Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Cognitive neuropsychiatry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cognitive neuropsychiatry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cognitive neuropsychiatry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Cognitive neuropsychiatry is a growing multidisciplinary field arising out of cognitive psychology and neuropsychiatry that aims to understand mental illness and psychopathology in terms of models of normal psychological function. A concern with the neural substrates of impaired cognitive mechanisms links cognitive neuropsychiatry to the basic neuroscience. Alternatively, CNP provides a way of uncovering normal psychological processes by studying the effects of their change or impairment.
The term "cognitive neuropsychiatry” was coined by Prof Hadyn Ellis (Cardiff University ) in a paper “The cognitive neuropsychiatric origins of the Capgras delusion”, presented at the International Symposium on the Neuropsychology of Schizophrenia, Institute of Psychiatry, London (Coltheart, 2007).
Although clinically useful, current syndrome classifications (e.g DSM-IV; ICD-10) have no empirical basis as models of normal cognitive processes. Neuropsychological accounts of how the brain ‘works’would ever be complete without a cognitive level of analysis. CNP moves beyond diagnosis and classification to offer a cognitive explanation for established psychiatric behaviours, regardlessof whether the symptoms are due to recognized brain pathology or to dysfunction in brain areas or networks without structural lesions.
CNP has been influential, not least because of its early success in explaining some previously bizarre psychiatric delusions, most notably the Capgras delusion, Fregoli delusion and other delusional misidentification syndromes.

[edit] External links

[edit] Further reading

  • Ellis & Young (1990). Accounting for delusional misidentifications. British Journal of Psychiatry
  • Frith C. (1992) The Cognitive Neuropsychology of schizophrenia
  • David T (1993). Cognitive Neuropsychiatry Psychological Medicine
  • Charlton B. (1995) Cognitive neuropsychiatry and the Future of Diagnosis: a "PC" model of the Mind.'British Journal of Psychiatry
  • Halligan, P.W. Marshall, J.C. (1996) ''Method in Madness: Case Studies in Cognitive Neuropsychiatry. Psychology Press. ISBN 0-86377-442-3
  • Halligan, P.W., and David, A.S. (2001). Cognitive Neuropsychiatry: towards a scientific psychopathology. Nature Neuroscience Review,
  • Coltheart (2007). Bartlett Lecture: Quarterly J Exp Psych.

[edit] See also

Cognitive neuropsychology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cognitive neuropsychology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cognitive neuropsychology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Cognitive neuropsychology is a branch of cognitive psychology that aims to understand how the structure and function of the brain relates to specific psychological processes. It places a particular emphasis on studying the cognitive effects of brain injury or neurological illness with a view to inferring models of normal cognitive functioning. Evidence is based on case studies of individual brain damaged patients who show deficits in brain areas and from patients who exhibit double dissociations. From these studies researchers infer that different areas of the brain are highly specialised. It can be distinguished from cognitive neuroscience which is also interested in brain damaged patients but is particularly focused on uncovering the neural mechanisms underlying cognitive processes.[1]

Contents

[hide]

[edit] History


"Front and lateral view of the cranium, representing the direction in which the iron traversed its cavity..." [2]
The modern science of cognitive neuropsychology emerged during the 1960s as a reaction to behaviorism. Scientists realized that there were other sources of data and consciousness became a major area of interest. A particular area of interest for cognitive psychologists was memory. By studying patients with amnesia, which was caused by injuries to the medial temporal cortex, scientists were able to determine the affected areas of the brain. A patient with amnesia will not be able to remember events of the previous day (episodic memory,) but they will still remember how to tie their shoes (procedural memory,) remember a series of numbers for a few seconds (working memory) and be able to recall historical events they have learned in school (semantic memory.)[4][5] Many other studies like this have been done in the field of neuropsychology examining lesions and the effect they have on certain areas of the brain and their functions. [2]
The case of Phineas Gage was one of the earliest in which a brain injury provided clues to the function of a particular brain area. Gage survived an 1848 accident in which an iron rod 1¼ inches in diameter was driven through one or both of his frontal lobes. Though he suffered no loss of sensory or motor function, Gage's consequent personality changes prevented his return to his position as a railway construction foreman (though most presentations of Gage greatly exaggerate his psychological changes—see Phineas Gage).

Broca's area and Wernicke's area.
Similarly, Paul Broca's 1861 post mortem study of an aphasic patient, known as "Tan" after the only word which he could speak, showed that an area of the left frontal lobe (now known as Broca's area) was damaged. As Tan was unable to produce speech but could still understand it, Broca argued that this area might be specialised for speech production and that language skills might be localised to this cortical area.
Clues about the role of the occipital lobes in the visual system were provided by soldiers returning from World War I. The small bore ammunition often used in this conflict occasionally caused focal brain injuries. Studies of soldiers with such wounds to the back of their head showed that areas of blindness in the visual field were dependent on which part of the occipital lobe had been damaged, suggesting that specific areas of the brain were responsible for sensation in specific visual areas, known as retinotopy.

Most of HM's hippocampus was removed bilaterally.
Studies on Patient HM are commonly cited as some of the precursors, if not the beginning of modern cognitive neuropsychology. HM had parts of his medial temporal lobes surgically removed to treat intractable epilepsy in 1953. The treatment proved successful in reducing his dangerous seizures, but left him with a profound but selective amnesia. Because HM's impairment was caused by surgery, the damaged parts of his brain were precisely known, information which was usually not knowable in a time before accurate neuroimaging became widespread. This allowed detailed connections to be made between theories of memory formation and the brain structures removed in HM.
These and similar studies had a number of important implications. The first is that certain cognitive processes (such as language) could be damaged separately from others, and so might be handled by distinct and independent cognitive and neural processes. (For more on the cognitive neuropsychological approach to language, see Eleanor Saffran, among others.) The second is that such processes might be localised to specific areas of the brain. Whilst both of these claims are still controversial to some degree, the influence led to a focus on brain injury as a potentially fruitful way of understanding the relationship between psychology and neuroscience.
During the 1960s, information processing became the dominant model in psychology for understanding mental processes. This provided an important theoretical basis for cognitive neuropsychology, as it allowed an explanation of what areas of the brain might be doing (i.e. processing information in specific and specialised ways) and also allowed brain injury to be understood in abstract terms as impairment in the information processing abilities of larger cognitive systems.

[edit] Methods

By understanding what a person can no longer do, and correlating this with a knowledge of exactly which parts of the nervous system are damaged, it is possible to infer previously undiscovered functional relationships. This is called the lesion method.
By using this method, it should also be possible to discover whether a skill is handled by a single cognitive process or a combination of several working together. For example, if a theory states that reading and writing are simply different skills stemming from a single cognitive process, it should not be possible to find a person who, after brain injury, can write but not read or read but not write. This selective breakdown in skills suggests that different parts of the brain are specialised for the different processes and so the cognitive systems are separable.
The philosopher Jerry Fodor has been particularly influential in cognitive neuropsychology, particularly with the idea that the mind, or at least certain parts of it, may be organised into independent modules. Evidence that cognitive skills may be damaged independently seem to support this theory to some degree, although it is clear that some aspects of mind (such as belief for example) are unlikely to be modular. Ironically, Fodor (a strict functionalist) rejects the idea that the neurological properties of the brain have any bearing on its cognitive properties and doubts the whole discipline of cognitive neuropsychology.
Cognitive neuropsychology also uses many of the same techniques and technologies from the wider science of neuropsychology and fields such as cognitive neuroscience. These may include neuroimaging, electrophysiology and neuropsychological tests to measure either brain function or psychological performance.
The principles of cognitive neuropsychology have recently been applied to mental illness, with a view to understanding, for example, what the study of delusions may tell us about the function of normal belief. This relatively young field is known as cognitive neuropsychiatry.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "The term cognitive neuropsychology often connotes a purely functional approach to patients with cognitive deficits that does not make use of, or encourage interest in, evidence and ideas about brain systems and processes"-- Daniel L. Schater (2000) Understanding Implicit memory: A cognitive neruoscience approach in Michael S. Gazzaniga (ed.) Cognitive neuroscience: a reader. Wiley-Blackwell.
  2. ^ Harlow (1868)

[edit] Further reading

Cognitive Aspects of Normal and Delusional Belief Formations

Cognitive Aspects of Normal and Delusional Belief Formations


References and Links


belief formation delusional disorder - Pubmed Search     RSS

via pubmed: belief formation del... by Abdel-Hamid M, Brüne M on 4/26/12
Neuropsychological aspects of delusional disorder.
Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2008 Jun;10(3):229-34
Authors: Abdel-Hamid M, Brüne M
Abstract
Delusional disorders (DDs) are clinically rare syndromes characterized by false beliefs that are held with firm conviction despite counterevidence. The neuropsychology of DDs is poorly understood. Two partially opposing models--a cognitive bias model and a cognitive deficit model--have received mixed empiric support, partly because most research has been carried out in patients with paranoid schizophrenia, with which the nosologic association of DDs is unknown. Based on these models, we review empiric findings concerning the neuropsychology of DDs (narrowly defined). We conclude that DDs can best be seen as extreme variations of cognitive mechanisms involved in rapid threat detection and defensive harm avoidance. From this viewpoint, the two models seem to be complementary in explanatory power rather than contradictory. Future research may help to clarify the question of gene-environment interaction involvement in the formation of delusional beliefs.
PMID: 18652791 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

via pubmed: belief formation del... by Coltheart M on 4/26/12
Cognitive neuropsychiatry and delusional belief.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2007 Aug;60(8):1041-62
Authors: Coltheart M
Abstract
Cognitive neuropsychiatry is a new field of cognitive psychology which seeks to learn more about the normal operation of high-level aspects of cognition such as belief formation, reasoning, decision making, theory of mind, and pragmatics by studying people in whom such processes are abnormal. So far, the high-level cognitive process most widely studied in cognitive neuropsychiatry has been belief formation, investigated by examining people with delusional beliefs. This paper describes some of the forms of delusional belief that have been examined from this perspective and offers a general two-deficit cognitive-neuropsychiatric account of delusional belief.
PMID: 17654390 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

via pubmed: belief formation del... by Lawrence E, Peters E on 4/26/12
Reasoning in believers in the paranormal.
J Nerv Ment Dis. 2004 Nov;192(11):727-33
Authors: Lawrence E, Peters E
Abstract
Reasoning biases have been identified in deluded patients, delusion-prone individuals, and believers in the paranormal. This study examined content-specific reasoning and delusional ideation in believers in the paranormal. A total of 174 members of the Society for Psychical Research completed a delusional ideation questionnaire and a deductive reasoning task. The reasoning statements were manipulated for congruency with paranormal beliefs. As predicted, individuals who reported a strong belief in the paranormal made more errors and displayed more delusional ideation than skeptical individuals. However, no differences were found with statements that were congruent with their belief system, confirming the domain-specificity of reasoning. This reasoning bias was limited to people who reported a belief in, rather than experience of, paranormal phenomena. These results suggest that reasoning abnormalities may have a causal role in the formation of unusual beliefs. The dissociation between experiences and beliefs implies that such abnormalities operate at the evaluative, rather than the perceptual, stage of processing.
PMID: 15505516 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

via pubmed: belief formation del... by Stompe T, Ortwein-Swoboda G, Ritter K, Schanda H on 4/26/12
Old wine in new bottles? Stability and plasticity of the contents of schizophrenic delusions.
Psychopathology. 2003 Jan-Feb;36(1):6-12
Authors: Stompe T, Ortwein-Swoboda G, Ritter K, Schanda H
Abstract
A number of recent case reports published during the last 20 years described a quick inclusion of new technologies and cultural innovations into schizophrenic delusions which led many of the authors to the conclusion that the 'Zeitgeist' is creating new delusional contents. On the other hand, long-term comparisons and comparative transcultural studies on delusions showed, despite a certain degree of variability, a stability of delusional themes over longer periods of time. Combining anthropological and historical theories of the development of societies with a differentiated psychopathological approach (Klosterkötter's three-stage model of the formation of schizophrenic delusions), we were able to resolve the problem of the ostensibly divergent results: there are only a few themes of extraordinary anthropological importance for the organization of human relationships which can be found in every epoch and in different cultures (persecution, grandiosity, guilt, religion, hypochondria, jealousy, and love). With the exception of persecution and grandiosity, these themes showed a certain variability over time and between cultures. The 'new' themes, referring to the development of modern technology and the rapid changes of 'cultural patterns' turned out to be only the shaping of the basic delusional themes on the 3rd stage of Klosterkötter's phase model (concretization).
PMID: 12679586 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

via pubmed: belief formation del... by Garety PA, Hemsley DR, Wessely S on 4/26/12
Reasoning in deluded schizophrenic and paranoid patients. Biases in performance on a probabilistic inference task.
J Nerv Ment Dis. 1991 Apr;179(4):194-201
Authors: Garety PA, Hemsley DR, Wessely S
Abstract
An experiment is described in which deluded subjects with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or of delusional disorder (paranoia) were compared with a nondeluded psychiatric control group and a normal control group on a probabilistic inference task. Factors relevant to belief formation and maintenance were investigated. Deluded subjects requested less information before reaching a decision and were more ready to change their estimates of the likelihood of an event when confronted with potentially disconfirmatory information. No differences were found between the two diagnostic groups of deluded subjects. The results are discussed in light of prevailing theories of the importance of abnormal experience rather than reasoning biases in the formation and maintenance of delusional beliefs. It is suggested that a reasoning abnormality is involved, which may coexist with perceptual abnormalities.
PMID: 2007889 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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belief formation neuropsychiatry - pubmed search     RSS

via pubmed: belief formation neu... by Gerrans P on 4/26/12
Delusions as performance failures.
Cogn Neuropsychiatry. 2001 Aug;6(3):161-73
Authors: Gerrans P
Abstract
UNLABELLED: Delusions are explanations of anomalous experiences. A theory of delusion requires an explanation of both the anomalous experience and the apparently irrational explanation generated by the delusional subject. Hence, we require a model of rational belief formation against which the belief formation of delusional subjects can be evaluated.
METHOD: I first describe such a model, distinguishing procedural from pragmatic rationality. Procedural rationality is the use of rules or procedures, deductive or inductive, that produce an inferentially coherent set of propositions. Pragmatic rationality is the use of procedural rationality in context. I then apply the distinction to the explanation of the Capgras and the Cotard delusions. I then argue that delusions are failures of pragmatic rationality. I examine the nature of these failures employing the distinction between performance and competence familiar from Chomskian linguistics.
RESULTS: This approach to the irrationality of delusions reconciles accounts in which the explanation of the anomalous experience exhausts the explanation of delusion, accounts that appeal to further deficits within the reasoning processes of delusional subjects, and accounts that argue that delusions are not beliefs at all. (Respectively, one-stage, two-stage, and expressive accounts.)
CONCLUSION: In paradigm cases that concern cognitive neuropsychiatry the irrationality of delusional subjects should be thought of as a performance deficit in pragmatic rationality.
PMID: 16571516 [PubMed]

via pubmed: belief formation neu... by Coltheart M on 4/26/12
Cognitive neuropsychiatry and delusional belief.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2007 Aug;60(8):1041-62
Authors: Coltheart M
Abstract
Cognitive neuropsychiatry is a new field of cognitive psychology which seeks to learn more about the normal operation of high-level aspects of cognition such as belief formation, reasoning, decision making, theory of mind, and pragmatics by studying people in whom such processes are abnormal. So far, the high-level cognitive process most widely studied in cognitive neuropsychiatry has been belief formation, investigated by examining people with delusional beliefs. This paper describes some of the forms of delusional belief that have been examined from this perspective and offers a general two-deficit cognitive-neuropsychiatric account of delusional belief.
PMID: 17654390 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Flaskerud JH.
Issues Ment Health Nurs. 2000 Jan-Feb;21(1):5-29. Review.
 

via pubmed: belief formation neu... by Ladowsky-Brooks R, Alcock JE on 4/26/12
Semantic-episodic interactions in the neuropsychology of disbelief.
Cogn Neuropsychiatry. 2007 Mar;12(2):97-111
Authors: Ladowsky-Brooks R, Alcock JE
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this paper is to outline ways in which characteristics of memory functioning determine truth judgements regarding verbally transmitted information.
METHOD: Findings on belief formation from several areas of psychology were reviewed in order to identify general principles that appear to underlie the designation of information in memory as "true" or "false".
RESULTS: Studies on belief formation have demonstrated that individuals have a tendency to encode information as "true" and that an additional encoding step is required to tag information as "false". This additional step can involve acquisition and later recall of semantic-episodic associations between message content and contextual cues that signal that information is "false". Semantic-episodic interactions also appear to prevent new information from being accepted as "true" through encoding bias or the assignment of a "false" tag to data that is incompatible with prior knowledge.
CONCLUSIONS: It is proposed that truth judgements are made through a combined weighting of the reliability of the information source and the compatibility of this information with already stored data. This requires interactions in memory. Failure to integrate different types of memories, such as semantic and episodic memories, can arise from mild hippocampal dysfunction and might result in delusions.
PMID: 17453893 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

via pubmed: belief formation neu... by Cashmore AR on 4/26/12
The Lucretian swerve: the biological basis of human behavior and the criminal justice system.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Mar 9;107(10):4499-504
Authors: Cashmore AR
Abstract
It is widely believed, at least in scientific circles, that living systems, including mankind, obey the natural physical laws. However, it is also commonly accepted that man has the capacity to make "free" conscious decisions that do not simply reflect the chemical makeup of the individual at the time of decision--this chemical makeup reflecting both the genetic and environmental history and a degree of stochasticism. Whereas philosophers have discussed for centuries the apparent lack of a causal component for free will, many biologists still seem to be remarkably at ease with this notion of free will; and furthermore, our judicial system is based on such a belief. It is the author's contention that a belief in free will is nothing other than a continuing belief in vitalism--something biologists proudly believe they discarded well over 100 years ago.
PMID: 20142481 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Jump to: navigation, search
A monothematic delusion is a delusional state that only concerns one particular topic. This is contrasted by what is sometimes called multi-thematic or polythematic delusions where the person has a range of delusions (typically the case of schizophrenia). These disorders can occur within the context of schizophrenia or dementia or they can occur without any other signs of mental illness. When these disorders are found outside the context of mental illness, they are often caused by organic disfunction as a result of traumatic brain injury, stroke, or neurological illness.
People who suffer from these delusions as a result of organic dysfunction often do not suffer from any obvious intellectual deficiency nor do they have any other symptoms. Additionally, a few of these people even have some awareness that their beliefs are bizarre, yet they cannot be persuaded that their beliefs are false.[citation needed]

[edit] Types

The delusions that fall under this category are:
  • Capgras delusion: the belief that (usually) a close relative or spouse has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor.
  • Fregoli delusion: the belief that various people who the believer meets are actually the same person in disguise.
  • Intermetamorphosis: the belief that people in one's environment swap identities with each other whilst maintaining the same appearance.
  • Subjective doubles: a person believes there is a doppelgänger or double of him or herself carrying out independent actions.
  • Cotard delusion: the belief that oneself is dead or does not exist; sometimes coupled with the belief that one is putrifying or missing internal organs.
  • Mirrored-self misidentification: the belief that one's reflection in a mirror is some other person.
  • Reduplicative paramnesia: the belief that a familiar person, place, object or body part has been duplicated. For example, a person may believe that they are in fact not in the hospital to which they were admitted, but in an identical-looking hospital in a different part of the country.
  • Somatoparaphrenia: the delusion where one denies ownership of a limb or an entire side of one's body (often connected with stroke).
  1. ^ Davies, M., Coltheart, M., Langdon, R., Breen, N. (2001). "Monothematic delusions: Towards a two-factor account" (PDF). Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology 8: 133–158. doi:10.1353/ppp.2001.0007. http://philrsss.anu.edu.au/~mdavies/papers/mono.pdf.
  2. ^ Sellen, J., Oaksford, M., Langdon, R., Gray, N. (2005). "Schizotypy and Conditional Reasoning". Schizophrenia Bulletin 31 (1): 105–116. doi:10.1093/schbul/sbi012. http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/31/1/105.
  3. ^ Dudley RE, John CH, Young AW, Over DE (May 1997). "Normal and abnormal reasoning in people with delusions". Br J Clin Psychol 36 (Pt 2): 243–58. PMID 9167864.
  4. ^ a b Stone, T. (2005). "Delusions and Belief Formation" (Powerpoint). http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/psycho/teaching/ppfiles/cicp-l5.ppt.
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Psychiatric diagnoses are not mental p... [Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2012] - PubMed - NCBI

Psychiatric diagnoses are not mental p... [Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2012] - PubMed - NCBI

Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2012 Apr 23. [Epub ahead of print]

Psychiatric diagnoses are not mental process: Wittgenstein on conceptual confusion.

Source

Centre for Mental Health Research, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

Abstract

Background: Empirical explanation and treatment repeatedly fail for psychiatric diagnoses. Diagnosis is mired in conceptual confusion that is illuminated by Ludwig Wittgenstein's later critique of philosophy (Philosophical Investigations). This paper examines conceptual confusions in the foundation of psychiatric diagnosis from some of Wittgenstein's important critical viewpoints.Argument: Diagnostic terms are words whose meanings are given by usages not definitions. Diagnoses, by Wittgenstein's analogy with 'games', have various and evolving usages that are connected by family relationships, and no essence or core phenomenon connects them. Their usages will change according to the demands and contexts in which they are employed. Diagnoses, like many psychological terms, such as 'reading' or 'understanding', are concepts that refer not to fixed behavioural or mental states but to complex apprehensions of the relationship of a variety of behavioural phenomena with the world. A diagnosis is a sort of concept that cannot be located in or explained by a mental process.Conclusion: A diagnosis is an exercise in language and its usage changes according to the context and the needs it addresses. Diagnoses have important uses but they are irreducibly heterogeneous and cannot be identified with or connected to particular mental processes or even with a unity of phenomena that can be addressed empirically. This makes understandable not only the repeated failure of empirical science to replicate or illuminate genetic, neurophysiologic, psychic or social processes underlying diagnoses but also the emptiness of a succession of explanatory theories and treatment effects that cannot be repeated or stubbornly regress to the mean.Attempts to fix the meanings of diagnoses to allow empirical explanation will and should fail as there is no foundation on which a fixed meaning can be built and it can only be done at the cost of the relevance and usefulness of diagnosis.

PMID:
22528975
[PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Free full text

Delusion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Delusion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paranoia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paranoia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Beliefs and Delusions

Beliefs and Delusions


belief - Google Search

beliefs - Google Search

belief system - Google Search

scientific beliefs - Google Search

Scientific Beliefs - Philosophy of science - Wikipedia 

Karl Popper     Thomas Kuhn 

religious beliefs - Google Search

Religious belief - Wikipedia

faith - Google Search

Belief - Wikipedia 

Belief system - Wikipedia 

World view - Wikipedia

Science as a Belief System

Belief - SEP 

On the Nature of Belief

What is Epistemology? Philosophy of Truth, Knowledge, Belief - About.com 


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Delusion - Wikipedia

Delusional disorder - Wikipedia

Cognitive neuropsychiatric aspects of Delusional Disorder "are poorly understood" | Cognitive neuropsychiatry is a new field of cognitive psychology

Cognitive neuropsychiatric aspects of Delusional Disorder "are poorly understood" | Cognitive neuropsychiatry is a new field of cognitive psychology

The neuropsychology of DDs is poorly understood

Neuropsychological aspects of delusional disorder: DDs can best be seen as extreme variations of cognitive mechanisms involved in rapid threat detection and defensive harm avoidance. From this viewpoint, the two models seem to be complementary... (Two partially opposing models--a cognitive bias model and a cognitive deficit model--have received mixed empiric support...)
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Cognitive neuropsychiatry is a new field of cognitive psychology

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Neuropsychological aspects of delusional disorder.

Abdel-Hamid M, Brüne MGo to full article
Neuropsychological aspects of delusional disorder.
Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2008 Jun;10(3):229-34
Authors: Abdel-Hamid M, Brüne M
Abstract
Delusional disorders (DDs) are clinically rare syndromes characterized by false beliefs that are held with firm conviction despite counterevidence. The neuropsychology of DDs is poorly understood. Two partially opposing models--a cognitive bias model and a cognitive deficit model--have received mixed empiric support, partly because most research has been carried out in patients with paranoid schizophrenia, with which the nosologic association of DDs is unknown. Based on these models, we review empiric findings concerning the neuropsychology of DDs (narrowly defined). We conclude that DDs can best be seen as extreme variations of cognitive mechanisms involved in rapid threat detection and defensive harm avoidance. From this viewpoint, the two models seem to be complementary in explanatory power rather than contradictory. Future research may help to clarify the question of gene-environment interaction involvement in the formation of delusional beliefs.
PMID: 18652791 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Cognitive neuropsychiatry and delusional belief.

Coltheart MGo to full article
Cognitive neuropsychiatry and delusional belief.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2007 Aug;60(8):1041-62
Authors: Coltheart M
Abstract
Cognitive neuropsychiatry is a new field of cognitive psychology which seeks to learn more about the normal operation of high-level aspects of cognition such as belief formation, reasoning, decision making, theory of mind, and pragmatics by studying people in whom such processes are abnormal. So far, the high-level cognitive process most widely studied in cognitive neuropsychiatry has been belief formation, investigated by examining people with delusional beliefs. This paper describes some of the forms of delusional belief that have been examined from this perspective and offers a general two-deficit cognitive-neuropsychiatric account of delusional belief.
PMID: 17654390 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

May 01 (15)

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

"Delusions are... now conceptualized as dimensional entities rather than categorical ones, lying at the extreme end of a "belief continuum"... A truly comprehensive model of the persecutory delusion requires further elucidation at the neurochemical and genetic levels." - PsychiatryOnline | American Journal of Psychiatry | Cognitive Neuropsychiatric Models of Persecutory Delusions

"Delusions are... now conceptualized as dimensional entities rather than categorical ones, lying at the extreme end of a "belief continuum"...
A truly comprehensive model of the persecutory delusion requires further elucidation at the neurochemical and genetic levels.
Finally, genetic studies, in the absence of a definitively linked genomic region of, for example, schizophrenia R1584BABBEHIC, currently are being designed to reduce genetic heterogeneity at the entry point of proband ascertainment. Thus, dimensional variables (e.g., delusional ideation, social cognitive skills) or symptom clusters (e.g., reality distortion) become intermediate phenotypes worthy of study (for preliminary examples of this approach, see references R1584BABJIDCAR1584BABEFBIB). If the relevant social cognitive mechanisms can be reliably characterized and shown to be heritable, this approach could lead to more definitive linkage results and to the elucidation of the genetic background of the illnesses in which persecutory delusions arise."

PsychiatryOnline | American Journal of Psychiatry | Cognitive Neuropsychiatric Models of Persecutory Delusions

The American Journal of Psychiatry, VOL. 158, No. 4

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Psychodynamic aspects of Delusional Disorder - Mike Nova: Psychoanalytic theory is deadeningly mechanistic and hopelessly outdated, but at this time we do not have any other theory which attempts to explain in more or less simple (if not simplistic) and coherent terms (although it is famously known for its predilection towards near-incoherence and "fuzzy thinking"), the dazzling and paradoxical complexities of human emotional life and behavior

Psychodynamic aspects of Delusional Disorder, Persecutory type ("Paranoia") - Links to "castration anxiety and phobia" Searches


Last Update: 1:51 PM 5/2/2012


Mike Nova: Psychoanalytic theory is deadeningly mechanistic and hopelessly outdated, but at this time we do not have any other theory which attempts to explain in more or less simple (if not simplistic) and coherent terms (although it is famously known for its predilection towards near-incoherence and "fuzzy thinking"), the dazzling and paradoxical complexities of human emotional life and behavior.


castration phobia - Google Search


Psychol Rep. 2002 Dec;91(3 Pt 2):1244-6.

Castration anxiety and phobias.

Source

Department of Psychology, Texas Tech University, Box 42051, Lubbock, TX 79409-2051, USA.

Abstract

Based on Freud's case study of "Little Hans," the authors tested the hypothesis that men with phobias would score higher on castration anxiety than men without phobias. College men with either average or high scores on the Fears Scale of the MMPI-2 (n = 10 men in each group) responded to the Thematic Apperception Test, which was scored for castration anxiety. Men with high scores on the Fears Scale had higher scores on castration anxiety than men with average scores on the Fears Scale. The findings are consistent with Freud's hypothesis about phobias.
PMID:
12585544
[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

castration phobia - Wikipedia Search


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discussed in Freud's 1909 study Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-year-old Boy.' ... extensive study of castration anxiety and the Oedipus complex . ...

Herbert Graf - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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, a Freudian, explained the delusion as displaced castration anxiety . ... crippled with depression and anxiety and phobia about wolves from childhood. ...
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complexes differently — he via castration anxiety , she via penis ... Oedipal case study-In Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-year-old Boy (1909 ...
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(metaphor) -Castration anxiety -Catalepsy -Catastrophization - ... Scholastic Aptitude Test -School phobia -School refusal -Science and ...
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which is manifested as fear of castration by the physically greater ... In Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-year-old Boy (1909), the case study ...
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castration anxiety - Google Search


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