A Theory of Mind investigation into the appreciation of visual jokes in schizophrenia

BACKGROUND: There is evidence that groups of people with schizophrenia have deficits in Theory of Mind (ToM) capabilities. Previous studies have found these to be linked to psychotic symptoms (or psychotic symptom severity) particularly the presence of delusions and hallucinations. METHODS: A visual joke ToM paradigm was employed where subjects were asked to describe two types of cartoon images, those of a purely Physical nature and those requiring inferences of mental states for interpretation, and to grade them for humour and difficulty. Twenty individuals with a DSM-lV diagnosis of schizophrenia and 20 healthy matched controls were studied. Severity of current psychopathology was measured using the Krawiecka standardized scale of psychotic symptoms. IQ was estimated using the Ammons and Ammons quick test. RESULTS: Individuals with schizophrenia performed significantly worse than controls in both conditions, this difference being most marked in the ToM condition. No relationship was found for poor ToM performance and psychotic positive symptomatology, specifically delusions and hallucinations. CONCLUSION: There was evidence for a compromised ToM capability in the schizophrenia group on this visual joke task. In this instance this could not be linked to particular symptomatology

Visual statistical learning and integration of perceptual priors are intact in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

BackgroundDeficits in visual statistical learning and predictive processing could in principle explain the key characteristics of inattention and distractibility in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Specifically, from a Bayesian perspective, ADHD may be associated with flatter likelihoods (increased sensory processing noise), and/or difficulties in generating or using predictions. To our knowledge, such hypotheses have never been directly tested.MethodsWe here test these hypotheses by evaluating whether adults diagnosed with ADHD (n = 17) differed from a control group (n = 30) in implicitly learning and using low-level perceptual priors to guide sensory processing. We used a visual statistical learning task in which participants had to estimate the direction of a cloud of coherently moving dots. Unbeknown to the participants, two of the directions were more frequently presented than the others, creating an implicit bias (prior) towards those directions. This task had previously revealed differences in other neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autistic spectrum disorder and schizophrenia.ResultsWe found that both groups acquired the prior expectation for the most frequent directions and that these expectations substantially influenced task performance. Overall, there were no group differences in how much the priors influenced performance. However, subtle group differences were found in the influence of the prior over time.ConclusionOur findings suggest that the symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity in ADHD do not stem from broad difficulties in developing and/or using low-level perceptual priors

Structural brain changes in First Episode Schizophrenia compared with Fronto-Temporal Lobar Degeneration: a meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: The authors sought to compare gray matter changes in First Episode Schizophrenia (FES) compared with Fronto-Temporal Lobar Degeneration (FTLD) using meta-analytic methods applied to neuro-imaging studies. METHODS: A systematic search was conducted for published, structural voxel-based morphometric MRI studies in patients with FES or FTLD. Data were combined using anatomical likelihood estimation (ALE) to determine the extent of gray matter decreases and analysed to ascertain the degree of overlap in the spatial distribution of brain changes in both diseases. RESULTS: Data were extracted from 18 FES studies (including a total of 555 patients and 621 comparison subjects) and 20 studies of FTLD or related disorders (including a total of 311 patients and 431 comparison subjects). The similarity in spatial overlap of brain changes in the two disorders was significant (p = 0.001). Gray matter deficits common to both disorders included bilateral caudate, left insula and bilateral uncus regions. CONCLUSIONS: There is a significant overlap in the distribution of structural brain changes in First Episode Schizophrenia and Fronto-Temporal Lobar Degeneration. This may reflect overlapping aetiologies, or a common vulnerability of these regions to the distinct aetio-pathological processes in the two disorders.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Meeting Curation Challenges in a Neuroimaging Group

The SCARP project is a series of short studies with two aims; firstly to discover more about disciplinary approaches and attitudes to digital curation through ‘immersion’ in selected cases; secondly to apply known good practice, and where possible, identify new lessons from practice in the selected discipline areas. The study summarised here is of the Neuroimaging Group in the University of Edinburgh’s Division of Psychiatry, which plays a leading role in eScience collaborations to improve the infrastructure for neuroimaging data integration and reuse. The Group also aims to address growing data storage and curation needs, given the capabilities afforded by new infrastructure. The study briefly reviews the policy context and current challenges to data integration and sharing in the neuroimaging field. It then describes how curation and preservation risks and opportunities for change were identified throughout the curation lifecycle; and their context appreciated through field study in the research site. The results are consistent with studies of neuroimaging eInfrastructure that emphasise the role of local data sharing and reuse practices. These sustain mutual awareness of datasets and experimental protocols through sharing peer to peer, and among senior researchers and students, enabling continuity in research and flexibility in project work. This “human infrastructure” is taken into account in considering next steps for curation and preservation of the Group’s datasets and a phased approach to supporting data documentation