scholarly journals Visual detection threshold differences between psychiatric patients and normal controls

1980 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvatore Mannuzza ◽  
Bonnie J. Spring ◽  
Michael D. Gottlieb ◽  
Mitchell L. Kietzman
Keyword(s):  
Visual Detection ◽  
Psychiatric Patients ◽  
Detection Threshold ◽  
Normal Controls

Tryptophan Metabolism in Affective Psychoses

1966 ◽  
Vol 112 (483) ◽  
pp. 157-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. L. Cazzullo ◽  
A. Mangoni ◽  
G. Mascherpa
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Disorders ◽  
Psychiatric Patients ◽  
Nervous Activity ◽  
Animal Experiments ◽  
Tryptophan Metabolism ◽  
Urinary Output ◽  
Affective Psychoses ◽  
Hydroxyindoleacetic Acid ◽  
Considerable Work ◽  
Normal Controls

Tryptophan has attracted attention during recent years for the possible role played by some of its metabolites in the aetiology and treatment of psychiatric disorders. Of these metabolites, serotonin has received special attention and considerable work has been carried out in order to elucidate its physiological and pharmacological actions. Studies from animal experiments are thus available on the function of serotonin in nervous activity (Marrazzi and Hart, 1955; Brodie et al., 1955; Pletscher et al., 1956; Welsh, 1957), but the results obtained thus far in psychiatric patients are uncertain. Recent researches in the affective psychoses (Burgermeister et al., 1963) did not reveal significant differences between patients and normal controls in the urinary output of 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) before or after an oral 5-hydroxytryptophan load.

Impaired Cerebral Dominance and Schizophrenia

1981 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. B. Chaugule ◽  
R. S. Master
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Patients ◽  
Cerebral Dominance ◽  
Normal Controls

SummaryA total of 150 psychiatric patients—schizophrenics, affective psychotics and neurotics—were compared with 150 normal controls for handedness. Schizophrenics were significantly more likely to be non-dextrals (i.e. not completely right handed) than controls. Affective psychotics and neurotics were not significantly different from controls.

Some Psychological Features of Persons Who have Attempted Suicide

1968 ◽  
Vol 114 (515) ◽  
pp. 1299-1300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair E. Philip ◽  
J. W. McCulloch
Keyword(s):  
General Hospital ◽  
Psychological Factors ◽  
Attempted Suicide ◽  
Psychiatric Patients ◽  
Personality Characteristics ◽  
Psychiatric Ward ◽  
Psychological Techniques ◽  
Objective Tests ◽  
Psychological Features ◽  
Normal Controls

While the importance of psychological factors in attempted suicide has long been acknowledged, the use of standardized psychological techniques has been neglected. The paper by Vinoda (1966) is the first in Britain to describe the personality characteristics of attempted suicides using a battery of objective tests. She tested and compared a group of female attempted suicides, who had been admitted to the psychiatric ward of a general hospital, with a group of psychiatric patients and a group of non-psychiatric patients from the same hospital. Where differences on testing occurred it was usually the case that the attempted suicide and psychiatric groups were discriminated from the normal controls but not from each other.

A comparison of psychiatric patients and normal controls on the integration of auditory stimuli

1980 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harvey Babkoff ◽  
Samuel Sutton ◽  
Joseph Zubin ◽  
Dov Har-Even
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Patients ◽  
Auditory Stimuli ◽  
Normal Controls

Psychological Profile of the Spouse of the Female Agoraphobic Patient

1985 ◽  
Vol 146 (4) ◽  
pp. 405-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willem A. Arrindell ◽  
Paul M. G. Emmelkamp
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Patients ◽  
Psychological Characteristics ◽  
Psychological Profile ◽  
Male Partners ◽  
Normal Controls

SummaryIt has been contended that psychological characteristics of the partner of the agoraphobic patient are important factors in the development and maintenance of the patient's symptoms. To examine this hypothesis, male partners of female agoraphobics were compared with those of non-phobic psychiatric patients and of normal controls on a total of 48 measures referring to several symptom complexes and traits, including defensiveness. The partners of agoraphobics as a group were not found to be more defensive or psychologically more disturbed than their control counterparts. Additional within-couple analyses across groups showed spouses in the control couples to be more comparable to each other than were agoraphobics and their partners—a finding which was attributed to the highly elevated scores of the agoraphobic patients.

Effect of Monetary Incentive on Concept Attainment in Depressed Subjects

1973 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-20
Author(s):  
R.W. Nutter ◽  
D.G. Cruise ◽  
L.F. Spreng ◽  
T.E. Weckowicz ◽  
K.A. Yonge
Keyword(s):  
Positive Reinforcement ◽  
Psychiatric Patients ◽  
Monetary Incentive ◽  
Information Feedback ◽  
Response Latencies ◽  
Concept Attainment ◽  
Diagnostic Categories ◽  
Depressed Patients ◽  
Normal Controls ◽  
Better Than

An experiment was conducted to determine whether highly depressed and non-depressed psychiatric inpatients and non-patient normal controls react differently on a concept attainment task to different reinforcement contingencies. Specifically, it was hypothesized that: 1) Depressed and non-depressed psychiatric patients and normal controls would perform at approximately the same levels on a concept attainment task when they received informational feedback only. 2) Depressed patients would show less improvement than normals and non-depressed patients when positive reinforcement (money) was given in addition to informational feedback in a concept attainment task. 3) Depressed patients would show markedly poorer performance than non-depressed patients and normals when punishment was administered for incorrect responses according to certain deductions from Freud's theory, but would be predicted to perform as well or better according to Beck's theory. 4) Following Freud's theory, depressives might initially attain concepts because of the demands of their ‘duty morality’ but would subsequently give incorrect responses to avoid positive reinforcement and/or gain punishment, since they reject ‘pleasure morality.’ This wolld not be predicted by Beck's theory. 5) If, as Beck contends, depressives are more sensitive to fear and frustration than non-depressed persons, depressed patients should have greater response latencies under punishment conditions than non-depressed persons. A 3 x 4 factorial design was used with three diagnostic categories and four reinforcement conditions with four replications (4 Ss in each cell). The four reinforcement conditions were information feedback only, positive reinforcement only, punishment only, and positive reinforcement and punishment. The three diagnostic categories were high-depressed patients scoring greater than 24 on the Beck depression inventory (DI); low-depressed patients scoring less than 15 on the Beck DI; and normal controls. The results did not strongly support any of the five hypotheses. In general, effects attributable to the different reinforcement conditions were weak and did not interact with the diagnostic categories as required to . support the hypotheses. Normals tended to perform better than psychiatric patients, and punishment tended to be associated with longer response latencies than positive reinforcement. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Separation of DSM-III attention deficit disorder and conduct disorder: evidence from a family-genetic study of American child psychiatric patients

1991 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen V. Faraone ◽  
Joseph Biederman ◽  
Kate Keenan ◽  
Ming T. Tsuang
Keyword(s):  
Attention Deficit ◽  
Attention Deficit Disorder ◽  
Psychiatric Patients ◽  
Familial Risk ◽  
Severity Of Illness ◽  
Familial Association ◽  
Child Psychiatric ◽  
Study Methodology ◽  
Morbidity Risk ◽  
Normal Controls

SYNOPSISUsing family study methodology and assessments by blind raters, this study tested hypotheses about patterns of familial association between DSM-III attention deficit disorder (ADD) and antisocial disorders (childhood conduct (CD) and oppositional disorder (OPD) and adult antisocial personality disorder) among 457 first-degree relatives of clinically referred children and adolescents with ADD (73 probands, 264 relatives), psychiatric (26 probands, 101 relatives) and normal controls (26 probands, 92 relatives). Among the 73 ADD probands, 33 (45 %) met criteria for OPD, 24 (33 %) met criteria for CD, and 16 (22 %) had no antisocial diagnosis. After stratifying the ADD sample into those with CD (ADD + CD), those with OPD (ADD + OPD) and those with neither (ADD) familial risk analysis revealed the following: (1) relatives of each ADD probands subgroup were at significantly greater risk for ADD than relatives of both psychiatric and normal controls; (2) the morbidity risk for ADD was highest among relatives of ADD + CD probands (38%), moderate among relatives of ADD + OPD (17%) and ADD probands (24%) and lowest among relatives of psychiatric and normal controls (5% for both); (3) the risk for any antisocial disorder was highest among relatives of ADD + CD (34%) and ADD + OPD (24%) which were significantly greater than the risk to relatives of ADD probands (11 %), psychiatric (7%) and normal controls (4%); and (4) both ADD and antisocial disorders occurred in the same relatives more often than expected by chance alone. Although these findings suggest that ADD with and without antisocial disorders may be aetiologically distinct disorders, they are also consistent with a multifactorial hypothesis in which ADD, ADD + OPD and ADD + CD fall along a continuum of increasing levels of familial aetiological factors and, correspondingly, severity of illness.

Saccadic abnormalities in psychotic patients. I. Neuroleptic-free psychotic patients

1995 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 461-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. J. Crawford ◽  
B. Haeger ◽  
C. Kennard ◽  
M. A. Reveley ◽  
L. Henderson
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Patients ◽  
Card Sort ◽  
Neuroleptic Medication ◽  
Research Reporting ◽  
Perseverative Errors ◽  
Patient Groups ◽  
Schizophrenic Group ◽  
Neurological Research ◽  
Anti Saccades ◽  
Normal Controls

SYNOPSISMost of the previous research reporting abnormalities of rapid re-fixation eye movements (saccades) in patients with schizophrenia has used patients receiving neuroleptic medication. In this study non-neuroleptically medicated schizophrenics were compared with other psychiatric patients using a variety of saccadic paradigms to determine the specificity of saccadic dysfunction. The patient groups consisted of schizophrenics (N = 18), bipolar affectives (N = 18), anxiety neurotics (N = 10) and normal controls (N = 31), none of whom had received neuroleptic medication for the preceding 6 months. Four behavioural paradigms, reflexive, predictive, remembered and ANTI were used to elicit saccades. The primary abnormality in the schizophrenic group was a significantly increased rate of distractibility in the ANTI (saccades made towards the target rather than in an opposite direction) and REM (saccades made prior to the imperative cue) paradigms. The major neuropsychological variable predictive of these errors was Wisconsin card sort perseverative errors. These data, in conjunction with findings from previous neurological research, would seem to provide converging evidence towards dysfunction of prefrontal cortex in schizophrenia.

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