State of the art in psychological therapies for psychosis: Family interventions for psychosis.

Purpose: It is a half-century since the coalescence of social psychiatry and systemic family therapy approaches started to inform condition-specific therapeutic work with families to reduce relapse and hospital readmission for people with schizophrenia. Today, family interventions are a cornerstone of international guidelines for the treatment of psychosis, and of workforce development initiatives. Effect sizes for clinical and economic outcomes are large, and the evidence base is robust and reliable, not only for outcomes but also for the underpinning theoretical models, which are coherent and consistent.

Caregiver reports of patient-initiated violence in psychosis.

Objective: Aggressive behaviour in psychosis is not uncommon. Community provision for people with psychosis has left informal caregivers to take on a greater role in their care. However, few studies have explored links between patient-initiated violence in mental health caregiving relationships and caregiver functioning.

Preparation of collagen-glycosaminoglycan sponges with open surface porous structures using ice particulate template method.

Funnel-like sponges of collagen incorporated with glycosaminoglycan (GAG) were prepared by freeze-drying using ice particulates as templates. The funnel-like collagen-GAG sponges showed similar porous structures to those of funnel-like collagen sponges. The funnel-like collagen-GAG and collagen sponges have one top surface layer and one bulk porous layer.

Neural correlates of eye-gaze detection in young children with autism.

Various reports have demonstrated difficulties in eye-gaze processing in older children and adults with autism. However, little is known about the neural or developmental origin of such difficulties. In the present study, we used high-density Event-Related Potentials (HD-ERPs) to record the neural correlates of gaze processing in young children with autism, and their age-matched controls.

Exploring the Williams syndrome face-processing debate: the importance of building developmental trajectories.

Background: Face processing in Williams syndrome (WS) has been a topic of heated debate over the past decade. Initial claims about a normally developing ('intact') face-processing module were challenged by data suggesting that individuals with WS used a different balance of cognitive processes from controls, even when their behavioural scores fell within the normal range. Measurement of evoked brain potentials also point to atypical processes.

ERP abnormalities of illusory contour perception in Williams syndrome.

Williams syndrome is a genetic disorder in which visuo-spatial performance is poor. Theorists have claimed that the deficit lies in high-level processing, leaving low-level visual processes intact. We investigated this claim by examining an aspect of low-level processing, perceptual completion, i.

Further evidence of preserved priming and impaired recall in adults with Asperger's syndrome.

Two experiments compared incidental (implicit) and intentional (explicit) memory performance in adults with Asperger's syndrome and individually matched controls. Experiment 1 involved perceptual tests using word fragment cues, following study tasks in which the participants either generated the words from contextual cues or read the words alone, with no contextual cues. Experiment 2 involved conceptual tests using paired associate cues, following study tasks in which the paired associates were rated either for their relatedness or for their readability.

Dethroning the myth: cognitive dissociations and innate modularity in Williams syndrome.

Despite increasing empirical data to the contrary, it continues to be claimed that mor-phosyntax and face processing skills of people with Williams syndrome are intact. This purported intactness, which coexists with mental retardation, is used to bolster claims about innately specified, independently functioning modules, as if the atypically developing brain were simply a normal brain with parts intact and parts impaired. Yet this is highly unlikely, given the dynamics of brain development and the fact that in a genetic microdeletion syndrome the brain is developing differently from the moment of conception, throughout embryogenesis, and during postnatal brain growth.

Neuroimaging of typical and atypical development: a perspective from multiple levels of analysis.

To date, research involving functional neuroimaging of typical and atypical development has depended on several assumptions about the postnatal maturation of the brain. We consider evidence from multiple levels of analysis that brings into question these underlying assumptions and advance an alternative view. This alternative view, based on an "interactive specialization" approach to postnatal brain development, indicates that there is a need to: obtain data from early in development; focus more on differences in interregional interactions rather than searching for localized, discrete lesions; examine the temporal dynamics of neural processing; and move away from deficits to image tasks in which atypical participants perform as well as typically developing participants.