Attentional Processing of Facial Expressions and Gaze Direction in Depression and First-Episode Psychosis as Reflected by LPP Modulation.

Objective: Facial expressions communicate emotional states and regulate social bonds. An approach or avoidance-based valence might interact with direct or averted gaze to elicit different attentional allocation. These processes might be aberrant in major depression or first-episode psychosis and this requires empirical investigation.

Physiological correlates of emotional reactivity and regulation in early adolescents.

Few studies have examined physiological correlates of emotional reactivity and regulation in adolescents, despite the occurrence in this group of significant developmental changes in emotional functioning. The current study employed multiple physiological measures (i.e.

Responsiveness to drug cues and natural rewards in opiate addiction: associations with later heroin use.

Context: Although drug cues reliably activate the brain's reward system, studies rarely examine how the processing of drug stimuli compares with natural reinforcers or relates to clinical outcomes.

Objectives: To determine hedonic responses to natural and drug reinforcers in long-term heroin users and to examine the utility of these responses in predicting future heroin use.

Design: Prospective design examining experiential, expressive, reflex modulation, and cortical/attentional responses to opiate-related and affective stimuli.

Impaired theory of mind in first-episode schizophrenia: comparison with community, university and depressed controls.

First order theory of mind, as measured by the 'Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test' Revised, is impaired in schizophrenia. However, no study has investigated whether this occurs in first-episode schizophrenia. Also, it is unclear whether such a deficit is specific to schizophrenia, and whether convenience control samples, particularly undergraduate university students, represent valid comparison groups.

Lateralization of the startle reflex circuit in humans: an examination with monaural probes following unilateral temporal lobe resection.

Startle reflex (SR) modulation elicited by monaural probes during affective picture viewing was investigated in patients following left temporal lobectomy (LTL; n = 8) and right temporal lobectomy (RTL; n = 10) and in controls (n = 18). All patients had undergone anteromedial temporal lobe (ATL) resection. LTL participants exhibited attenuated overall SR magnitude.