0000000000133959

AUTHOR

Neus Herrero

Psychobiological response to an anger induction task in schizophrenia: The key role of anxiety.

Abstract In this study an anger induction laboratory task was applied to men with schizophrenia, and resulted in significant changes in different psychophysiological parameters that were measured in a pre-post design. We observed a significantly greater self-reported anger mood and negative affection, lower self-reported positive affection, an increase in cardiovascular reactivity (with blood pressure in deeper affection compared to controls), higher salivary testosterone levels, lower salivary cortisol levels, and an increase in right ear items reported in dichotic listening. Furthermore, clinical risk factors related to anger in our patients were analyzed by Stepwise Regression analyses. …

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Insight among psychotic patients with auditory hallucinations

Poor insight in psychosis has been described as a seeming lack of awareness of the deficits, consequences of the disorder, and of the need for treatment. The aim of this study is to investigate whether patients with auditory hallucinations have less insight than those without hallucinations, and to determine which hallucination characteristics are related to patient insight. Using the PANSS and PSYRATS, the authors have evaluated the lack of insight data corresponding to 168 psychotic patients divided into three groups: patients with a history of nonpersistent hallucinations, patients with persistent hallucinations, and patients without hallucinations. Patients with persistent hallucination…

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FOXP2 gene and language impairment in schizophrenia: association and epigenetic studies

Abstract Background Schizophrenia is considered a language related human specific disease. Previous studies have reported evidence of positive selection for schizophrenia-associated genes specific to the human lineage. FOXP2 shows two important features as a convincing candidate gene for schizophrenia vulnerability: FOXP2 is the first gene related to a language disorder, and it has been subject to positive selection in the human lineage. Methods Twenty-seven SNPs of FOXP2 were genotyped in a cohort of 293 patients with schizophrenia and 340 controls. We analyzed in particular the association with the poverty of speech and the intensity of auditory hallucinations. Potential expansion of thre…

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What happens when we get angry? Hormonal, cardiovascular and asymmetrical brain responses

This study aimed to evaluate neuroendocrine and cardiovascular responses together with changes in brain asymmetry following an anger mood induction laboratory task. Previous research has shown an increase in heart rate and blood pressure when anger is experienced. Increased testosterone and decreased cortisol in response to anger and aggressive behavior have also been reported. With regard to asymmetrical frontal brain activity and emotion, the valence model links negative affect (as anger) to the right hemisphere while the motivational direction model links approach-related emotions (as anger) to the left hemisphere. From the subjective perception and from the neuroendocrine and cardiovasc…

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