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PubMed2005

Effects of long-term benzodiazepine medication. A prospective cohort study: methodological and clinical aspects.

Benzodiazepine (BDZ) drug impact on mental functions was explored in a cohort study of 30 psychiatric outpatients on long-term BDZ medication. A new questionnaire, the Drug Impact on Mental Processes (DIMP) was used and evaluated. The patients were rated three times: on inclusion in the study, after about 18 months and, finally, only a few days later. Test-retest reliability was evaluated for the two last ratings and was found acceptable for 19/23 items. The DIMP scores indicated negative effects on crisis reaction, intensified defence mechanisms and reduced cognitive, emotional and conative functions. Long-term BDZ treatment intensified passive coping. The drug impact on mental functions ranged between a mild and a moderate degree. The clinical outcomes of the patients' psychiatric disorders were evaluated at a 1-year follow-up after continued or discontinued BDZ treatment. In the subgroup that had discontinued the BDZ treatment at follow-up, significantly more patients reported reduced severity of their psychiatric disorders and significantly more patients had paid jobs. The overall clinical improvement after discontinued BDZ treatment may be explained by recovery from an addiction syndrome. It may also be related to a shift from passive to active coping.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2000

Evolutionary psychology: counting babies or studying information-processing mechanisms.

Evolutionary psychology focuses on the study of adaptations. Its practitioners put little credence in the study of reproductive success in recent and current environments, and argue for an information-processing, cost-benefit conception of adaptation. Because ancestral and current environments differ, it is necessary to distinguish between innate and operational adaptations and between concurrently contingent and developmentally contingent behaviors. These distinctions lead to an evolutionary classification of behaviors into true pathologies, pseudopathologies, quasinormal behaviors, and adaptive-culturally-variable behaviors. I argue that a complete study of the functioning of a behavioral adaptation involves modeling ancestral selection pressures, cross-cultural research, experimental studies of mental processes, and studies of the proximate biological correlates of information-processing adaptations. Finally, I claim that evolutionary psychology can help us avoid making both naturalistic and moralistic fallacies.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1985

Psychotherapy and subjective experience.

It is our aim in psychotherapy to introduce the neurotic person to himself. He is in some sense cut off from certain of his feelings, wishes and intentions as a result of internal conflict and, in fact, he is cut off from the nature of that conflict itself, sometimes even from an awareness of its existence. He experiences the symptoms of that conflict but he is in no position to resolve it. Our aim, however, is not to introduce the neurotic person to himself merely in the sense of informing him about the existence, nature or history of such conflict; that would probably not help him much more than telling him his diagnosis. It is rather to actually enlarge his experience of himself, specifically to enlarge his experience of and to make articulate the feelings and thoughts involved in that conflict and in this way to create the conditions for its resolution. I wish to propose that the effectiveness of this process depends upon the recognition or articulation by the therapist of feelings or thoughts of the patient that are in a certain sense already conscious, are actually within conscious subjective experience, yet are not and for certain dynamic reasons cannot be fully articulated or recognized by the patient himself. In proposing this--I shall give an example in a moment--I am calling attention to a kind of self-estrangement and a level of subjective experience and mental activity that, though I believe perfectly well known to all of us, are not distinguished by the traditional psychoanalytic division of mental processes into conscious, preconscious and unconscious.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Effect of a fatiguing protocol on motor imagery accuracy.

This study was devised to evaluate the influence of muscle fatigue on athletes' ability to perform motor imagery. Performance impairment is a consequence of fatigue, but alterations on perception and mental activity may also occur. To test whether peripheral fatigue affects mental processes, ten sports students imagined three consecutive countermovement jumps before and after a fatiguing protocol, through repetition of upright movements, at 70% of maximal voluntary contraction, until exhaustion. Autonomic nervous system responses and imagined movement durations were considered the dependent variables. Actual duration was systematically overestimated during both visual and kinesthetic imagery, but motor imagery duration and autonomic responses were similar without and under fatigue. Results suggest that muscle fatigue, unlike fatigue induced by prolonged exercise, does not elicit mental fatigue and therefore does not alter motor imagery accuracy.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

The availability versus the use of partial information: multiple levels of selective processing between perception and action.

Temporal overlap of cognitive processes occurs when partial information about a stimulus activates associated responses before the stimulus has been fully identified. Recent evidence obtained with psychophysiological measures suggests that such overlap sometimes does, and sometimes does not occur. In this contribution, we argue that in order to understand why, we have to distinguish between selection of partial information for perception and selection of partial information for control over activation of responses. We discuss several mechanisms and factors that may modulate the temporal overlap of mental processes because they selectively influence the perceptual availability or the use of partial information.

Arousal↗
PubMed1990

Children with epilepsy: the effect of seizures, syndromes, and etiological factors on cognitive functioning.

Overall, children with epilepsy have poorer concentration and mental processing and are less alert than age-matched controls. The relationship between cognitive functioning and epilepsy is complex, however, with widely differing degrees of intellectual impairment--ranging from minimal to severe and progressive--related to diverse types of epileptic seizures, syndromes, and etiological factors. Prolonged and frequently repeated seizures are typically associated with more severe effects on cognitive functioning, particularly if epilepsy is symptomatic, i.e., secondary to a demonstrable brain lesion. A combination of such factors may contribute to the mental deterioration seen in many children suffering from severe epilepsy.

Child↗
PubMed1992

[Quality assurance in psychiatry--is it possible?].

The assessment of quality depends on the eye of the beholder, the patient, the clinician and his colleagues or society/third party payers. There are already several structures that regulate quality: training requirements, judicial control commissions and public health authorities, and in psychiatry also individual supervision and extensive clinical meetings. Most clinical parameters in psychiatry are measurable, but there remains the elusiveness of mental processes, which often defies quantification. Levels of symptoms and functioning, however, can be scored. Computerisation of macro-data often permits useful comparisons, as may consensus conferences and consultations with peers. The essence of quality monitoring is to find indicators that predict results and also reflect the most important situations and problems.

Mental Health Services↗
PubMed1992

Memory and attention in newly diagnosed epileptic seizure disorder.

Interictal disturbances of memory and attention were evaluated in 74 adults with newly-diagnosed untreated epileptic seizures and no other known brain pathology. In approximately 30% of the patients with cryptogenic seizures, the average memory and attention scores indicated subtle dysfunction compared with normal control group. The patients had difficulties in tasks requiring memory, sustained attention and flexible mental processing, whereas they had normal attention span, simple speed of tracking and simple psychomotor speed. The memory difficulties may be related to attentional dysfunction leading to impaired or slowed initial encoding of memory trace, and also to a deficit in storing process and hippocampal dysfunction. These findings could have important implications for establishing criteria for identifying patients who develop chronic epilepsy and who thereby would benefit from early therapeutic intervention.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

Exploring the experience of autism through firsthand accounts.

Two firsthand accounts from verbal, high-functioning individuals with autism are presented. Participants include a 27-year-old man and a 13-year-old boy and his parents. Data collection included participant observation, formal and informal interviewing, correspondence, and collection of personal documents such as poems, art work, and essays. It was our aim to explore the participants' perceptions, mental processes, and experiences of living with autism. Five salient themes are identified and discussed: sensory processing, memory, stereotypical behaviors, social interaction, and empathy. Multichanneled sensory processing appeared in both participants, as well as a remarkably detailed memory of past events. Both participants were able to bring their stereotypical behaviors under voluntary control as a result of their awareness of nonautistic individuals' reactions to these behaviors.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2003

Neural stability and flexibility: a computational approach.

This paper addresses the issue of stability and flexibility of neural systems, and how a balance can be achieved. Assuming a close correspondence with cognitive and mental processes, we use a cortical neural network model to investigate how regulation of the neurodynamics can result in an efficient information processing, in terms of learning and associative memory. In particular, we use this model to investigate relations between structure, dynamics, and function of a neural system, and how the stability-flexibility dilemma may be solved by proper regulation. We focus on the complex neurodynamics and its modulation, and how this is related to the neural circuitry, where synaptic modification and network pruning are considered. Finally, we discuss the relevance of these results to clinical and experimental neuroscience and speculate on a link between neural instability and mental disorders.

Computational Biology↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Noise and mental performance: personality attributes and noise sensitivity.

The contradictory and confusing results in noise research on humans may partly be due to individual differences between the subjects participating in different studies. This review is based on a twelve year research on the role of neuroticism, extroversion and subjective noise sensitivity during mental work in noisy environment. Neurotic persons might show enhanced "arousability" i.e. their arousal level increases more in stress. Additional unfavorable factors for neurotics are worrying and anxiety, which might prevent them coping successfully with noise, or some other stressors during mental performance. In numerous experiments introverts have showed higher sensitivity to noise during mental performance compared to extroverts, while extroverts often cope with a boring task even by requesting short periods of noise during performance. Correlation analyses have regularly revealed a highly significant negative relation between extroversion and noise annoyance during mental processing. Numerous studies have shown that people with high noise sensitivity may be prevented from achieving the same work results as other people in noisy environment, thus leading to psychosomatic, neurotic or other difficulties. Positive relation between noise annoyance and subjective noise sensitivity might be very strong. Our results have shown, after matching with the results of other relevant studies, that more stable personality, with extroversive tendencies and with a relatively lower subjective noise sensitivity measured with standard questionnaires, may be expected to better adapt to noise during mental performance, compared to people with opposite personality traits.

Attention↗
PubMed2006

Human electroencephalograms seen as fractal time series: mathematical analysis and visualization.

The paper presents a novel technique of nonlinear spectral analysis, which has been used for processing encephalograms of humans. This technique is based on the concept of generalized entropy of a given probability distribution, known as the Rényi entropy that allows defining the set of generalized fractal dimensions of encephalogram (EEG) and determining fractal spectra of encephalographic signals. Unlike the Fourier spectra, the spectra of fractal dimensions contain information of both frequency and amplitude characteristics of EEG and can be used together with well-accepted techniques of EEG analysis as an enhancement of the latter. Powered by volume visualization of the brain activity, the method provides new clues for understanding the mental processes in humans.

Electroencephalography↗
PubMed1985

Basic neurophysiology of motor skills in sport: a review.

The broad spectrum of skills in sport, with their high demands on strength, speed, endurance, coordination, and flexibility, represents one of the greatest challenges to human motor performances. However, the basic neurophysiological mechanisms in sport are not principally different from those in everyday motor acts. This review describes some of the relevant neurophysiological facts in a comprehensive frame, with emphasis on new findings and changes of traditional concepts. Going from simple to increasingly complex processes, the following chapters, each with several subtopics, will be treated: peripheral and spinal building blocks of motoricity; elementary grammar of the spinal cord; some aspects of spinal/supraspinal coordination in the brainstem; achievements and problems of cerebral motor control; and principles of motor learning in sport. In conclusion, the recent progress in neurophysiological research on motor systems allows recognition of a substantially new trend, a change of "paradigms": old mechanistic concepts of reflex chains and motor functions, like a complicated automation, are increasingly replaced by the idea of a sensing, planning, and self-operating subject whose mental processes are decisive for motor behavior, particularly in sport. Further mutual stimulation and support can be expected from this development between the science of sport and that of neuro- and psychophysiology.

Basal Ganglia↗
PubMed1993

Teaching biopsychosocial integration and formulation.

This paper describes the mental processes by which the psychiatrist organizes and integrates data to produce a case formulation. The biopsychosocial formulation uses three perspectives (biological, psychological and social) to view the data and integrates these viewpoints into one broad, complex and dynamic appreciation of the patient. Guidelines for creating and communicating a case formulation are proposed.

Curriculum↗
PubMed1982

Psychodynamics and aging.

Freud felt that by age 50 the mental processes had lost so much elasticity as to make psychological treatment inadvisable. Subsequent workers have been less pessimistic about the potential for conflict resolution in old age. This paper presents three case vignettes to explore psychodynamic aspects of the aging process. Issues discussed include inevitable losses, grief reactions, difficulties with restitution, structural alterations, redistribution of libido and the use of regression rather than repression as a mechanism of defense. Patients such as these are often diagnosed as depressed or demented and treated with psychotropic drugs. Interpersonal psychotherapeutic approaches can be much more effective.

Age Factors↗
PubMed2002

The locus of "memory displacement" is at least partially perceptual: effects of velocity, expectation, friction, memory averaging, and weight.

When observers are asked to localize the final position of a moving target, the judged position is usually displaced from the actual position. It has been suggested that mental processes derived from a number of invariant and noninvariant principles produce the mislocalization in memory. In this study, the effects of velocity, expectation, friction, memory averaging, and weight were reconsidered, and evidence was accumulated that supports the alternative view that the distortions arise to a large degree at a perceptual level. Effects of velocity and expectation were present when observers still perceived a persisting image of the target. It is suggested that the active reorienting of the perceptual organs explains the distortions. Furthermore, distortions of the perceived center of a visible stimulus may explain effects that have previously been attributed to memory averaging and mental analogues of weight. Thus, the locus of memory displacement is at least partially perceptual.

Acceleration↗
PubMed2004

Rewards and punishments, goal-directed behavior and consciousness.

A parsimonious account of consciousness is given in which it emerges as a direct consequence of basic neural processes without the necessity of any higher order system. In this model, pleasant or unpleasant conscious feelings of various stimuli in the environment stem from their higher order associations to innate rewards or punishments. When a conditioned stimulus (CS) is associated with a reward, it acquires pleasant feelings due to the temporal correlation of the activations representing its sensory features with those representing innate visceral reward acquisition processes. When the CS is associated with the punishment, it acquires unpleasant feelings due to the correlation of its sensory features with the innate visceral inhibition of punishment acquisition processes. The correlations involve coherent activity between the sensory cortex, the limbic system, the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex, and more lateral prefrontal areas where stimuli can be incorporated into working memory. A conscious act involves responses (or attempts to improve the environment) made on the basis of the feelings of such stimuli. Covert memory scans, in which comparisons are made of the reward and punishment associations of the outcomes of previous responses, are related to the motivations and attention behind the conscious selection of a current response. This model appears to fit together various empirical observations. Its relations to some higher or more abstract mental processes, and some evolutionary implications are discussed.

Animals↗
PubMed1981

rCBF measurements by 133Xe inhalation: applications in neuropsychology and psychiatry.

This review describes recent advances in the application of rCBF measurements by the 133Xe-inhalation method to neuropsychological and psychiatric research. Studies mapping cortical activity, as indicated by flow variations during visual, auditory and tactile tasks of varying complexity are described. The bilateral rCBF measurements do also offer information concerning lateralization of mental processes. Some clinical applications in psychiatry are finally reviewed demonstrating the use of the technique in differential diagnosis of dementia of organic ethiology (Alzheimer's disease, multi-infarct dementia) against pseudodementia due to psychosis. The method is also very useful in the study of cases with toxic influence by alcohol and other agents.

Auditory Perception↗