Data-driven vs. psychological personality temperaments: theoretical and clinical utility of personality measures in psychiatry.

Decades of research on personality identified dissociable psychological temperaments. Cloninger's temperament and character theory used a psychobiological approach to differentiate three major dimensions of personality: harm avoidance, novelty seeking, and reward dependence. Previous studies, heretofore, did not examine the correspondence between Cloninger's psychological temperaments and statistically independent data-driven components and how that could enhance the clinical utility of personality temperaments.

Learning from negative feedback in patients with major depressive disorder is attenuated by SSRI antidepressants.

One barrier to interpreting past studies of cognition and major depressive disorder (MDD) has been the failure in many studies to adequately dissociate the effects of MDD from the potential cognitive side effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) use. To better understand how remediation of depressive symptoms affects cognitive function in MDD, we evaluated three groups of subjects: medication-naïve patients with MDD, medicated patients with MDD receiving the SSRI paroxetine, and healthy control (HC) subjects. All were administered a category-learning task that allows for dissociation between learning from positive feedback (reward) vs.

Depression impairs learning, whereas the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, paroxetine, impairs generalization in patients with major depressive disorder.

To better understand how medication status and task demands affect cognition in major depressive disorder (MDD), we evaluated medication-naïve patients with MDD, medicated patients with MDD receiving the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) paroxetine, and healthy controls. All three groups were administered a computer-based cognitive task with two phases, an initial phase in which a sequence is learned through reward-based feedback (which our prior studies suggest is striatal-dependent), followed by a generalization phase that involves a change in the context where learned rules are to be applied (which our prior studies suggest is hippocampal-region dependent). Medication-naïve MDD patients were slow to learn the initial sequence but were normal on subsequent generalization of that learning.

Cross-national comparison of Middle Eastern university students: help-seeking behaviors, attitudes toward helping professionals, and cultural beliefs about mental health problems.

This study is the first to use identical data collection processes and instruments in Egypt, Kuwait, Palestine, and Israeli Arab communities regarding help-seeking behaviors and attitudes towards perceived cultural beliefs about mental health problems. Data is based on a survey sample of 716, undergraduate students in the 4 countries, 61% female and 39% male. Results indicate that respondents within the various countries, based on nationality, gender and level of education, vary in terms of recognition of personal need, beliefs about mental health problems (i.

Tomorrow's players under occupation: an analysis of the association of political violent with psychological functioning and domestic violence, among Palestinian youth.

A 2005 survey of 2,328 youth (ages 12 to 18) in the West Bank, Palestine, revealed an association between exposure to politically violent events, domestic violence, and school violence and with psychological symptomatology. Results also found associations between family violence, family economic status, and psychological symptomatology. Respondents reported low levels of family functioning.

Psychological Symptomatology Among Palestinian Adolescents Living with Political Violence.

Background:   The study examined the impact of the level of exposure to political violence on the psychological symptomatology of Palestinian adolescents in the West Bank, an area affected by the ongoing political violence between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Method:   A random sample of 1775 participants (54.1% males, 45.

Psychological symptomatology among Palestinian male and female adolescents living under political violence 2004-2005.

The aim of the study was to investigate gender differences in relation to exposure to domestic violence, political violence, family relations and psychological symptomatology in Palestinian adolescents. The sample consisted of 1766 adolescents, males (54.1%) and females (45.