Desire thinking as a confounder in the relationship between mindfulness and craving: Evidence from a cross-cultural validation of the Desire Thinking Questionnaire.

Desire thinking and mindfulness have been associated with craving. The aim of the present study was to validate the French version of the Desire Thinking Questionnaire (DTQ) and to investigate the relationship between mindfulness, desire thinking and craving among a sample of university students. Four hundred and ninety six university students completed the DTQ and measures of mindfulness, craving and alcohol use. Results from confirmatory factor analyses showed that the two-factor structure proposed in the original DTQ exhibited suitable goodness-of-fit statistics. The DTQ also demonstrated good internal reliability, temporal stability and predictive validity. A set of linear regressions revealed that desire thinking had a confounding effect in the relationship between mindfulness and craving. The confounding role of desire thinking in the relationship between mindfulness and craving suggests that interrupting desire thinking may be a viable clinical option aimed at reducing craving

Impulsiveness and Neuropsychological Performance in First Degree Relatives of Patients with Alcohol Dependence

International audienceAims: It is now well known that unaffected first-degree relatives of patients with alcohol disorder have electrophysiological abnormalities (less P3 amplitude). These abnormalities are associated with higher scores in impulsivity self-rating scales and are assumed to reflect central nervous system disinhibition and/or hyperexcitability. However very much less is known about the performance of this population in neuropsychological tests assessing executive functioning and in particular the inhibition process. Method: Thirty-five first-degree relatives of patients with alcohol dependence were compared to thirty-five healthy controls, matched in terms of age, gender and education level. They completed a self-rating scale of impulsiveness (Barratt Impulsiveness Scale) and a battery of neuropsychological tests. The test battery included the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, a measure of overall executive functioning, and two performance measures of inhibition process (a Stroop task and a Go-No Go task). Results: As expected, the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale showed differences between the two groups, with first-degree relatives having higher overall scores and increased scores in the non-planning subscale. Results from neuropsychological testing indicated significant differences among the three tasks (WCST, Stroop task and Go-No Go). Conclusion: Our findings are consistent with the view that unaffected first-degree relatives of patients with alcohol dependence show decrements in executive functioning and inhibition process. Studies are underway to identify genes associated with the underlying predisposition involved in disinhibitory disorders in this population

Amorçage perceptif pour du matériel non familier dans la maladie d’Alzheimer : Rôle de l’encodage

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Inference processing in adolescents with Asperger's Syndrome: Relationship with Theory of Mind abilities

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Remediation of context-processing deficits in schizophrenia: preliminary data with ambiguous sentences

Chrystel Besche-Richard,1,2 Sarah Terrien,1 Marion Lesgourgues,3,4 Célia Béchiri-Payet,5 Fabien Gierski,1,3 Frédéric Limosin6–8 1Laboratory Cognition, Santé, Socialisation, University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, France; 2Institut Universitaire de France, Paris, France; 3Centre Hospitalier Universitaire, Pôle de Psychiatrie des Adultes, Reims, France; 4Service Universitaire de Médecine Préventive et de Promotion de la Santé, University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, France; 5Etablissement Public de Santé mentale départemental de l’Aisne, Prémontré, France; 6Department of Adult and Geriatric Psychiatry, Hôpitaux Universitaires Paris, Ouest (Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Paris), Hôpital Corentin-Celton, Issy-les-Moulineaux, France; 7Faculty of Medicine, University Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France; 8Psychiatry and Neurosciences Center, French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U894, Paris, France Background: Processing of contextual information is essential for the establishment of good interpersonal relations and communicational interactions. Nevertheless, it is known that schizophrenic patients present impairments in the processing of contextual information. The aim of this study is to explore the influence of the remediation of context processing in schizophrenic patients. Methods: Thirty-one schizophrenic patients and 28 matched healthy participants were included in this study. All participants were assessed on verbal knowledge (Mill-Hill test) and depression intensity (Beck Depression Scale 21 items). Schizophrenic patients were also assessed on thought, language, and communication disorders (Thought, Language and Communication scale). All participants completed a disambiguation task with two different levels of contextualization (high or low context) and a context-processing remediation task containing social scenarios that included ambiguous words and were presented with two different types of instruction: with or without context explanation. Results: For the disambiguation task, results showed no effect of group, but a main effect of context, with better performances in the high-context than the low-context condition. For the context-processing remediation task, results showed a main effect of group: The performance of schizophrenic patients who had received explanations differed from that both of healthy participants and of schizophrenic patients who had not received explanations. Conclusion: This study revealed that for all participants, the structuring of context had a positive effect on the contextual integration of ambiguous words. Concerning the remediation task, explanations about the strategies that could be used to take context into account improved the schizophrenic patients’ performances. This allows us to consider new methods of remediation that could improve social interaction in schizophrenia. Keywords: schizophrenia, context information, remediation, semantic, subordinate meanin

Differential semantic processing in patients with schizophrenia versus bipolar disorder: an N400 study

International audienceOBJECTIVE: Both bipolar disorder (BD) and schizophrenia (SZ) are associated with language and thought symptoms that probably reflect a semantic memory-related impairment. We conducted a preliminary study to explore the nature of semantic processing in these disorders, using event-related potentials (ERPs).METHODS: Twelve patients with BD, 10 patients with SZ and a matched group of 21 healthy controls (HC) underwent EEG recording while they heard sentences containing homophones or control words and performed a semantic ambiguity resolution task on congruent or incongruent targets.RESULTS: Mean N400 amplitude differed between groups for homophones. Patients with SZ made more resolution errors than HC and exhibited a greater N400 congruity effect in ambiguous conditions than BD. In BD, the opposite N400 congruity effect was observed in ambiguous conditions.CONCLUSION: Results indicated differences in semantic processing between BD and SZ. Further studies with larger populations are needed in order to develop neurophysiological markers of these disorders

Great advances on binge drinking thanks to the binge drinking model of Consuelo Guerri's research group

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Positive and negative urgency as a single coherent construct: Evidence from a large-scale network analysis in clinical and non-clinical samples

Aims: Negative and positive urgency are emotion-related impulsivity traits that are thought to be transdiagnostic factors in psychopathology. However, it has recently been claimed that these two traits are closely related to each other and that considering them separately might have limited conceptual and methodological value. The present study aimed to examine whether positive and negative urgency constructs constitute separate impulsivity traits. Methods: In contrast to previous studies that have used latent variable approaches, this study employed an item-based network analysis conducted in two different samples: a large sample of non-clinical participants (N = 18,568) and a sample of clinical participants with psychiatric disorders (N = 385). Results: The network analysis demonstrated that items denoting both positive and negative urgency cohere as a single cluster of items termed “general urgency” in both clinical and non-clinical samples, thereby suggesting that differentiating positive and negative urgency as separate constructs is not necessary. Conclusion: These findings have important implications for the conceptualization and assessment of urgency and, more broadly, for future research on impulsivity, personality, and psychopathology