Semantic hyperpriming in schizophrenic patients: increased facilitation or impaired inhibition in semantic association processing?

International audiencePrevious studies analyzing semantic priming in schizophrenic patients have reported conflicting results. In the present study, we explored semantic priming in a sample of schizophrenic patients with mild thought disorders. We wondered if distinct cognitive processes, such as facilitation and/or inhibition, underlie semantic hyperpriming and are variously impaired in schizophrenic patients. Using a lexical decision task, we evaluated semantic priming in 15 schizophrenic patients (DSM-IV) with mild thought disorders and 15 healthy controls matched for sex, age, and education level. The task was designed to divide semantic priming into two additive components, namely facilitation effect and inhibition effect. One-sample t-tests were performed to investigate differences in semantic priming, facilitation, and inhibition within each group. ANOVAs were performed to compare the effects of semantic priming, facilitation, and inhibition between groups. Patients displayed greater semantic priming than controls (i.e., hyperpriming), but this was not due to increased facilitation in processing semantically related pairs. On the contrary, hyperpriming was the result of prolonged response time to process semantically unrelated pairs, corresponding to a requirement to inhibit unrelated information. We demonstrated semantic hyperpriming in stabilized schizophrenic patients with mild severity of symptoms. Thus, semantic hyperpriming may be an intrinsic feature of schizophrenia that is not related to the clinical state of patients. Semantic hyperpriming was due to an inhibition effect involved in processing semantically unrelated information not to increased facilitatory effect for related pairs

Psychopathologie du jeu multi-joueurs en ligne

International audienc

Traitement d'une phobie d'impulsion chez un patient psychotique

National audienceLa présence de troubles obsessionnels-compulsifs (TOC) comorbides chez les patients souffrant de psychose est fréquente. Parmi les TOC, les phobies d'impulsion se caractérisent par la peur de commettre, contre sa volonté, un acte auto - ou hétéro-agressif. Ces obsessions intolérables se cristalliseraient par un mécanisme compulsif de neutralisation. Nous rapportons le cas d'un patient psychotique qui présente ce type de trouble et la stratégie thérapeutique permettant de lutter contre la fusion de la pensée et de l'action. Si le processus de fusion pensée-action est bien à l'œuvre dans l'apparition des pensées obsessionnelles et des réponses compulsives qui en découlent, une telle prise en charge devrait permettre de diminuer l'angoisse induite. La stratégie cognitive avait pour objectif de défusionner la pensée et l'action et était étayée par des exercices comportementaux de confrontation progressive aux pensées obsessionnelles avec prévention de la réponse ritualisée et analyse des conséquences. Au terme de 18 séances, le patient a pu de nouveau se confronter aux situations anxiogènes avec une réduction du nombre d'obsessions impulsive

Differentiating men and women with schizophrenia according to their cognitive profiles

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Etude des effets d'amorçage sémantique dans la schizophrénie

CAEN-BU Médecine pharmacie (141182102) / SudocSudocFranceF

Cognition Sociale chez les patients schizophrènes : Quels rôles pour la reconnaissance des émotions faciales et la Théorie de l’esprit?

National audienc

Social cognition in schizophrenic patients: The effect of semantic content and prosody in the comprehension of emotional discourse

International audienceBACKGROUND The recognition of the emotion expressed during conversation relies on the integration of both semantic processing and decoding of emotional prosody. The integration of both types of elements is necessary for social interaction. No study has investigated how these processes are impaired in patients with schizophrenia during the comprehension of an emotional speech. Since patients with schizophrenia have difficulty in daily interactions, it would be of great interest to investigate how these processes are impaired. We tested the hypothesis that patients present lesser performances regarding both semantic and emotional prosodic processes during emotional speech comprehension compared with healthy participants. METHODS The paradigm is based on sentences built with emotional (anger, happiness, or sadness) semantic content uttered with or without congruent emotional prosody. The study participants had to decide with which of the emotional categories each sentence corresponded. RESULTS Patients performed significantly worse than their matched controls, even in the presence of emotional prosody, showing that their ability to understand emotional semantic content was impaired. Although prosody improved performances in both groups, it benefited the patients more than the controls. CONCLUSION Patients exhibited both impaired semantic and emotional prosodic comprehensions. However, they took greater advantage of emotional prosody adjunction than healthy participants. Consequently, focusing on emotional prosody during carrying may improve social communication

Staging's determinants in early intervention youth: a retrospective study

International audienceObjectives: Since 2019 our early intervention unit has assessed help-seekers, mainly referred by psychiatric departments, and we have conducted a descriptive retrospective study. Our objective was to identify clinical determinants associated to staging at assessment for our three groups: "no psychosis", "ultra-high risk" and "first episode psychosis".Methods: One hundred and thirteen participants (mean age 20.05±3.28) were enrolled, mainly referred by adult psychiatry (81.4%). We tested the association of each group with the following determinants: age, gender, family history of psychosis, referral (adolescent or adult psychiatry), cognitive, depressive complaint, cannabis active consumption, and current activity (scholar or employment).Results: Multivariate analyses showed significant association with depressive symptoms (P=0.019) but an absence of family history of psychosis (P=0.002) or current activity (P=0.09) for "no psychosis" group. "Ultra-high risk" was significantly correlated with a family history of psychosis (P=0.001) and adolescent psychiatry referral (P=0.044) but an absence of depressive complaint (P=0.04). As for "first episode psychosis", we found significant cognitive complaint (P=0.026), family history (P=0.024) and current activity (0.026).Conclusions: As all our participants were seen in tertiary care, adolescent psychiatrists were more efficient in detecting a high-risk state. "No psychosis" help-seekers presented in fact mood issues, which have been confused with attenuated psychotic symptoms by their addressers, who have probably been misled by their absence of activity integration. High-risk and characterized psychotic episodes were logically correlated with family history. Surprisingly, "first episode psychosis" youth were currently integrated in scholarly or professional life despite an active cognitive complaint. Robust studies, especially prospective cohorts, are needed to test these associations