Psychological medicine
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Psychological medicine · Aug 2009
Neighborhood poverty and suicidal thoughts and attempts in late adolescence.
Suicide tends to concentrate in disadvantaged neighborhoods, and neighborhood disadvantage is associated with many important risk factors for youth suicide. However, no study has directly investigated the link between neighborhood poverty and youth suicidal behaviors, while controlling for pre-existing vulnerabilities. The objective of this study was to determine whether living in a poor neighborhood is associated with suicidal thoughts and attempts in late adolescence over and above background vulnerabilities, and whether this association can be explained by late-adolescence psychosocial risks: depression, social support, negative life events (NLEs), delinquent activities, substance abuse and exposure to suicide. The potential moderating role of neighborhood poverty was also examined. ⋯ Potential explanations for the increased vulnerability of youth living in poor neighborhoods are discussed.
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Psychological medicine · Jul 2009
Electrophysiological evidence of attentional biases in social anxiety disorder.
Previous studies investigating attentional biases in social anxiety disorder (SAD) have yielded mixed results. Recent event-related potential (ERP) studies using the dot-probe paradigm in non-anxious participants have shown that the P1 component is sensitive to visuospatial attention towards emotional faces. We used a dot-probe task in conjunction with high-density ERPs and source localization to investigate attentional biases in SAD. ⋯ The results provide electrophysiological support for early hypervigilance to angry faces in SAD with involvement of the FG, and reduced visual processing of emotionally salient locations at later stages of information processing, which might be a manifestation of attentional avoidance.
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Psychological medicine · Jun 2009
Editorial Meta AnalysisWorking memory in schizophrenia: a meta-analysis.
Memory impairment is being recognized increasingly as an important feature of the neuropsychology of schizophrenia. Dysfunction of working memory, a system for the short-term storage and manipulation of information, may relate to a number of core symptoms of schizophrenia. Many studies have examined working memory function in schizophrenia but a clear understanding of the nature and extent of any deficit has been elusive. ⋯ Large deficits in working memory were demonstrated in schizophrenia groups across all three working memory domains. There were, however, no clear differences across subdomains or between particular working memory tasks. There was substantial heterogeneity across results that could only be partly explained.
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Psychological medicine · Jun 2009
Aberrant functional connectivity of dorsolateral prefrontal and cingulate networks in patients with major depression during working memory processing.
In patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), functional neuroimaging studies have reported an increased activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during executive performance and working memory (WM) processing, and also an increased activation of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) during baseline conditions. However, the functional coupling of these cortical networks during WM processing is less clear. ⋯ These results complement and expand previous functional neuroimaging findings by demonstrating a dysconnectivity of dissociable prefrontal and cingulate regions in MDD patients. A disturbance of these dynamic networks is characterized by a simultaneously increased connectivity of the DLPFC during task-induced activation and increased connectivity of the ACC during task-induced deactivation.
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Psychological medicine · May 2009
Multicenter Study Comparative StudyDo risk factors for suicidal behavior differ by affective disorder polarity?
Suicide is a leading cause of death and has been strongly associated with affective disorders. The influence of affective disorder polarity on subsequent suicide attempts or completions and any differential effect of suicide risk factors by polarity were assessed in a prospective cohort. ⋯ Bipolarity does not independently influence risk of suicidal behavior or alter the influence of well-established suicide risk factors within affective disorders. Suicide risk assessment strategies may continue to appraise these common risk factors without regard to mood polarity.