The American journal of psychiatry
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OxyContin and other pharmaceutical opioids have been given special attention in the media, who frequently describe problematic users of the drug as previously drug-naive individuals who become addicted following legitimate prescriptions for medical reasons. The purpose of this study was to characterize the nature and origins of pharmaceutical opioid addiction among patients presenting at substance abuse treatment programs. ⋯ The patients in this sample did not include individuals from private therapists or pain clinics. However, among treatment-seeking individuals who use OxyContin, the drug is most frequently obtained from nonmedical sources as part of a broader and longer-term pattern of multiple substance abuse.
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Comparative Study
Low extraversion and high neuroticism as indices of genetic and environmental risk for social phobia, agoraphobia, and animal phobia.
The authors examined the extent to which two major personality dimensions (extraversion and neuroticism) index the genetic and environmental risk for three phobias (social phobia, agoraphobia, and animal phobia) in twins ascertained from a large, population-based registry. ⋯ Genetic factors that influence individual variation in extraversion and neuroticism appear to account entirely for the genetic liability to social phobia and agoraphobia, but not animal phobia. These findings underline the importance of both introversion (low extraversion) and neuroticism in some psychiatric disorders.
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Comparative Study
Failure of extinction of fear responses in posttraumatic stress disorder: evidence from second-order conditioning.
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterized by the re-experiencing of a traumatic event, although the trauma itself occurred in the past. The extinction of the traumatic response might be impeded if trauma reminders maintain fear responses by their association with the original trauma through second-order conditioning. ⋯ These findings suggest that PTSD may be maintained by second-order conditioning where trauma-relevant cues come to serve as unconditioned stimuli, thus generalizing enhanced emotional responses to many previously neutral cues and impeding extinction. The extinction deficit in PTSD patients observed in this study underlines the need for therapies focusing on the extinction of learned responses, such as behavioral treatment, with or without the addition of pharmacological substances that enhance the extinction of a learned response.