情绪通路异常与认知情绪偏差:慢性痛与抑郁症共病的神经心理机制

慢性疼痛与抑郁症具有高度共病性,但迄今尚无成熟理论能够阐释二者共病的神经心理机制。对慢性痛与抑郁的脑机制研究提示,慢性痛和抑郁常常涉及到相似的情绪脑区活动的异常改变;与此相对应的是,行为学研究发现,疼痛患者与抑郁患者在加工疼痛或抑郁相关信息时表现出了模式相似的认知情绪偏差(CAB)。近年来,越来越多证据趋于一致,指出慢性痛和抑郁共有的情绪通路异常变化可能导致了相似的信息加工异常,是二者共病的神经心理基础,而认知情绪偏差则在行为上反映了这种变化,并且很可能是共病发生、发展及维持的重要因素。     

Cognitive Science: What One Needs to Know

Cognitive science is a new paradigm that informs and involves several disciplines, including artificial intelligence, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, cognitive ethology, and the philosophy of mind. Cognitive science studies the mind as an information processor, with the computer often operating as a metaphor for the operations of the mind. Developments in the cognitive sciences stand to affect tremendously how we think of the mind and, consequently, how we think of theological and religious claims that concern the human subject. The unity of self, claims of human uniqueness, the relation of mind and body, human nature, and the personal agency of God are all areas of religious import in which the cognitive sciences need to be taken into account.     

Diagnostic accuracy of the Millon test computer reports for bipolar affective disorder

The diagnostic accuracy of the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI) computer reports was assessed for the sample of 48 patients reliably identified as having bipolar affective disorder. Only 13 of the 48 reports were accurate in classifying the patients as having bipolar affective disorder, and this was significantly (p < .01) less than 50% of the cases. The diagnostic accuracy clearly left much to be desired. Additional research is needed to assess the validity of MCMI diagnostic suggestions for other patient groups.     

Single-case experimental designs for behavioral neuroscience

Single-case experimental designs (SCEDs) are commonly used in behavior analytic research but rarely used in behavioral neuroscience research. The recent development of technologies that allow control of the timing of neurobiological events such as gene expression and neuronal firing enable the fruitful application of SCEDs for the study of brain–behavior relations. There are at least 3 benefits expected from applying SCEDs to study how neurobiological events affect behavior. First, SCEDs entail direct within- and across-subject assessments of reliability, likely increasing the probability of replication across studies and encouraging a search for the causes of replication failure when they occur. Second, SCEDs focus on behavior in individual organisms producing a body of knowledge that applies to individuals rather than population parameters. Finally, SCEDs require fewer animals, decreasing costs and effort and addressing the ethical obligation to reduce the number of animals used for research. Examples are provided using hypothetical data generated based on published research. Collaborations between behavior analysts and behavioral neuroscientists will bring the world within the skin under direct experimental control and broaden our understanding of the determinants of behavior.     

Mood and Creativity over Time in a Bipolar Participant

When depression alternates with mania, as in a bipolar affective disorder, creativity might be enhanced. To investigate this, we employed a single‐subject design, looking at both affective space and the spectral covariation of mood and creativity in a participant presenting with bipolar affective disorder. The study was conducted over a period of 54 days, and employed a standard measure of mood (the Brief Mood Introspection Scale) and a standard task of creativity (Alternative Uses Task). Both positive affect and negative affect appear to be somewhat undifferentiated for this participant, and her mood space does not conform to that described by the accepted major dimensions of Arousal and Pleasure. Conceivably, this is because of her rapid mood fluctuations. A 2.7‐day periodicity was found for Tired, Peppy, Nervous, and Calm, on the one hand, and ideational fluency, ideational flexibility, and originality, on the other. In addition, a 9‐day periodicity was common to Happy, Sad, and Gloomy—all three affects clustering in the same affective space—together with both ideational flexibility and originality. This finding brings into question the relationship between creativity and both positive and negative mood.     

海洛因戒断者的阈下情绪启动研究

研究表明海洛因戒断者的情绪加工异常,但其阈下情绪加工是否异常尚无定论。本研究采用阈下情绪启动范式,考察其阈下情绪加工能力。结果：戒断组的反应时显著高于控制组;两组中,相比不一致、控制状态,一致状态反应时均显著最短;在戒断组中,不一致状态的反应时显著大于控制状态,负性图片的反应时显著大于正性图片,而在控制组中差异不显著。结论：戒断者存在阈下情绪启动效应,阈下情绪加工存在正性偏向,且能力弱于正常人。     

Changes and challenges in 20 years of research into the development of executive functions

This review of 20 years of developmental research on Executive Functions (EF) offers a broad‐brushstroke picture that touches on multiple issues including: (i) findings from typical and atypical groups, from infancy to adolescence; (ii) advances in assessment tools and in statistical analysis; (iii) the interplay between EF and other cognitive systems (e.g. those involved in children's developing understanding of mind, and in their processing of reward signals); (iv) integration of cognitive and neuroscience perspectives on EF; and (v) environmental factors that have either a positive influence (e.g. training/intervention programmes; parental scaffolding) or a negative influence (e.g. maltreatment, neglect, traumatic brain injury) on EF. Of the several themes to emerge from this review, two are particularly important; these concern the need to adopt developmental perspectives and the potential importance for intervention work of research on social influences on EF. Specifically, the review highlights both developmental continuities (e.g. in the correlates of EF) and contrasts (e.g. in the nature of EF and its neural substrates) and calls for research that compares developmental trajectories for EF in different groups (e.g. children with autism versus ADHD). In addition, findings from both family‐based research and randomized controlled trials of school‐based interventions highlight the importance of environmental influences on EF and so support the development of interventions to promote EF and hence improve children's academic and social outcomes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘Would I be happier if I moved?’ Retirement status and cultural variations in the anticipated and actual levels of happiness

Should one give up the comforts of home in exchange for more leisure opportunities or a desirable climate? The present research examined the anticipated and actual levels of happiness among non-retirees and retirees in the US and Korea. Both American and Korean non-retirees overestimated the importance of novelty factors (e.g., climate, recreational opportunities) in making a retirement prediction, compared with retirees’ reports. Non-retirees believed that a place with nice weather and plenty of cultural and recreational opportunities would make them happy in their retirement. However, the actual retirees who placed importance on the novelty factor when they made the retirement location decision were not happier than those who placed less importance on this factor. Instead, the retirees who placed more importance on the practicality factor (e.g., easy access to medical services, daily convenience) felt happier and more peaceful than other retirees.     

The mind-brain relationship: the emergent self

This paper explores the mind-brain relationship, using insights from contemporary neuroscience. It seeks to investigate how our brains become who we are, how subjective experience arises. In order to do this some explanation is given of the basic concepts of how the brain produces our subjective mental life. Current neuropsychological and neurobiological understanding of early brain development, memory, emotion and consciousness are explored. There is also an attempt at mapping the mind-brain-self relationship from a uniquely Jungian perspective. Clinical material is included in order to show the relevance of these insights to our work in the consulting room, arguing the value of the affect-regulating, relational aspects of the analytic dyad that forge new neural pathways through emotional connection. Such experience forms the emotional scaffolding necessary for the emergence of reflective function.     

Naming our concerns about neuroscience: a review of Bennett and Hacker's philosophical foundations of neuroscience

Bennett and Hacker use conceptual analysis to appraise the theoretical language of modern cognitive neuroscientists, and conclude that neuroscientific theory is largely dualistic despite the fact that neuroscientists equate mind with the operations of the brain. The central error of cognitive neuroscientists is to commit the mereological fallacy, the tendency to ascribe to the brain psychological concepts that only make sense when ascribed to whole animals. The authors review how the mereological fallacy is committed in theories of memory, perception, thinking, imagery, belief, consciousness, and other psychological processes studied by neuroscientists, and the consequences that fallacious reasoning have for our understanding of how the brain participates in cognition and behavior. Several behavior-analytic concepts may themselves be nonsense based on thorough conceptual analyses in which the criteria for sense and nonsense are found in the ways the concepts are used in ordinary language. Nevertheless, the authors' nondualistic approach and their consistent focus on behavioral criteria for the application of psychological concepts make Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience an important contribution to cognitive neuroscience.