Schizotypal personality traits and social cognition are associated with childhood trauma exposure

2018 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 397-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yann Quidé ◽  
Sarah Cohen-Woods ◽  
Nicole O'Reilly ◽  
Vaughan J. Carr ◽  
Bernet M. Elzinga ◽  
...  
2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (suppl_1) ◽  
pp. S347-S347
Author(s):  
Yann Quide ◽  
Sarah Cohen-Woods ◽  
Nicole O’Reilly ◽  
Vaughan Carr ◽  
Bernet Elzinga ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Nadia Bounoua ◽  
Rickie Miglin ◽  
Jeffrey M. Spielberg ◽  
Curtis L. Johnson ◽  
Naomi Sadeh

Abstract Background Research has demonstrated that chronic stress exposure early in development can lead to detrimental alterations in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)–amygdala circuit. However, the majority of this research uses functional neuroimaging methods, and thus the extent to which childhood trauma corresponds to morphometric alterations in this limbic-cortical network has not yet been investigated. This study had two primary objectives: (i) to test whether anatomical associations between OFC–amygdala differed between adults as a function of exposure to chronic childhood assaultive trauma and (ii) to test how these environment-by-neurobiological effects relate to pathological personality traits. Methods Participants were 137 ethnically diverse adults (48.1% female) recruited from the community who completed a clinical diagnostic interview, a self-report measure of pathological personality traits, and anatomical MRI scans. Results Findings revealed that childhood trauma moderated bilateral OFC–amygdala volumetric associations. Specifically, adults with childhood trauma exposure showed a positive association between medial OFC volume and amygdalar volume, whereas adults with no childhood exposure showed the negative OFC–amygdala structural association observed in prior research with healthy samples. Examination of the translational relevance of trauma-related alterations in OFC–amygdala volumetric associations for disordered personality traits revealed that trauma exposure moderated the association of OFC volume with antagonistic and disinhibited phenotypes, traits characteristic of Cluster B personality disorders. Conclusions The OFC–amygdala circuit is a potential anatomical pathway through which early traumatic experiences perpetuate emotional dysregulation into adulthood and confer risk for personality pathology. Results provide novel evidence of divergent neuroanatomical pathways to similar personality phenotypes depending on early trauma exposure.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander M. Rapp ◽  
Karin Langohr ◽  
Dorothee E. Mutschler ◽  
Barbara Wild

Difficulties in understanding irony and sarcasm are part of the social cognition deficits in patients with schizophrenia. A number of studies have reported higher error rates during comprehension in patients with schizophrenia. However, the relationships of these impairments to schizotypal personality traits and other language deficits, such as the comprehension of proverbs, are unclear. We investigated irony and proverb comprehension in an all-female sample of 20 schizophrenia patients and 27 matched controls. Subjects indicated if a statement was intended to be ironic, literal, or meaningless and furthermore rated the meanness and funniness of the stimuli and certainty of their decision. Patients made significantly more errors than controls did. Globally, there were no overall differences in the ratings. However, patients rated the subgroup of stimuli with answers given incorrectly as having significantly less meanness and in case of an error indicated a significantly higher certainty than controls. Across all of the study participants, performances in irony (r=-0.51) and proverb (r=0.56) comprehension were significantly correlated with schizotypal personality traits, suggesting a continuum of nonliteral language understanding. Because irony is so frequent in everyday conversations, this makes irony an especially promising candidate for social cognition training in schizophrenia.


2009 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Savitz ◽  
Lize van der Merwe ◽  
Timothy K. Newman ◽  
Dan J. Stein ◽  
Raj Ramesar

2009 ◽  
Vol 194 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Savitz ◽  
Lize van der Merwe ◽  
Dan J. Stein ◽  
Mark Solms ◽  
Rajkumar Ramesar

BackgroundThe presence of schizotypal personality traits in some people with bipolar disorder, together with reports of greater cognitive dysfunction in patients with a history of psychotic features compared with patients without such a history, raises questions about the nosological relationship between bipolar disorder with psychotic features and bipolar disorder without psychotic features.AimsTo test the impact of a history of DSM–IV-defined psychosis on the neuropsychological status of participants with bipolar disorder while statistically controlling for confounding factors such as mood, medication, alcohol misuse/dependence and childhood abuse, and to evaluate the impact of schizotypal personality traits (and thus potential vulnerability to psychotic illness) on the cognitive performance of people with bipolar disorder and their healthy relatives.MethodNeuropsychological data were obtained for 25 participants with type I bipolar disorder and a history of psychosis, 24 with type I bipolar disorder but no history of psychosis and 61 unaffected relatives. Schizotypal traits were measured with the Schizotypal Personality Scale (STA). Childhood trauma was measured with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire.ResultsThe group with a history of psychosis performed significantly worse than the healthy relatives on measures of verbal working memory, cognitive flexibility and declarative memory. Nevertheless, the two bipolar disorder groups did not differ significantly from each other on any cognitive measure. Scores on the STA were negatively associated with verbal working and declarative memory, but positively associated with visual recall memory.Conclusions‘Psychotic’ and ‘non-psychotic’ subtypes of bipolar disorder may lie on a nosological continuum that is most clearly defined by verbal memory impairment.


2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Michelson ◽  
Catherine Campbell ◽  
Michael S. McCloskey ◽  
Royce Lee ◽  
Emil F. Coccaro ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
pp. 026988112095960
Author(s):  
Abigail M Freeman ◽  
Claire Mokrysz ◽  
Chandni Hindocha ◽  
Will Lawn ◽  
Celia JA Morgan ◽  
...  

Background: While the acute effects of cannabis are relatively benign for most users, some individuals experience significant adverse effects. This study aimed to identify whether variation in schizotypal personality traits and frequency of cannabis use influence the acute effects of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Methods: Individual participant data from four double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, acute crossover studies involving 128 cannabis users were combined for a mega-analysis. Using multilevel linear models and moderation analyses, frequency of cannabis use and schizotypal personality traits were investigated as potential moderators of the subjective, cognitive and psychotomimetic effects of acute THC. Results: There was evidence of a moderating effect where increased frequency of cannabis use was associated with reduced intensity of subjective (changes in alertness and feeling stoned) and psychosis-like effects following THC when compared with placebo. Moderating effects of cannabis use frequency on acute memory impairment were weak. Trait schizotypy did not moderate the acute psychosis-like effects of THC compared with placebo. Conclusions: Our results suggest that a pattern of domain-specific tolerance develops to the acute effects of THC. Tolerance to the alertness-reducing effects occurred more readily than tolerance to psychotomimetic effects. Only partial tolerance to feeling stoned was found, and there was weak evidence for tolerance to memory impairment. Trait schizotypy did not moderate THC’s effects on psychotomimetic symptoms.


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