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Query: UMLS:C0036341 (schizophrenia)
 60,220 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The common theoretical speculation that alexithymic personality characteristics (impoverished fantasy life and difficulty expressing feelings verbally) lead to psychosomatic disease was tested in a sample of 181 men. Unlike previous investigations, this study used a measure of alexithymic characteristics taken at least 1 year before any of the men became ill. Comparisons were made of the premorbid MMPI alexithymia scale scores of groups of men who remained well for 10 years or within 10 years developed either physical illness (cancer or benign tumors), "classical" psychosomatic disease (hypertension or gastrointestinal ulcers), or psychiatric disorder (schizophrenia). Results did not support the notion that alexithymia leads to illness onset. There were no significant differences among the groups in their premorbid alexithymia scores. Furthermore, the groups did not differ in the percentage of individuals labeled alexithymic with the use of previously established cut-off points. Although the findings cast doubt on alexithymia as a cause of illness, they do not conflict with the idea that alexithymia can result from the stress of disease or that this type of personality configuration may lead to a decreased response to treatment and a prolonged course of illness.
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PMID:Do alexithymic traits predict illness? 685 90

The purpose of this study is to verify whether an increasing degree of alexithymia correlates with a prevalence of negative over positive symptoms. The framework of the research is phenomenologically oriented conception of the illness-coping vulnerability paradigm. Schizophrenic basic symptoms as markers of schizotropic process activity were assessed with the Frankfurter Beschwerde-Fragebogen, and cognitive features of the personological matrix were investigated using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. Our findings on a sample of 20 longitudinally followed outpatients advocate the hypothesis that among those factors characterizing the tendency towards the nonparanoid prototype of schizophrenia, impairment of language capacity and alexithymia may have a relevant role.
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PMID:Alexithymia and schizophrenias. 855 50

Coined by Sifneos in 1972, alexithymia refers to a relative narrowing in emotional functioning, an inability to find appropriate words to describe their emotions, and a poverty of fantasy life. Although initially described in the context of psychosomatic illness, alexithymic characteristics may be observed in patients with a wide range of medical and psychiatric disorders: Parkinson disease, depression, anxiety, substance abuse and eating disorders. Flattening of affect and poverty of speech, major negative symptoms, referred to chronic schizophrenia: there is a lack of outward display of emotions. Accordingly, some disturbances of alexithymia's scores would be expected in schizophrenic patients. The aims of this study were: first to establish some correlations between alexithymia and some symptoms of schizophrenia, and second to estimate the intensity of alexithymia in negative versus positive and undifferentiated schizophrenic patients. Twenty-nine patients, meeting DSM III-R criteria for schizophrenia have been studied. All of them treated by neuroleptics, were in a stable clinical status for at least one month. The patients were assessed by one trained psychiatrist (IN) using six rating scales: Beth Israel Questionnaire (BIQ) for alexithymia, Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Depressive Retardation Rating Scale (DRRS), Montgomery and Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), revised Physical Anhedonia Scale (PAS), and finally, Extrapyramidal Symptom Rating Scale (ESRS). In the total sample, the mean score of BIQ was 4.79 +/- 1.68 (mean +/- SD). Significant correlations were found between alexithymia and blunted affect (r = 0.376; p < 0.05), poverty of speech (r = 0.471; p < 0.01), anxiety (r = 0.370; p < 0.05), total score of DRRS (r = 0.370; p < 0.05), and motor subscore of DRRS (r = 0.429; p < 0.05). The patients with negative symptoms of schizophrenia had significantly higher total scores in alexithymia (p < 0.05), blunted affect (p < 0.0001), poverty of speech (p < 0.0001), anxiety (p < 0.05), total score of DRRS (p = 0.01) and his motor subscore (p < 0.0001) as compared to positive and undifferentiated subtypes. In our study, alexithymia seems to be correlated with negative and depressive symptoms in negative forms of schizophrenia, regardless of medication status.
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PMID:[Negative symptoms, depression, anxiety and alexithymia in DSM III-R schizophrenic patients]. 941 92

Coined by Sifneos in 1972, alexithymia refers to a relative narrowing in emotional functioning, an inability to find appropriate words to describe their emotions and, a poverty of fantasy life. Although initially described in the context of psychosomatic illness, alexithymic characteristics may be observed in patients with a wide range of medical and psychiatric disorders: Parkinson disease, depression, anxiety, substance abuse and eating disorders. Flattening of affect and poverty of speech, major negative symptoms, referred to chronic schizophrenia: there is a lack of outward display of emotion. Accordingly, some disturbances of alexithymia's scores would be expected in schizophrenic patients. The purpose of this study was to estimate and compare the prevalence of alexithymia in deficit and non-deficit schizophrenia. The term "deficit symptoms" may be used as Carpenter, to refer specifically to those negative symptoms that are not considered secondary. The influence of patients' symptoms has also been studied on alexithymia scores: negative and positive symptoms of schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, anhedonia and effects of neuroleptics. Twenty-five patients, meeting DSM III-R criteria for schizophrenia have been studied. All of them treated by neuroleptics, were in a stable clinical status for at least one month. The patients have been categorized into deficit (n = 12) and non-deficit (n = 13) subgroups by one trained psychiatrist (SD), using the Schedule for the Deficit Syndrome. The subjects have been assessed by the same rater (IN), blind to deficit status, using six rating scales: Beth Israel Questionnaire (BIQ) and Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) for alexithymia, Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Montgomery and Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), revised Physical Anhedonia Scale (PAS), and finally, Extrapyramidal Symptom Rating Scale (ESRS). Using TAS, alexithymic characteristics were more prevalent in the deficit subgroup as compared to non-deficit subgroup (83% versus 30.76%; p < 0.01). Significant correlations were observed in the non-deficit subgroup between: TAS and anxiety (r = 0.743; p < 0.01), TAS and depression (r = 0.568; p < 0.05), BIQ and blunted affect (r = 0.636; p < 0.02), BIQ and poverty of speech (r = 0.629; p < 0.02). These correlations were not significant in the deficit group of patients. Alexithymia in schizophrenic patients seems to be a trait characteristic in deficit patients, and a state related to many symptoms, such as flattening of affect, poverty of speech, depression and anxiety in nondeficit patients.
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PMID:[Alexithymia in negative symptom and non-negative symptom schizophrenia]. 945 28

This study assessed a relationship between alexithymia and schizophrenia suggested by reports based on small samples of patients. Here, 50 outpatients with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia were compared with 50 pair-matched healthy subjects. Alexithymia was measured by the Polish version of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20. The mean total score was significantly higher in the schizophrenia group (M = 52.3, SD = 13.47) than in the healthy controls (M = 45.8, SD = 11.39, p < .02). This replicates earlier findings showing that a group of patients with paranoid schizophrenia have higher scores on alexithymia scales than healthy controls. There seems a need for a comprehensive examination of relations between alexithymia and other concepts denoting pathology of affect in schizophrenia.
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PMID:Alexithymia in schizophrenia: an exploratory study. 1172 58

The principal concern of this paper lies in the exploration of the possible role of the subjective experience of language impairment in shaping schizophrenic symptomatology. A previous model embracing the basic symptom theory and the vulnerability paradigm hypothesized that (self-perceived) impairment of receptive and expressive language and alexithymia may play a relevant role in facilitating the development of a nonparanoid prototype of schizophrenia. The experimental protocol which led to this model [emphasizing the comprehensive notion of 'language capacity' as pathoplastic modulator of overt schizophrenic syndromes (i.e. pathoplastic model)] was replicated on a wider schizophrenic sample, assessing contextually with diagnostic symptoms, depressive symptoms, alexithymia, subjective experience of negative symptoms and hedonic capacity. Since schizophrenics with self-experienced language capacity impairment did not differ from other schizophrenics, as regards positive, negative and disorganized symptoms, but just in negative symptom-related distress, an alternative interpretation of the possible role of the subjective experience of language impairment in schizophrenic psychopathology is proposed (i.e. idioplastic hypothesis).
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PMID:Subjective experience of language impairment and psychopathology in schizophrenia. 1267 88

Existent neurocognitive models of schizophrenia converge towards a core of impairments involving working memory, context processing, action planning, controlled and intentional processing. However, the emergence of this core remains itself difficult to explain and more specific hypotheses do not explain the heterogeneity of schizophrenia. To overcome these limits, we propose a new paradigm based on representational theory from cognitive science. Some recent developments of this theory enable us to describe a subjective universe as a representational space which is displayed from memory. We outline a conceptual framework to construct such a representational space from analogical -representations that can be activated in working memory and are connected to a network of symbolic structures. These connections are notably made through an analytic process of the analogical fragments, which involves the attentional focus. This framework allows us to define rigorously some defense processes in response to traumatic tensions that are expressed on the representational space. The fragmentation of representational space is a consequence of a defensive denial based on an impairment of the analytic process. The fragmentation forms some parasitic areas in memory which are excluded from the main part of the representational space and disturb information processing. The key clinical concepts of paranoid syndromes can be defined in this conceptual framework: mental automatism, delusional intuition, acute destructuration, psychotic dissociation, and autistic withdrawal. We show that these syndromes imply each other, which in return increases the fragmentation of the representational space. Some new concepts emerge naturally in this framework, such as the concept of "suture" which is defined as a link between a parasitic area and the main representational space. Schizophrenia appears as a borderline case of fragmentation of the representational space. This conceptual framework is compatible with numerous etiological factors. Multiple clinical forms can be differentiated in accordance with the persistence of parasitic areas, the degree of fragmentation, and the formation of sutures. We use this approach to account for an empirical study concerning the analysis of analogical representations in schizophrenia. We used the Parallel Visual Information Processing Test (PVIPT) which assesses the analysis of interfering visual information. Subjects were asked to connect several small geometric figures printed on a transparency. The transparency was displayed above four photographs which were the interfering material. Then, subjects completed three tasks concerning the photographs: a recognition task, a recall task, and an affective qualification task. Using a case-by-case study, this test allows us to access the defense processes of the subjects, which is not possible with the usual methods in cognitive psychopathology. Twelve clinically-stable schizophrenic subjects participated in the study which also included a self-assessment of alexithymia by the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. We obtained 2 main results: (a) creation of items in recall or false recognition by 8 subjects, and (b) lack of the usual -negative correlations between the alexithymia score and the recall, recognition and affective qualification scores in the PVIPT. These 2 results contrast with what has been previously observed for alexithymia using the same methodology. The result (a) confirms an interfering activation in schizophrenic memory, which can be interpreted in our framework as indicative of parasitic areas. The creation of items suggests the formation of sutures between the semantic content of photographs and some delusional fragments. The result (b) suggests that the apparent alexithymia in schizophrenia is a defense against interfering activation in parasitic areas. We underline the interest of individual protocols to exhibit the dynamic interplay between an interfering activity in memory and a defensive flattening of affects.
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PMID:[The fragmentation of representational space in schizophrenia]. 1461 89

Symptoms of psychosis have been proposed to form part of a continuous distribution of experiences in the general population rather than being an all-or-nothing phenomenon. Indeed, schizotypal signs have been reported in subjects from non-clinical samples. Emotional processing has been documented to be deficient in schizophrenia. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis whether putatively psychosis-prone subjects would show abnormalities in emotion processing. Based on the extremes of Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale (LSHS) ratings of 200 undergraduate students, two groups of subjects (total N=40) were selected. All 40 participants filled in the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ). We compared both groups on an alexithymia questionnaire and on four behavioral emotional information processing tasks. Hallucination-proneness was associated with an increased subjective emotional arousal and fantasy-proneness. Although no differences between the high and low group were observed on three behavioral emotion processing tasks, on the affective word-priming task presentation of emotional stimuli was associated with longer reactions times to neutral words in high schizotypal subjects. Also, SPQ scores correlated with several emotion processing tasks. We conclude that these findings lend partial support to the hypothesis of continuity between symptoms characteristic of schizophrenia and psychosis-related phenomena in the normal population.
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PMID:Emotional processing in a non-clinical psychosis-prone sample. 1509 9

This research is an attempt to gain a comprehensive insight into alexithymia in schizophrenia. Previous studies offered clinically-descriptive and phenomenologically oriented suggestions regarding alexithymia putative contribution in shaping schizophrenic psychopathology. However, the factorial structure of the scales used to assess alexithymia had never been applied to a schizophrenic sample as a preliminary step to interpret results, thus assuming the purported dimensions of the alexithymia construct (i.e. difficulties identifying feelings, difficulties describing feelings, and externally oriented thinking) to be transnosographically stable. In order to explore the psychopathologic meaning and interrelations with other schizophrenic symptoms, we evaluated 76 chronic schizophrenic outpatients using the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, standardized measures of positive, negative, disorganized and depressive symptoms, social and physical anhedonia scales, and the Bonn Scale for the Assessment of Basic Symptoms. The principal component analysis ofTAS-20 items revealed a 4-factor structure with multiple correlations with psychotic, disorganized, depressive, anhedonic dimensions and basic symptoms. The data suggest that alexithymia in schizophrenia is more heterogeneous than was previously recognized, and has several components, some of which are more state-related, and others of which are more like trait features. Those components are specifically correlated with both overt and subjective dimensions of schizophrenic psychopathology.
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PMID:Alexithymia and schizophrenic psychopathology. 1531 86

The paper presents the current state of the art of research identifying the neurophysiological and neuroanatomical substrates of private speech, both in typical and clinical (or atypical) populations. First, it briefly describes the evolution of private speech research, which goes from classic traditions as the naturalistic and referential paradigms to the neurocognitive approach. An overview of the neurophysiological (e.g., event-related potentials or ERPs) and neuroimaging techniques (e.g., functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI) is also presented. The next three sections review empirical works about the neurocognitive basis of private speech, across three groups of techniques: ERPs; fMRI/MRI; and other neuroimaging techniques (positron emission tomography [PET], magnetoencephalogram [MEG], and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation [rTMS]). Such neurocognitive research analyzes the neural activity of individuals during a variety of task settings, including spontaneous and instructed overt and inner private speech use, subvocal verbalizations, and silent and overt reading. The fifth section focuses on electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies of private speech in atypical populations, for example: schizophrenia, pure alexia, hearing impairment, blindness, social phobia, alexithymia, Parkinson, and multiple sclerosis. The neurocognitive study of the various forms of private speech appears to be very promising in the understanding of these pathologies. Lastly, the advances and new challenges in the field are discussed.
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PMID:A neurocognitive approach to the study of private speech. 1754 77


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