Depression, Affect and Negative Symptoms in Schizophrenia

1989 ◽  
Vol 155 (S7) ◽  
pp. 108-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.-P. Lindenmayer ◽  
Stanley R. Kay

The relationship of depression with affect deficit in schizophrenic patients continues to challenge both the clinician and the researcher. Often there is considerable difficulty in differentiating these two affect states in a reliable and valid fashion. On the observational level, depressed affect often appears somewhat restricted, having lost the full range of the euthymic state. On a subjective level, schizophrenic patients often complain of anhedonia, a defect in pleasure capacity which is shared by patients who are depressed. On the prognostic level, there is a large body of literature that links depressive features in acute schizophrenics to favourable subsequent course (Astrup & Noreik, 1966; Vaillant, 1964). We were, therefore, interested in investigating the relationship of depression with impaired affect and with positive/negative symptoms in young acute schizophrenic patients. We used a systematic multidimensional study of affect impairment among 37 young acute schizophrenic patients in a prospective, longitudinal approach over a 2-year span. In addition to a detailed assessment of the affect profile, including depression, both at baseline and on follow-up, we rated patients clinically for a positive and negative syndrome as well as general psychopathology, and we conducted premorbid and outcome measurements.

2001 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross M. G. Norman ◽  
Ashok K. Malla

Objective: It has been hypothesized that patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia who have a positive family history for schizophrenia will show greater reactivity of their symptoms to increasing levels of stress or negative affect than will patients without such a family history. In the past this hypothesis has only been tested through manipulations of negative affect in laboratory settings. In this paper we test this hypothesis using longitudinal clinical data. Method: Data were derived from an earlier longitudinal study using monthly assessments of daily stressors (Hassles Scale) and symptom measures (the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms and the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms). We compared longitudinal stress to symptom relations in 12 patients with schizophrenia for whom a positive family history of schizophrenia could be identified with 12 matched schizophrenic patients without any known family history of psychiatric illness. Results: There was evidence that patients with a family history of schizophrenia demonstrated a stronger relation between stress and total score on the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms. This difference appears to have primarily reflected a greater reactivity to stress of reality distortion symptoms in the positive family history group. The two groups did not differ in apparent reactivity to stress of the disorganization and psychomotor poverty dimensions of symptomatology. Conclusions: The results of this study provide support from a naturalistic, longitudinal clinical study for the hypothesis that reactivity to stress of some symptoms of schizophrenia may vary as a function of family history of the disorder.


1990 ◽  
Vol 157 (6) ◽  
pp. 877-880 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shirley M. Glynn ◽  
Eugenia T. Randolph ◽  
Spencer Eth ◽  
George G. Paz ◽  
Gregory B. Leong ◽  
...  

The relationship of a full range of psychiatric symptoms to EE was examined in 40 men with BPRS and SANS diagnoses of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Patients from high-EE families had significantly higher ratings of positive symptoms, anxious depression, and overall psychopathology, but not negative symptoms, than did those from low-EE families. In predicting relapses of schizophrenia, account may need to be taken of an interaction between subtle differences in symptoms and relatives' attitudes.


1990 ◽  
Vol 157 (3) ◽  
pp. 430-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Argyle

Of 20 patients attending a clinic for maintenance therapy of schizophrenia, seven had regular panic attacks, and these were often associated with agoraphobia and social phobia. Similar fears and avoidance in other cases were associated with paranoid ideas and negative symptoms. The relationship of panic to psychotic symptoms varied greatly. In two patients neuroleptics were associated with an increase in panic attacks.


Author(s):  
Federica Klaus ◽  
Justin Chumbley ◽  
Erich Seifritz ◽  
Stefan Kaiser ◽  
Matthias Hartmann-Riemer

AbstractLoss aversion is a behavioral phenomenon that describes a higher sensitivity to losses than to gains and influences decisions. Decision-making is altered in several psychopathologic states, such as in the two symptom dimensions of hypomania and negative symptoms. It has been argued that progress in our understanding of psychopathology requires a reorientation from the traditional, syndrome-based perspective to a more detailed study of individual constituent symptoms. In the present study, we made careful efforts to dissociate the relationship of loss aversion to negative symptoms, from its relationship with hypomanic symptoms. We selected a sample of 45 subjects from a healthy student population (n = 835) according to psychopathologic scales for hypomania and negative symptoms and stratified them into a control group (n = 15), a subclinical hypomania group (n = 15) and a negative symptoms group (n = 15). Participants completed a loss aversion task consisting of forced binary choices between a monetary gamble and a riskless choice with no gain or loss. We found, that these two symptom dimensions of hypomania and negative symptoms have a similar inverse relation to loss aversion as demonstrated by analysis of variance. Further research is warranted to describe the underlying psychological and neurobiological mechanisms at play. Given the partially opposing nature of hypomania and negative symptoms it further needs to be elucidated whether they are linked to loss aversion via dissociable mechanisms.


Author(s):  
Georg Northoff ◽  
Karl Erik Sandsten ◽  
Julie Nordgaard ◽  
Troels Wesenberg Kjaer ◽  
Josef Parnas

Abstract Schizophrenia (SCZ) can be characterized as a basic self-disorder that is featured by abnormal temporal integration on phenomenological (experience) and psychological (information processing) levels. Temporal integration on the neuronal level can be measured by the brain’s intrinsic neural timescale using the autocorrelation window (ACW) and power-law exponent (PLE). Our goal was to relate intrinsic neural timescales (ACW, PLE), as a proxy of temporal integration on the neuronal level, to temporal integration related to self-disorder on psychological (Enfacement illusion task in electroencephalography) and phenomenological (Examination of Anomalous Self-Experience [EASE]) levels. SCZ participants exhibited prolonged ACW and higher PLE during the self-referential task (Enfacement illusion), but not during the non-self-referential task (auditory oddball). The degree of ACW/PLE change during task relative to rest was significantly reduced in self-referential task in SCZ. A moderation model showed that low and high ACW/PLE exerted differential impact on the relationship of self-disorder (EASE) and negative symptoms (PANSS). In sum, we demonstrate abnormal prolongation in intrinsic neural timescale during self-reference in SCZ including its relation to basic self-disorder and negative symptoms. Our results point to abnormal relation of self and temporal integration at the core of SCZ constituting a “common currency” of neuronal, psychological, and phenomenological levels.


1989 ◽  
Vol 155 (S5) ◽  
pp. 112-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt Hahlweg ◽  
Eli Feinstein ◽  
Ursula Müller ◽  
Matthias Dose

Hypotheses on the relationship of schizophrenia and family variables have changed considerably over the last 15 years: whereas speculations on the causal role of familial interaction for the onset of schizophrenic psychosis previously dominated the field of psychological theorising and psychotherapy (Bateson et al, 1956), it was not possible to confirm these theories empirically. In accordance with the research on Expressed Emotion (EE), a shift in emphasis to the influence of family variables on the further course of the illness has taken place. As a consequence, promising new techniques have been developed for the prevention or postponement of relapse.


1994 ◽  
Vol 165 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. O'Callaghan ◽  
P. C. Sham ◽  
N. Takei ◽  
G. Murray ◽  
G. Glover ◽  
...  

BackgroundRecently, several investigators have reported an association between influenza epidemics and increased birth rates of ‘preschizophrenic’ individuals some four to six months later. Here we examine whether maternal exposure to other infectious diseases can also predispose the foetus to later schizophrenia.MethodTwo independent sets of dates of birth of first admission schizophrenic patients, born between 1938 and 1965 in England and Wales, were obtained from the Mental Health Enquiry in England and Wales. Data on the number of deaths per month from 16 infectious diseases between 1937 and 1965 in England and Wales were also collected. We used a Poisson regression model to examine the relationship between deaths from infectious diseases and schizophrenic births.ResultsIn the two separate data sets, increased national deaths from bronchopneumonia preceded, by three and five months respectively, increased numbers of schizophrenic births. We did not find any other significant associations between schizophrenic births and any of the other 15 infectious diseases.ConclusionsThe association between deaths from bronchopneumonia and increased schizophrenic births some months later may be a reflection of the fact that bronchopneumonia deaths increase markedly during influenza epidemics.


1986 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-244
Author(s):  
Paul Allen Beck

It has now been over twenty years since The American Political Science Review published “The Changing Shape of the American Political Universe” by Walter Dean Burnham (1965). This remarkably rich work is at once a study of historical variations in citizen electoral behavior, of the partisan realignment of 1896 and the realignment process in general, and of the connections between voter behavior and the patterns of American politics and public policy. It also raises fundamental epistemological issues about the relationship of micro-level and macro-level phenomena in politics—especially the inherent limitations of single-shot public opinion surveys or of a focus on a single political period in understanding the full range of possibilities for citizen involvement in a democratic political order. Unlike many scholarly works which rise meteor-like to prominence then rapidly vanish, “Changing Shape” remains at least as influential today as it was twenty years ago.


2014 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 1308-1318 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Ventura ◽  
K. L. Subotnik ◽  
A. Ered ◽  
D. Gretchen-Doorly ◽  
G. S. Hellemann ◽  
...  

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 867-879 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darlene Floden ◽  
Antonino Vallesi ◽  
Donald T. Stuss

The ability to step outside a routine—to select a new response over a habitual one—is a cardinal function of the frontal lobes. A large body of neuroimaging work now exists pointing to increased activation within the anterior cingulate when stimuli evoke competing responses (incongruent trials) relative to when responses converge (congruent trials). However, lesion evidence that the ACC is necessary in this situation is inconsistent. We hypothesized that this may be a consequence of different task procedures (context) used in lesion and neuroimaging studies. The present study attempted to reconcile the lesion and the fMRI findings by having subjects perform clinical and experimental versions of the Stroop task during BOLD fMRI acquisition. We examined the relationship of brain activation patterns, specifically within the anterior cingulate and left dorsolateral frontal regions, to congruent and incongruent trial types in different task presentations or contexts. The results confirmed our hypothesis that ACC activity is relatively specific to unblocked–uncued incongruent Stroop conditions that have not been used in large neuropsychological studies. Moreover, the size of the behavioral Stroop interference effect was significantly correlated with activity in ACC and left dorsolateral regions, although in different directions. The current results are discussed in terms of previous proposals for the functional roles of these regions in activating, monitoring, and task setting, and the relation of these findings to the disparate reports in recent case series is considered.


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