Archives of general psychiatry
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Arch. Gen. Psychiatry · Oct 2012
Randomized Controlled TrialAlterations in neural processing and psychopathology in children raised in institutions.
Young children raised in institutional settings experience severe deprivation in social, emotional, and cognitive stimulation. Although this deprivation is likely to disrupt brain development in ways that increase the risk for psychopathology, neurodevelopmental mechanisms linking adverse early environments to psychopathology remain poorly understood. ⋯ Exposure to institutional rearing disrupts the P700, conferring risk for the onset of psychopathology. The high levels of ADHD symptoms among children exposed to early life deprivation may be attributable, in part, to abnormal patterns of neurodevelopment generated by these adverse rearing environments.
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Focused hypnotic concentration is a model for brain control over sensation and behavior. Pain and anxiety can be effectively alleviated by hypnotic suggestion, which modulates activity in brain regions associated with focused attention, but the specific neural network underlying this phenomenon is not known. ⋯ Our results provide novel evidence that altered functional connectivity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex may underlie hypnotizability. Future studies focusing on how these functional networks change and interact during hypnosis are warranted.
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Arch. Gen. Psychiatry · Oct 2012
Alterations in default mode network connectivity during pain processing in borderline personality disorder.
Recent neuroimaging studies have associated activity in the default mode network (DMN) with self-referential and pain processing, both of which are altered in borderline personality disorder (BPD). In patients with BPD, antinociception has been linked to altered activity in brain regions involved in the cognitive and affective evaluation of pain. Findings in healthy subjects indicate that painful stimulation leads to blood oxygenation level-dependent signal decreases and changes in the functional architecture of the DMN. ⋯ Patients with BPD showed significant alterations in DMN connectivity, with differences in spatial integrity and temporal characteristics. These alterations may reflect a different cognitive and affective appraisal of pain as less self-relevant and aversive as well as a deficiency in the switching between baseline and task-related processing. This deficiency may be related to everyday difficulties of patients with BPD in regulating their emotions, focusing mindfully on 1 task at a time, and efficiently shifting their attention from one task to another.