beliefs, the obsessive-compulsive beliefs questionnaire-87 (OBQ-87) has been developed. In the present study, OBQ-87 scores of OCD patients without tics, OCD with tics, and TS (without OCD) patients were compared to those of normal controls. Results: OCD without tic patients exhibited higher OBQ-87 scores than TS patients. No differences were found between OCD with or without tic patients on any of the OBQ-87 subscales. These results suggest that: (1) dysfunctional beliefs have no discriminative power with respect to OCD with or without tic patients; (2) the direct relationship between types of OC symptoms and specific dysfunctional beliefs is questionable. Therefore, one can doubt the specificity of cognitive theory of OCD to explain specific OC behavior.     

Development of personality disorder symptoms and the risk for partner violence

In a community sample (N = 543) followed over 20 years, the authors studied associations among childhood family violence exposure, personality disorder (PD) symptoms, and adult partner violence. PD symptoms (DSM-III-R Clusters A, B, and C) in early adulthood partially mediated the effect of earlier childhood risks on the odds of perpetrating partner violence. The authors tested whether stability of PD symptoms from adolescence to the early 20s differs for individuals who later perpetrated partner violence. Cluster A ("Odd/Eccentric") symptoms declined less with age among partner violent versus nonviolent men and women. Cluster B ("Dramatic/Erratic") symptoms were more stable through late adolescence in partner violent men, compared with nonviolent men and violent women. Cluster C ("Anxious") symptoms were most stable among partner violent men.     

The social-cognitive model of achievement motivation and the 2 x 2 achievement goal framework

Two studies examined hypotheses drawn from a proposed modification of the social-cognitive model of achievement motivation that centered on the 2 x 2 achievement goal framework. Implicit theories of ability were shown to be direct predictors of performance attainment and intrinsic motivation, and the goals of the 2 x 2 framework were shown to account for these direct relations. Perceived competence was shown to be a direct predictor of achievement goals, not a moderator of relations implicit theory or achievement goal effects. The results highlight the utility of attending to the approach-avoidance distinction in conceptual models of achievement motivation and are fully in line with the hierarchical model of achievement motivation.     

Hierarchical attention in discriminating objects at different levels of specificity

An implicit assumption of studies in the attentional literature has been that global and local levels of attention are involved in object recognition. To investigate this assumption, a divided attention task was used in which hierarchical figures were presented to prime the subsequent discrimination of target objects at different levels of category identity (basic and subordinate). Target objects were identified among distractor objects that varied in their degree of visual similarity to the targets. Hierarchical figures were also presented at different sizes and as individual global and local elements in order to investigate whether attention-priming effects on object discrimination were due to grouping/parsing operations or spatial extent. The results showed that local processing primed subordinate object discriminations when the objects were visually similar. Global processing primed basic object discriminations, regardless of the similarity of the distractors, and subordinate object discriminations when the objects were visually dissimilar. It was proposed that global and local processing aids the selection of perceptual attributes of objects that are diagnostic for recognition and that selection is based on two mechanisms: spatial extent and grouping/parsing operations.