The course of marriage/sustained cohabitation and parenthood among borderline patients followed prospectively for 16 years.

The purpose of this study was to determine the rate of marriage/sustained cohabitation and parenthood reported by recovered and nonrecovered borderline patients, the age first undertaken, and the stability of these relationships. Borderline patients were interviewed about these topics during their index admission and eight times over 16 years of prospective follow-up. Recovered borderline patients were significantly more likely than nonrecovered borderline patients to have married/lived with an intimate partner and to have become a parent.

Reasons for self-mutilation reported by borderline patients over 16 years of prospective follow-up.

The main objective of this study was to assess the reasons for episodes of self-mutilation engaged in by patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) over 16 years of prospective follow-up. Two hundred and ninety patients meeting both DIB-R and DSM-III-R criteria for BPD were interviewed every 2 years. The authors divided the borderline patients into two groups: those with a more extensive and those with a less extensive lifetime history of self-mutilation at study entry.

Cognitive experiences reported by patients with borderline personality disorder and axis II comparison subjects: a 16-year prospective follow-up study.

Objective: The authors assessed three main types of disturbed cognition: nonpsychotic thought (odd thinking, unusual perceptual experiences, and nondelusional paranoia), quasi-psychotic thought, and true psychotic thought in patients with borderline personality disorder followed prospectively for 16 years. They also compared the rates of these disturbed cognitions with those reported by axis II comparison subjects.

Method: The cognitive experiences of 362 inpatients (290 borderline patients and 72 axis II comparison subjects) were assessed at study entry using the cognitive section of the Revised Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines.

Predictors of depressive symptoms at hospital discharge in patients with major depressive disorder.

Objective: Often patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) leave the hospital with continued significant symptomatology. This study sought to evaluate demographic, clinical, and psychosocial predictors of the presence of clinically significant depressive symptoms, defined as a Modified Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression score of ≥ 14, immediately following hospitalization for MDD.

Methods: The study enrolled 135 patients with MDD as part of a larger clinical trial investigating the efficacy of post-hospitalization pharmacologic and psychosocial treatments for depressed inpatients.

The functional assessment of maladaptive behaviors: a preliminary evaluation of binge eating and purging among women.

This study applied a functional approach to the study of bingeing and purging behaviors. Based on a four-function theoretical model of bingeing and purging, it was hypothesized that these behaviors are performed because of their intrapersonally reinforcing (e.g.

The emotion reactivity scale: development, evaluation, and relation to self-injurious thoughts and behaviors.

Prior research has examined the relations between various facets of emotion and psychopathology, with a great deal of recent work highlighting the importance of emotion regulation strategies. Much less attention has been given to the examination of emotion reactivity. This study reports on the development and evaluation of the Emotion Reactivity Scale (ERS), a 21-item self-report measure of emotion sensitivity, intensity, and persistence, among a sample of 87 adolescents and young adults.

Parental expressed emotion and adolescent self-injury.

Objective: This study examined the relationship between parental expressed emotion (EE) and adolescent self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITB), as well as potential mediators and moderators of this relationship.

Method: Thirty-six adolescents ages 12 to 17 years recruited from the community (2004-2005) provided data. Parents of the adolescents completed the Five-Minute Speech Sample, a performance-based measure of EE, and adolescents completed interviews and rating scales assessing SITB, mental disorders, and related constructs.

A functional MRI study of amygdala responses to angry schematic faces in social anxiety disorder.

Neuroimaging studies using angry or contemptuous human facial photographic stimuli have suggested amygdala hyper-responsivity in social anxiety disorder (SAD). We sought to determine if an angry "schematic face" (simple line drawing) would evoke exaggerated amygdalar responses in SAD patients compared with healthy control (HC) subjects. Angry, happy, and neutral schematic faces were overtly presented to matched cohorts of 11 SAD and 11 HC subjects for passive viewing, whereas brain functional magnetic resonance imaging signal was measured at 1.

Brain activation during implicit sequence learning in individuals with trichotillomania.

Trichotillomania (TTM) may be related to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and other neuropsychiatric conditions characterized by cortico-striatal dysfunction. Functional imaging studies of OCD using an implicit learning task have found abnormalities in striatal and hippocampal activation. The current study investigated whether similar abnormalities occur in TTM.

Fear conditioning and extinction: influence of sex and menstrual cycle in healthy humans.

Although sex differences have been demonstrated in behavioral paradigms of fear conditioning, the findings have been inconsistent, and fear extinction has been little studied. The present study investigated the influence of sex and menstrual cycle phase on the recall of fear extinction. Three groups of healthy adult participants were studied: women at 2 different phases of the menstrual cycle (early follicular [early cycle] and late follicular [midcycle]) and men.

A diffusion tensor imaging study of white matter in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Our objective was to test for differences between subjects with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and healthy controls with respect to white matter architecture within the cingulum bundle (CB) and anterior limb of the internal capsule (ALIC). We studied eight subjects with active OCD and 10 matched healthy controls using diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DT-MRI) at 1.5 T (Tesla).

Subtle neurologic compromise as a vulnerability factor for combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder: results of a twin study.

Context: Previous studies have demonstrated subtle neurologic dysfunction in chronic posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) manifest as increased neurologic soft signs (NSSs). The origin of this dysfunction is undetermined.

Objective: To resolve competing origins of increased NSSs in PTSD, namely, preexisting vulnerability factor vs acquired PTSD sign.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging study of regional brain activation during implicit sequence learning in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Background: Corticostriatal circuitry has been implicated in the pathophysiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The serial reaction time (SRT) task, a paradigm that tests implicit sequence learning, has been used with imaging to probe striatal function. Initial studies have indicated that OCD patients exhibit deficient striatal activation and aberrant hippocampal recruitment compared with healthy control (HC) subjects.

Neuroanatomical correlates of extraversion and neuroticism.

Introversion/extraversion and neuroticism are 2 important and frequently studied dimensions of human personality. These dimensions describe individual differences in emotional responding across a range of situations and may contribute to a predisposition for psychiatric disorders. Recent neuroimaging research has begun to provide evidence that neuroticism and introversion/extraversion have specific functional and structural neural correlates.

Novel fearful faces activate the amygdala in healthy young and elderly adults.

Activation of the amygdala to emotionally valenced stimuli, and particularly to fearful faces, has been widely demonstrated in healthy young adults. However, recent studies assessing amygdala responses to fearful emotional faces in the normal elderly have not shown similar results. The reason for this is uncertain, but it may relate to life-span developmental changes in processing emotional stimuli or structural alterations in the amygdala with aging.

Brain correlates of negative and positive visuospatial priming in adults.

A balance of inhibitory and facilitatory mechanisms is essential for efficient and goal-directed behaviors. These mechanisms may go awry in several neuropsychiatric disorders characterized by uncontrolled, repetitive behaviors. The visuospatial priming paradigm is a well-established probe of inhibition and facilitation that has been used to demonstrate behavioral deficits in patients with Tourette syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Differential amygdala habituation to neutral faces in young and elderly adults.

Habituation is a highly adaptive property of the nervous system, which allows for the allocation of attention and other cognitive resources to more imperative environmental events. The amygdala is an important site of habituation in humans, but no studies to date have examined the effects of aging on amygdala habituation. Given the amygdala's role in evaluating the salience of a stimulus and initiating behavioral responses, the potential importance of amygdala habituation in aging may be far-reaching.

A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex responses to overtly presented fearful faces in posttraumatic stress disorder.

Background: Previous functional neuroimaging studies have demonstrated exaggerated amygdala responses and diminished medial prefrontal cortex responses during the symptomatic state in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Objectives: To determine whether these abnormalities also occur in response to overtly presented affective stimuli unrelated to trauma; to examine the functional relationship between the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex and their relationship to PTSD symptom severity in response to these stimuli; and to determine whether responsivity of these regions habituates normally across repeated stimulus presentations in PTSD.

Design: Case-control study.

Amygdala responses to human faces in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Background: To assess the amygdala response to emotional faces in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Methods: Ten subjects with current OCD and 10 healthy control subjects underwent fMRI, during which they viewed pictures of fearful, happy, and neutral human faces, as well as a fixation cross.

Results: Across both groups, there was significant activation in left and right amygdala for the fearful versus neutral faces contrast.