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Psychiatria Polska Dec 2023Numerous studies show that a high level of psychopathic traits in youth is related to the propensity to use various types and forms of aggression. The presented study...
OBJECTIVES
Numerous studies show that a high level of psychopathic traits in youth is related to the propensity to use various types and forms of aggression. The presented study focuses on the relations between psychopathy and aggression, both indirect (relational) and direct in this age group. The triarchic model of psychopathy was used, according to which psychopathy is described as a configuration of boldness, meanness and disinhibition. It was assumed that boldness would be a predictor for indirect aggression and disinhibition - for the direct forms of aggressive behaviors.
METHODS
The sample consisted of 200 older adolescents (108 boys and 92 girls), aged 16-19. Two groups were distinguished for comparison: juveniles from youth fostering centers and youth not violating legal norms. For the measurement of the variables the following self-reports were used: Triarchic Psychopathy Measure, Indirect Aggression Scale (Aggressor Version) and Aggression Questionnaire.
RESULTS
From among the dimensions of psychopathy, the strongest predictor for both forms of aggression (indirect and direct) was disinhibition. The study also revealed the differences in the intensity of psychopathic traits and aggressive behaviors with reference to gender and institutionalization. However, the hypothesis on the relationship between boldness and indirect aggression was not confirmed.
CONCLUSIONS
The results showed that disinhibition and meanness can be considered as significant personality risk factors for aggressive behaviors and violence not only in adults but also in adolescents. The study supported also the heterogeneity of the triarchic model of psychopathy itself.
Topics: Adult; Male; Female; Humans; Adolescent; Aggression; Models, Psychological; Antisocial Personality Disorder; Surveys and Questionnaires; Self Report
PubMed: 38564520
DOI: 10.12740/PP/158898 -
Alzheimer's Research & Therapy Aug 2023Neuropsychiatric symptoms due to Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) can decrease quality of life for patients and increase caregiver burden....
BACKGROUND
Neuropsychiatric symptoms due to Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) can decrease quality of life for patients and increase caregiver burden. Better characterization of neuropsychiatric symptoms and methods of analysis are needed to identify effective treatment targets. The current investigation leveraged the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC) Uniform Data Set (UDS) to examine the network structure of neuropsychiatric symptoms among symptomatic older adults with cognitive impairment.
METHODS
The network relationships of behavioral symptoms were estimated from Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire (NPI-Q) data acquired from 12,494 older adults with MCI and AD during their initial visit. Network analysis provides insight into the relationships among sets of symptoms and allows calculation of the strengths of the relationships. Nodes represented individual NPI-Q symptoms and edges represented the pairwise dependency between symptoms. Node centrality was calculated to determine the relative importance of each symptom in the network.
RESULTS
The analysis showed patterns of connectivity among the symptoms of the NPI-Q. The network (M = .28) consisted of mostly positive edges. The strongest edges connected nodes within symptom domain. Disinhibition and agitation/aggression were the most central symptoms in the network. Depression/dysphoria was the most frequently endorsed symptom, but it was not central in the network.
CONCLUSIONS
Neuropsychiatric symptoms in MCI and AD are highly comorbid and mutually reinforcing. The presence of disinhibition and agitation/aggression yielded a higher probability of additional neuropsychiatric symptoms. Interventions targeting these symptoms may lead to greater neuropsychiatric symptom improvement overall. Future work will compare neuropsychiatric symptom networks across dementia etiologies, informant relationships, and ethnic/racial groups, and will explore the utility of network analysis as a means of interrogating treatment effects.
Topics: Humans; Aged; Alzheimer Disease; Quality of Life; Cognitive Dysfunction; Anxiety; Aggression; Neuropsychological Tests
PubMed: 37568209
DOI: 10.1186/s13195-023-01279-6 -
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology Jun 2020Previously institutionalized children on average show persistent deficits in physiological and behavioral regulation, as well as a lack of normative reticence towards...
Previously institutionalized children on average show persistent deficits in physiological and behavioral regulation, as well as a lack of normative reticence towards strangers, or disinhibited social engagement (DSE). Post-adoption parenting, specifically a combination of supportive presence and structure/limit-setting, may protect against DSE over time via better adrenocortical functioning. This study examined the impact of adrenocortical activity and post-adoption parenting on DSE across the first two years post-adoption (age at adoption: 16-36 months) and observed kindergarten social outcomes in previously institutionalized children (n = 94) compared to non-adopted children (n = 52). Path analyses indicated a developmental cascade from institutional care (operationalized as a dichotomous group variable, age at adoption, and months of institutionalization) to blunted adrenocortical activity, increased DSE, and lower kindergarten social competence. Consistent with a permissive parenting style, higher parental support was associated with increased DSE, but only when not accompanied by effective structure/limit-setting. Further, parental structure reduced the association between blunted adrenocortical activity and DSE behaviors.
Topics: Adoption; Child, Institutionalized; Child, Preschool; Female; Humans; Hydrocortisone; Infant; Interpersonal Relations; Male; Parenting; Parents; Social Interaction; Social Participation
PubMed: 32157602
DOI: 10.1007/s10802-020-00633-8 -
Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience 2007Psychiatric manifestations are an integral part of Huntington's disease. They may be divided into those syndromes which resemble idiopathic disorders, but for which HD... (Review)
Review
Psychiatric manifestations are an integral part of Huntington's disease. They may be divided into those syndromes which resemble idiopathic disorders, but for which HD patients may be particularly at risk, those constellations which are peculiar to HD and related conditions, such as the executive dysfunction syndrome, and those symptoms that can truly be regarded as nonspecific, such as delirium. Most of these problems are believed to arise from subcortical neuropathologic changes. Major depression is a common psychiatric diagnosis, but the executive dysfunction syndrome, a difficult-to-define condition characterized by often simultaneous apathy and disinhibition, may be even more widespread. There are no large controlled studies of psychiatric treatments in HD, but case series, anecdotal reports, and clinical experience indicate that many of these syndromes respond readily to treatment. Further study of the neuropsychiatry of HD may help to reveal the underpinnings of psychiatric conditions found in the general population.
Topics: Aggression; Cognition Disorders; Depressive Disorder, Major; Frontal Lobe; Humans; Huntington Disease; Impulsive Behavior; Mental Disorders; Mood Disorders; Social Behavior Disorders
PubMed: 17726917
DOI: 10.31887/DCNS.2007.9.2/arosenblatt -
The International Journal on Drug Policy Nov 2020The use of drugs in sexual contexts is receiving closer attention in the media, public health bodies and communities than ever before. However, research to date is most...
BACKGROUND
The use of drugs in sexual contexts is receiving closer attention in the media, public health bodies and communities than ever before. However, research to date is most often concerned with the sex-related drug use of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) populations, and particularly men who have sex with men (MSM) engaging in 'chemsex'. Against a backdrop dominated by public health and medical science perspectives, this article seeks to move beyond prevailing sex on drug discourses characterised by risk and harm, or pleasure. Drawing on an expansive notion of enhancement, we explore intersections between drug consumption and sex via the concept of 'pharmacosex': the ways in which wider populations experiment with a range of illicit drugs that modify and enhance their sex lives in the context of broader processes of the pharmaceuticalisation of sexuality.
METHODS
Drawing on two empirical studies comprising a virtual ethnography and 45 interviews with participants across a range of gender and sexual identities who regularly combine sex and drugs, this article contributes to the growing body of research that attends to the materiality of drug consumption practices in relation to the historical and social contexts from which they emerge.
RESULTS
Our participants reported variegated and complex modes of enhancement in relation to a wide range of psychoactive substances. Participants described enhanced emotional connectedness, bodily sensations, disinhibition and desire, but they also discussed how sex enhances drug experiences. As important but currently neglected in research literature were the therapeutic dimensions of drug-taking reported, which cannot be neatly distinguished from purely hedonic motivations. While enhancement was also experienced by participants in more challenging ways in relation to shame, regret, risk and/or harm, these experiences simultaneously afforded space for the emergence of innovative practices of risk-management, safety and care.
CONCLUSION
This study exposes the diversity of practices and meanings sex-related drug use hold for participants, but also demonstrates the paucity of biomedical conceptions of sexual enhancement limited to stamina, function and libido, and the need for a more expansive approach. The study also raises questions about the extent to which contemporary discourses of self-improvement have come to 'inhabit' sexuality in the twenty-first century, and the role drugs might play in this context. By shifting the gaze from pathology to enhancement and exploring the plurality of practice, we can better understand the motivations for engaging in sex-related drug use, thereby circumventing knee-jerk counterproductive enforcement and policy responses.
PubMed: 33246312
DOI: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2020.102943 -
Brain Communications 2022Researchers typically study physiological responses either after stimulus onset or when the emotional valence of an upcoming stimulus is revealed. Yet, participants may...
Researchers typically study physiological responses either after stimulus onset or when the emotional valence of an upcoming stimulus is revealed. Yet, participants may also respond when they are told that an emotional stimulus is about to be presented even without knowing its valence. Increased physiological responding during this time may reflect a 'preparation for action'. The generation of such physiological responses may be supported by frontotemporal regions of the brain that are vulnerable to damage in frontotemporal lobar degeneration. We examined preparatory physiological responses and their structural and functional neural correlate in five frontotemporal lobar degeneration clinical subtypes (behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, = 67; semantic variant primary progressive aphasia, = 35; non-fluent variant primary progressive aphasia, = 30; corticobasal syndrome, = 32; progressive supranuclear palsy, = 30). Comparison groups included patients with Alzheimer's disease ( = 56) and healthy controls ( = 35). Preparatory responses were quantified as cardiac interbeat interval decreases (i.e. heart rate increases) from baseline to an 'instruction period', during which participants were told to watch the upcoming emotional film but not provided the film's valence. Patients' behavioural symptoms (apathy and disinhibition) were also evaluated via a caregiver-reported measure. Compared to healthy controls and Alzheimer's disease, the frontotemporal lobar degeneration group showed significantly smaller preparatory responses. When comparing each frontotemporal lobar degeneration clinical subtype with healthy controls and Alzheimer's disease, significant group differences emerged for behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia and progressive supranuclear palsy. Behavioural analyses revealed that frontotemporal lobar degeneration patients showed greater disinhibition and apathy compared to Alzheimer's disease patients. Further, these group differences in disinhibition (but not apathy) were mediated by patients' smaller preparatory responses. Voxel-based morphometry and resting-state functional MRI analyses revealed that across patients and healthy controls, smaller preparatory responses were associated with smaller volume and lower functional connectivity in a circuit that included the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and cortical and subcortical regions of the salience network. Diminished preparatory physiological responding in frontotemporal lobar degeneration may reflect a lack of preparation for actions that are appropriate for an upcoming situation, such as approaching or withdrawing from emotional stimuli. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex and salience network are critical for evaluating stimuli, thinking about the future, triggering peripheral physiological responses, and processing and interpreting interoceptive signals. Damage to these circuits in frontotemporal lobar degeneration may impair preparatory responses and help explain often-observed clinical symptoms such as disinhibition in these patients.
PubMed: 35441132
DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcac075 -
Therapeutics and Clinical Risk... 2013Pseudobulbar affect (PBA) may occur in association with a variety of neurological diseases, and so may be encountered in the setting of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,... (Review)
Review
Pseudobulbar affect (PBA) may occur in association with a variety of neurological diseases, and so may be encountered in the setting of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, extrapyramidal and cerebellar disorders, multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer's disease, stroke, and brain tumors. The psychological consequences and the impact on social interactions may be substantial. Although it is most commonly misidentified as a mood disorder, particularly depression or a bipolar disorder, there are characteristic features that can be recognized clinically or assessed by validated scales, resulting in accurate identification of PBA, and thus permitting proper management and treatment. Mechanistically, PBA is a disinhibition syndrome in which pathways involving serotonin and glutamate are disrupted. This knowledge has permitted effective treatment for many years with antidepressants, particularly tricyclic antidepressants and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. A recent therapeutic breakthrough occurred with the approval by the Food and Drug Administration of a dextromethorphan/quinidine combination as being safe and effective for treatment of PBA. Side effect profiles and contraindications differ for the various treatment options, and the clinician must be familiar with these when choosing the best therapy for an individual, particularly elderly patients and those with multiple comorbidities and concomitant medications.
PubMed: 24348042
DOI: 10.2147/TCRM.S53906 -
Social Cognitive and Affective... Oct 2014Social avoidance is a major factor contributing to the development and maintenance of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Converging evidence suggests that social avoidance...
Social avoidance is a major factor contributing to the development and maintenance of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Converging evidence suggests that social avoidance is associated with abnormal aversive processing and hyperactive amygdala signaling. However, what are the consequences of such abnormal aversive processing for action and for the neural mechanisms implementing action is unclear. Existing literature is conflicting, pointing at either enhanced or reduced action inhibition. We investigated the interaction between aversion and action in social avoidance by comparing the effects of aversive vs appetitive faces on a go/no-go task and associated striatal signals in 42 high and low socially avoidant individuals. We combined fMRI with a novel probabilistic learning task, in which emotional valence (angry and happy faces) and optimal response (go- and no-go-responses) were manipulated independently. High compared with low socially avoidant individuals showed reduced behavioral inhibition (proportion no-go-responses) for angry relative to happy faces. This behavioral disinhibition correlated with greater striatal signal during no-go-responses for angry relative to happy faces. The results suggest that social avoidant coping style is accompanied by disinhibition of action and striatal signal in the context of social threat. The findings concur with recent theorizing about aversive disinhibition and affective disorders.
Topics: Analysis of Variance; Avoidance Learning; Brain Mapping; Corpus Striatum; Emotions; Facial Expression; Female; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Inhibition, Psychological; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Oxygen; Photic Stimulation; Probability Learning; Reaction Time; Social Behavior; Statistics as Topic; Students; Time Factors; Universities
PubMed: 23986267
DOI: 10.1093/scan/nst145 -
American Journal of Pharmaceutical... May 2016Empathy can have strong positive effects on patient outcomes, increase patient satisfaction, and reduce malpractice litigation. With modern advances in technology,... (Review)
Review
Empathy can have strong positive effects on patient outcomes, increase patient satisfaction, and reduce malpractice litigation. With modern advances in technology, however, the appropriate expression of empathy in today's age is being threatened, largely as a result of psychological processes that form online disinhibition. The digitization of health care and the corresponding decrease in the expression of empathy may be cause for concern. Because empathy is strongly correlated to positive health outcomes and is an important part of health professions in general, the construct of digital empathy should be considered for integration into health professions curricula.
Topics: Communication; Education, Pharmacy; Empathy; Humans; Patient Care; Social Media
PubMed: 27293225
DOI: 10.5688/ajpe80458 -
European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Jan 2022Insufficient care is associated with most psychiatric disorders and psychosocial problems, and is part of the etiology of reactive attachment disorder (RAD) and...
Insufficient care is associated with most psychiatric disorders and psychosocial problems, and is part of the etiology of reactive attachment disorder (RAD) and disinhibited social engagement disorder (DSED). To minimize the risk of misdiagnosis, and aid treatment and care, clinicians need to know to which degree RAD and DSED co-occur with other psychopathology and psychosocial problems, a topic little researched in adolescence. In a national study of all adolescents (N = 381; 67% consent; 12-20 years old; 58% girls) in Norwegian residential youth care, the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment interview yielded information about psychiatric diagnoses and psychosocial problems categorized as present/absent, and the Child Behavior Check List questionnaire was applied for dimensional measures of psychopathology. Most adolescents with a RAD or DSED diagnosis had several cooccurring psychiatric disorders and psychosocial problems. Prevalence rates of both emotional and behavioral disorders were high in adolescent RAD and DSED, as were rates of suicidality, self-harm, victimization from bullying, contact with police, risky sexual behavior and alcohol or drug misuse. Although categorical measures of co-occurring disorders and psychosocial problems revealed few and weak associations with RAD and DSED, dimensional measures uncovered associations between both emotional and behavioral problems and RAD/DSED symptom loads, as well as DSED diagnosis. Given the high degree of comorbidity, adolescents with RAD or DSED-or symptoms thereof-should be assessed for co-occurring psychopathology and related psychosocial problems. Treatment plans should be adjusted accordingly.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Child; Female; Humans; Male; Mental Disorders; Problem Behavior; Psychopathology; Reactive Attachment Disorder; Social Participation; Young Adult
PubMed: 33185772
DOI: 10.1007/s00787-020-01673-7