1,720,992 research outputs found
Clinical correlates of aberrant salience throughout the course of schizophrennia
No full textAberrant salience is the unusual or incorrect assignment of salience or significance to innocuous stimuli and has been hypothesized to be a central mechanism in the development of psychosis and for the profiling of vulnerability to psychosis . Although it has been well established that patients with psychotic disorders exhibit a more impairment in salience attribution when compared with non psychotic disorders , the research domain of aberrant salience is much broader and in fact transdiagnostic in nature. The aim of this study was to assess aberrant salience psychopathological differences between schizophrenia patients during the course of illness and patients without a psychotic disorder, in order to elucidate the role of the salience in mental illness. Furthermore, given the high suicide rate among different stages of schizophrenia, we aimed to evaluate the relationship between aberrant salience and suicide risk throughout the course of the illness. Sixteen individuals with a putative prodromal syndrome, 20 patients with first episode of schizophrenia (FES), 26 patients with multi-episode schizophrenia (MES) and 43 patients with general anxiety disorder (GAD) were assessed to examine salience attribution, clinical features and suicide risk. The results revealed no differences between the psychotic groups and the non-psychotic group, that is consistent with the continuum model of psychosis that posits that psychotic symptoms are distributed throughout the population, with diagnosable clinical disorder existing at a certain point along this continuum. Furthermore, we found aberrant salience more strongly correlated with psychopathological dimensions strictly related to the schizophrenia illness only at the early stage of the disease. At the onset of the disease, psychotic symptoms could be interpreted as a top-down cognitive explanation that individuals impose on experiences of aberrant salience, in attempt to make sense of what is perceived. This relationship is lost in chronicity, suggesting the existence of different mechanisms involved in maintenance of psychotic symptoms. Finilly, we found a relationship between more aberrant salience and more suicide ideation severity only in the FES group, suggesting the recommendation to evaluate for and treat aberrant salience in the early stage of schizophrenia in the perspective of suicide prevention
Suicidal ideation, perceived disability, hopelessness and affective temperaments in patients affected by Parkinson's disease
No full textBackground: Previous studies investigating the risk of suicide in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) have reported conflicting results. This study evaluated suicide risk in PD and investigated the relationship between suicide risk and perceived disability, hopelessness and affective temperaments in PD. Methods: One-hundred and twenty PD patients were consecutively enrolled. The diagnosis of PD was based on clinical criteria. All patients underwent a psychiatric evaluation that included the administration of the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale, the Italian Perceived Disability Scale, the Beck Hopelessness Inventory and the TEMPS-A questionnaire. The results were compared with those of a control group of 91 patients affected by another chronic disease, ie, open angle glaucoma. Results: Parkinson's disease patients had higher suicidal ideation, higher perceived disability and lower hyperthymia than the control group. In PD, higher perceived disability was associated with higher current and lifetime suicidal ideation, lower hyperthymia, older age and higher scores on negative temperaments. Suicidal ideation, negative temperaments and hopelessness were risk factors for perceived disability, while hyperthymia was a protective factor for perceived disability. Discussion: Patients with PD have an increased risk of suicidal ideation. Increased suicidal ideation in PD is associated with the increased perceived disability. A psychiatric assessment that includes the investigation of suicide risk and perceived disability is recommended in patients with PD
The clinical correlates of suicidal ideation in Parkinson's disease
Full text linkSuicidal ideation is increased in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. The possible relationship between parkinsonian motor and non-motor symptoms and suicidal ideation in PD is unknown. The aim of the study was to evaluate suicidal ideation in patients with PD in a controlled study specifically designed to identify the clinical correlates of PD suicidal ideation
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Neuroimaging in sleep medicine
No full textFunctional and structural neuroimaging provide a means to understand brain function in patients affected by sleep disorders. Herein, we describe neuroimaging findings of primary sleep disorders, including types of dyssomnia related to intrinsic sleep impairments (i.e., idiopathic insomnia, narcolepsy, and obstructive sleep apnea) and abnormal motor behaviors during sleep (i.e., periodic limb movement disorder, restless legs syndrome and rapid-eye-movement sleep behavior disorder). We also include functional neuroimaging studies in sleep complaints secondary to specific psychiatric disorders. Functional neuroimaging may address different kinds of issues in sleep medicine. Functional and structural neural changes can have a causal role in the pathophysiology of sleep disorders. Other changes in brain structure or regional activity can be considered as secondary consequences of long-term sleep disruption.
Neuroimaging studies can help to better understand the cognitive and neural responses to various therapeutic approaches. In the future, neuroimaging studies will probably lead to modify the nosography of sleep disorders on the basis of their underlying and characteristic neural correlates
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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