Problems in measuring the JTC-bias in patients with psychotic disorders with the fish task: a secondary analysis of a baseline assessment of a randomized controlled trial.

Background: The jumping to conclusions bias (JTC) is considered to be an important causal factor in theoretical models for the formation and maintenance of delusions. However, recent meta-analytic findings show a rather equivocal pattern of results regarding associations between JTC and delusions. Thus, the present study aims to investigate in a large sample whether the JTC-bias is more pronounced in patients with psychotic disorders in comparison to controls and whether the JTC bias is associated with a more severe delusional conviction, persecutory delusions, and positive symptoms in general.

Theory of mind, emotion recognition, delusions and the quality of the therapeutic relationship in patients with psychosis - a secondary analysis of a randomized-controlled therapy trial.

Background: Cognitive models of psychosis postulate an important role of Theory of mind (ToM) in the formation and maintenance of delusions, but research on this plausible conjecture has gathered conflicting findings. In addition, it is still an open question whether problems in emotion recognition (ER) are associated with delusions. We examined the association of problems in ToM and ER with different aspects of delusions in a large sample of patients with psychosis enrolled in a therapy trial.

Why do bad things happen to me? Attributional style, depressed mood, and persecutory delusions in patients with schizophrenia.

Theoretical models postulate an important role of attributional style (AS) in the formation and maintenance of persecutory delusions and other positive symptoms of schizophrenia. However, current research has gathered conflicting findings. In a cross-sectional design, patients with persistent positive symptoms of schizophrenia (n = 258) and healthy controls (n = 51) completed a revised version of the Internal, Personal and Situational Attributions Questionnaire (IPSAQ-R) and assessments of psychopathology.

Nicotine enhances antisaccade performance in schizophrenia patients and healthy controls.

Nicotine has been proposed to be a cognitive enhancer, particularly in schizophrenia patients. So far, the published studies of nicotine effects on antisaccade performance in schizophrenia patients only tested participants who were deprived smokers. Thus, we aimed to test both smoking and non-smoking patients as well as healthy controls in order to extend previous findings.

The functional coding variant Asn107Ile of the neuropeptide S receptor gene (NPSR1) is associated with schizophrenia and modulates verbal memory and the acoustic startle response.

Recently, the neuropeptide S (NPS) neurotransmitter system has been identified as a promising psychopharmacological drug target given that NPS has shown anxiolytic-like and stress-reducing properties and memory-enhancing effects in rodent models. NPS binds to the G-protein-coupled receptor encoded by the neuropeptide S receptor gene (NPSR1). A functional variant within this gene leads to an amino-acid exchange (rs324981, Asn107Ile) resulting in a gain-of-function in the Ile107 variant which was recently associated with panic disorder in two independent studies.

A promoter variant of SHANK1 affects auditory working memory in schizophrenia patients and in subjects clinically at risk for psychosis.

Mutations in postsynaptic scaffolding genes contribute to autism, thus suggesting a role in pathological processes in neurodevelopment. Recently, two de novo mutations in SHANK3 were described in schizophrenia patients. In most cases, abnormal SHANK3 genotype was also accompanied by cognitive disruptions.

Novel schizophrenia risk gene TCF4 influences verbal learning and memory functioning in schizophrenia patients.

Background: Recently, a role of the transcription factor 4 (TCF4) gene in schizophrenia has been reported in a large genome-wide association study. It has been hypothesized that TCF4 affects normal brain development and TCF4 has been related to different forms of neurodevelopmental disorders. Schizophrenia patients exhibit strong impairments of verbal declarative memory (VDM) functions.

Multimodal motion processing in area V5/MT: evidence from an artificial class of audio-visual events.

Audio-visual integration in the human brain influences perception and precision of motor tasks. We tested audio-visual integration during height estimation when presenting video clips of counter movement jumps (CMJ), using sparse sampling fMRI at 3T. Employing the technique of "sonification", we created artificial auditory-visual motion events by transforming the ground reaction force of the CMJs into the auditory domain, modulating frequency and amplitude of the standard pitch "A" (440 Hz).