Cultures régionales et développement économique dans l’espace rhénan et au-delà

La pensée et la vie économique contemporaines sont très largement dominées par le dogme de l’école néoclassique et néolibérale autrichienne suivant lequel l’organisation sociale peut être entièrement comprise à partir de deux hypothèses : la société se réduit à l’économique et les activités économiques sont exclusivement expliquées par la rationalité utilitariste des individus. Cette approche rend inutile, au moins dans la sphère économique, la constitution d’un cadre culturel collectif fondé sur des préférences et des valeurs spécifiques à une communauté située. Or un grand nombre de travaux pluridisciplinaires confirment le bien-fondé des observations de Karl Polanyi et le maintien de la dimension culturelle, au cœur de l’activité économique, notamment dans l’entreprise et dans les territoires. Le présent travail commente les apports de deux ouvrages collectifs : le premier consacré à l’entreprise rhénane et le second dédié aux relations entre les cultures régionales et le développement économique. En s’appuyant sur la littérature qui lui est consacré, l’article interroge la nature du modèle rhénan. Il montre également comment les cultures régionales parviennent à enrichir la sphère économique, en dépassant l’individualisme méthodologique, pour construire une culture territoriale du développement.Contemporary economic thought is overwhelmingly dominated by the dogma of the neoclassical school and the Austrian neoliberal school, according to which social organization can fully be understood from two hypotheses: the society can be reduced to its economic aspects, and economic activities are exclusively explained by the utilitarist rationality of individuals. This approach makes unnecessary, at least in the economic sphere, the construction of a collective cultural framework based on preferences and values specific of a “situated” community. Now, many multidisciplinary works confirm the validity of Karl Polanyi’s observations and the embedment of cultural aspects in the economic activity, especially within the firms and the territories. This paper discusses the contributions of two collective works: the first book devoted to the Rhine area’s model of firm; the second devoted to the relationships between regional cultures and economic development. Based on the literature on this subject, the paper questions the nature of such a model. It also shows how regional cultures succeed to enrich the economic sphere, beyond the methodological individualism, through the construction of a culture of development

Advanced paternal age and vulnerability to psychotic-like experiences in the offspring

AbstractObjectiveTo investigate whether advanced paternal age is associated with increased psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) and increased sensitivity to Cannabis in the offspring.MethodsA cross-sectional population-based study in 1684 participants aged 18 to 25.ResultsWe found no association of paternal age with PLEs. Only the positive dimension subscale was associated to paternal age, but that could be largely contributed to outliers. Also no increased sensitivity to Cannabis smoking was apparent.ConclusionIn the general population, we did not find robust support for an association between paternal age and vulnerability to PLEs in 18–25year old offspring

Sexual dysfunction in first-episode schizophrenia patients: results from European First Episode Schizophrenia Trial

Sexual dysfunctions (SDs) occur frequently in schizophrenia patients and have a huge impact on quality of life and compliance. They are often associated with antipsychotic medication. Nicotine consumption, negative or depressive symptoms, and physical illness are also discussed as contributing factors. Data on SD in first-episode schizophrenia patients are scarce.As part of the European First Episode Schizophrenia Trial, first-episode schizophrenia patients were randomly assigned to 5 medication groups. We assessed SD by analyzing selected items from the Udvalg for Kliniske Undersugelser at baseline and at 5 following visits.Differences between antipsychotics were small for all SDs, and fairly little change in the prevalence of SDs was seen over the course of the study. A significantly larger increase of amenorrhea and galactorrhea was seen with amisulpride than with the other medications. In men, higher age, more pronounced Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale general psychopathology symptoms, and higher plasma prolactin levels predicted higher rates of erectile and ejaculatory dysfunctions. Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale negative symptoms and higher age were predictors for decreased libido.In women, higher prolactin plasma levels were identified as a predictor of amenorrhea. Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale negative symptoms predicted decreased libido.All evidence taken together underscores the influence of the disease schizophrenia itself on sexual functioning. In addition, there is a strong correlation between the prolactin-increasing properties of amisulpride and menstrual irregularities

The Association Between Emotion Recognition, Affective Empathy, and Structural Connectivity in Schizophrenia Patients

INTRODUCTION: Emotion processing deficits often occur in patients with schizophrenia. We investigate whether patients and controls differ in the association between facial emotion recognition and experience of affective empathy and whether performance on these emotion processing domains differently relates to white matter connectivity. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Forty-seven patients with schizophrenia and 47 controls performed an emotion recognition and affective empathy task. T1-weighted and diffusion-tensor images (DTI) of the brain were acquired. Using Tracula 5.3, ten fibers were reconstructed and fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (AD), and radial diffusivity (RD) were extracted. Groups were compared on task performance, white matter measures and their interactions using ANCOVAs. Correction for multiple comparisons was applied. RESULTS: Patients scored lower on emotion recognition (p = 0.037) and reported higher levels of affective empathy (p < 0.001) than controls. Patients with poor emotion recognition (PT-low) experienced stronger affective empathy than patients with similar emotion recognition performance as controls (PT-normal; p = 0.011), who in turn reported stronger affective empathy than controls (p = 0.043). We found a significant interaction between emotion recognition, affective empathy and anterior thalamic radiation AD (p = 0.017, d = 0.43). Post hoc analyses revealed that the correlation between AD and empathy differed significantly between all groups (empathy/AD in PT-low < empathy/AD in PT-normal < empathy/AD in controls). DISCUSSION: In patients with poor emotion recognition, the negative association between anterior thalamic radiation AD and affective empathy was stronger than in patients with normal emotion recognition capacity. Possibly, axonal damage in fronto-thalamic structural connections, as part of a larger frontotemporal network, underlies the association between poor emotion recognition and higher levels of affective empathy in schizophrenia patients

The Measurement of Language Lateralization with Functional Transcranial Doppler and Functional MRI: A Critical Evaluation

Cerebral language lateralization can be assessed in several ways. In healthy subjects, functional MRI (fMRI) during performance of a language task has evolved to be the most frequently applied method. Functional transcranial Doppler (fTCD) may provide a valid alternative, but has been used rarely. Both techniques have their own strengths and weaknesses and as a result may be applied in different fields of research. Until now, only one relatively small study (n = 13) investigated the correlation between lateralization indices (LIs) measured by fTCD and fMRI and showed a remarkably high correlation. To further evaluate the correlation between LIs measured with fTCD and fMRI, we compared LIs of 22 healthy subjects (12 left- and 10 right-handed) using the same word generation paradigm for the fTCD as for the fMRI experiment. LIs measured with fTCD were highly but imperfectly correlated with LIs measured with fMRI (Spearman's rho = 0.75, p < 0.001). The imperfectness of the correlation can partially be explained by methodological restrictions of fMRI as well as fTCD. Our results suggest that fTCD can be a valid alternative for fMRI to measure lateralization, particularly when costs or mobility are important factors in the study design

Lower fractional anisotropy without evidence for neuro-inflammation in patients with early-phase schizophrenia spectrum disorders

Various lines of research suggest immune dysregulation as a potential therapeutic target for negative and cognitive symptoms in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD). Immune dysregulation would lead to higher extracellular free-water (EFW) in cerebral white matter (WM), which may partially underlie the frequently reported lower fractional anisotropy (FA) in SSD. We aim to investigate differences in EFW concentrations – a presumed proxy for neuro-inflammation – between early-phase SSD patients (n = 55) and healthy controls (HC; n = 37), and to explore immunological and cognitive correlates. To increase specificity for EFW, we study several complementary magnetic resonance imaging contrasts that are sensitive to EFW. FA, mean diffusivity (MD), magnetization transfer ratio (MTR), myelin water fraction (MWF) and quantitative T1 and T2 were calculated from diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), magnetization transfer imaging (MTI) and multicomponent driven equilibrium single-pulse observation of T1/T2 (mcDESPOT). For each measure, WM skeletons were constructed with tract-based spatial statistics. Multivariate SSD-HC comparisons with WM skeletons and their average values (i.e. global WM) were not statistically significant. In voxel-wise analyses, FA was significantly lower in SSD in the genu of the corpus callosum and in the left superior longitudinal fasciculus (p < 0.04). Global WM measures did not correlate with immunological markers (i.e. IL1-RA, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10 and CRP) or cognition in HC and SSD after corrections for multiple comparisons. We confirmed lower FA in early-phase SSD patients. However, non–FA measures did not provide additional evidence for immune dysregulation or for higher EFW as the primary mechanism underlying the reported lower FA values in SSD