Microstructural integrity of the corpus callosum linked with neuropsychological performance in adolescents

Background: Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has revealed microstructural aspects of adolescent brain development, the cognitive correlates of which remain relatively uncharacterized. Methods: DTI was used to assess white matter microstructure in 18 typically developing adolescents (ages 16–18). Fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusion (MD) were evaluated within the splenium and body of the corpus callosum in relation to cognitive performance. Results: Visuospatial construction abilities were associated with white matter integrity in both the splenium and body of the corpus callosum, while only splenium integrity was associated with language and psychomotor function. Conclusion: Results suggest that, for typically developing adolescents, white matter coherence positively relates to visuospatial, psychomotor, and language skills. These findings may have implications for the cognitive functioning of clinical populations in which typical white matter development is altered.     

No Exception for Belief

This paper defends a principle I call Equal Treatment, according to which the rationality of a belief is determined in precisely the same way as the rationality of any other state. For example, if wearing a raincoat is rational just in case doing so maximizes expected value, then believing some proposition P is rational just in case doing so maximizes expected value. This contrasts with the popular view that the rationality of belief is determined by evidential support. It also contrasts with the common idea that in the case of belief, there are two different incommensurable senses of rationality, one of which is distinctively epistemic. I present considerations that favor Equal Treatment over these two alternatives, reply to objections, and criticize some arguments for Evidentialism. I also show how Equal Treatment opens the door to a distinctive kind of response to skepticism.     

A Retrospective Examination of Child Protection Involvement Among Young Adults Accessing Homelessness Services

Childhood maltreatment is associated with a variety of young adult adversities including homelessness. This study used linked administrative records to develop a population‐level, epidemiological characterization of the child protection histories of young adults accessing homelessness services. The records of all 17‐ to 24‐year‐olds receiving homeless services between 2011 and 2014 in San Francisco County, California (n = 2241) were probabilistically linked to statewide child protective service (CPS) records. Findings document that 50.0% of young adults had been reported for maltreatment at least once during childhood, yet the prevalence of past CPS involvement varied across demographic and child welfare characteristics. Homeless female youth were significantly more likely to have a CPS history than male youth (58.1% vs. 41.5%). Nearly twice as many Black clients accessing homelessness services had a CPS history as did White clients (59.8% vs. 31.8%). Roughly half (47.3%) of those with a childhood history of reported maltreatment had been last reported for maltreatment in another California county. Targeting services that address past trauma and instability among homeless young adults may be justified given the prevalence of CPS history in this population.     

Mentalisation-based therapy for parental conflict – parenting together; an intervention for parents in entrenched post-separation disputes

High-conflict relationship dissolution has been shown to cause substantial emotional risk and psychological harm to children’s developmental outcomes. Parents in chronic post separation conflict who repeatedly use the courts to address their disputes are by nature difficult to engage in therapeutic services. This paper describes the theoretical and practical key elements of a mentalisation-based therapeutic intervention, Mentalization-Based Therapy for Parental Conflict – Parenting Together (MBT-PT), that has been developed in order to address some of the unique challenges that these parents and the professionals working with them are facing. Specifically, the intervention aims to reduce anger and hostile conflicts between parents and mitigate the damaging effects of inter-parental conflict on children. The implementation procedure of the MBT-PT intervention among parents in entrenched conflict over their children, in the context of a random allocation pilot study, is briefly described. Next, the MBT-PT intervention is exemplified using clinical examples, followed by potential implications concerning practice and policy for professionals working with this population of parents.     

Development and validation of the Efficacious Self-Presentation Scale

A new self-report measure of adolescent's self-presentation is described. The self-report scale was administered to 760 16-19-year-old subjects. Results of a factor analysis supported 6 identifiable factors reflecting different concepts, theoretically discussed, related to self-presentation: ability to regulate self-image, social sensitivity, body self-confidence, social self-confidence, social openness, and social desirability. The scale showed good convergent validity and internal consistency. Assertive tactics were predicted through ability to regulate self-image, social self-confidence, and social openness, whereas defensive tactics were predicted only through social openness and social sensitivity. The implications of the findings for future theoretical and empirical development of research in this field are discussed.     

Perceptual Consciousness as a Mental Activity

I argue that perceptual consciousness is constituted by a mental activity. The mental activity in question is the activity of employing perceptual capacities, such as discriminatory, selective capacities. This is a radical view, but I hope to make it plausible. In arguing for this mental activist view, I reject orthodox views on which perceptual consciousness is analyzed in terms of (sensory awareness relations to) peculiar entities, such as, phenomenal properties, external mind‐independent properties, propositions, sense‐data, qualia, or intentional objects.     

Different corticostriatal patterns of L-DOPA utilization in patients with untreated schizophrenia and patients treated with classical antipsychotics or clozapine

Positron emission tomography (PET) has been shown to be of great importance in elucidating the mechanism of action of antipsychotic drugs. In psychotic patients L-[11C]DOPA PET has been used to demonstrate some differences in dopaminergic activity compared with that in healthy volunteers. Ten healthy volunteers were investigated with PET and L-[11C]DOPA. Ten drug-free patients with psychosis, nine stable schizophrenics treated with clozapine, and nine stable patients treated with classical antipsychotics were also investigated with L-[11C]DOPA. Principal-component analysis was employed for the analysis of L-[11C]DOPA Ki values across a number of corticostriatal brain regions. These data revealed a significant three-component model with clear-cut separation between healthy controls and patients with unmedicated schizophrenia. Stable optimal treatment with either classical neuroleptics or clozapine partially, albeit differentially, reversed the aberrant patterns seen in drug-free schizophrenia. It can thus be concluded that schizophrenia is associated with abnormal patterns of L-[11C]DOPA utilization in corticostriatal systems. Treatment with clozapine or classical neuroleptics induces partial, albeit differential, normalization of the abnormal patterns seen in untreated schizophrenia.     

Thanatos and massive psychic trauma: the impact of the death instinct on knowing,remembering, and forgetting

The connection between massive psychic trauma and the concept of the death instinct is explored using the basic assumptions that the death instinct is unleashed through and is in a sense characteristic of traumatic experience, and that the concept of the death instinct is indispensable to the understanding and treatment of trauma. Characteristics of traumatic experience, such as dissolution of the empathic bond, failure to assimilate experience into psychic representation and structure, a tendency to repeat traumatic experience, and a resistance to remembering and knowing, are considered as trauma-induced death instinct derivatives. An initial focus is on the individual, on how death instinct manifestations can be discerned in the survivors of trauma. Next the intergenerational force of trauma is examined; a clinical vignette illustrates how the death instinct acts on and is passed on to the children of survivors. Finally, the cultural or societal aspects of trauma are considered, with an eye to how death instinct derivatives permeate cultural responses (or failures to respond) to trauma. Because trauma causes a profound destructuring and decathexis, it is concluded that the concept of the death instinct is a clinical and theoretical necessity.     

Adolescents' use of tobacco and alcohol: correlations with habits of parents and friends

Correlations for use of tobacco and alcohol of a Finnish sample of 321 adolescents (164 boys, 157 girls; age range 12-16 years) and those of their mothers, fathers, and best friends showed adolescents' use of both tobacco and alcohol correlated more with use by their friends than with parental use. The r for tobacco smoking was higher with maternal than with paternal smoking.     

Sibling Relationships and Family Functioning in Siblings of Early Adolescents,Adolescents and Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The purpose of the study was to investigate how family functioning (defined as the ability that family members hold to manage stressful events, and intimate and social relationships), the degree to which family members feel happy and fulfilled with each other (called family satisfaction), and the demographical characteristics of siblings (age and gender) impacted on sibling relationships. The Circumplex Model of Marital and Family Systems and Behavioral Systems constituted the theoretical frameworks that guided our study. Eighty-six typically developing adolescents and young adults having a sister or a brother with autism spectrum disorder were enrolled. Results indicated that the youngest age group (early adolescents) reported to engage more frequently in negative behaviors with their siblings with ASD than the two older age groups (middle adolescents and young adults). No significant differences were found among the three age groups regarding behaviors derived from attachment, caregiving and affiliative systems. Family satisfaction and age significantly predicted behaviors during sibling interactions. Suggestions on prevention and intervention programs were discussed in order to prevent parentification among typically developing siblings and decrease episodes of quarrels and overt conflicts between brothers and sisters with and without ASD.