Mark your calendar for the following Clinical Science Forum events being held Thursday, May 21st, at the 27th APS Annual Convention in New York, NY, USA.
Rising Stars of Clinical Science
Featuring Daniel Foti, Melissa Cyders, Michael Treadway, Blair Wisco, and Bruce Cuthbert
and
Empirically Supported Therapy: Recommendations for a 20-Year Tune-Up
Featuring David Tolin, Evan Forman, Dean McKay, E. David Klonsky, and Brett Thombs
Most-Read CPS Articles in March 2015
The Emerging Field of Nutritional Mental Health: Inflammation, the Microbiome, Oxidative Stress, and Mitochondrial Function Stress-Induced Changes in Executive Control Are Associated With Depression Symptoms: Examining the Role of Rumination
The Structure of Psychopathology in Adolescence: Replication of a General Psychopathology Factor in the TRAILS Study
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  Clinical Psychological Science |
The links below take you to the journal via the APS website. If not already logged in, you will be redirected to log-in using your last name (Garcia) and Member ID (81665).
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New articles are now online.
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The Role of Serotonin in Orbitofrontal Function and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Tiago V. Maia and Maria Cano-Colino
The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) -- a brain area that plays a role in reinforcement learning, behavioral flexibility, and emotion -- has been implicated in the development of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Research has shown that serotonin modulates neural activity in the OFC, and medication that influences serotonin levels -- such as serotonin reuptake inhibitors -- is a commonly used treatment for OCD. Using a neurocomputational model, the authors examined the role of serotonin and glutamate on the development and maintenance of compulsive behaviors. They found that low levels of serotonin (and separately, high glutamatergic activity) lead to a tendency to develop obsessive behavior and to fall into existing patterns of obsessive behavior. Increasing levels of serotonin reduced these obsessive tendencies in both instances.
This article is part of a special series on computational psychiatry.
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Thomas V. Wiecki, Jeffrey Poland, and Michael J. Frank
Research on mental illness that has been based on diagnostic categories -- such as those found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -- has been disappointing, often failing to provide consistent and replicable results. The introduction of the Research Domain Criteria Project (RDoC) and the suggested use of neurocognitive endophenotypes to study mental illness are part of current efforts to address these issues; however, they suffer from their own methodological problems. The authors suggest that computational modeling could serve as a versatile tool for examining and understanding mental illness. They outline computational approaches for studying cognitive function and dysfunction, illustrating how this technique may be used to better describe, investigate, and assess mental illness.
This article is part of a special series on computational psychiatry.
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Decision-Theoretic Psychiatry
Quentin J. M. Huys, Marc Guitart-Masip, Raymond J. Dolan, and Peter Dayan
People with psychiatric disorders often show impairments in decision making, which can lead them to make poor choices and miss out on opportunities for growth and recovery. The authors of this article suggest that Bayesian Decision Theory (BDT) -- a statistical approach that quantifies the utility of different decisions using probabilities and costs -- may help researchers understand how people come to make suboptimal decisions. This framework identifies three major areas in which decision making can break down. First, people may have problems accurately identifying the problem at hand. Second, they may accurately identify the problem but try to solve it in a poor or incorrect way. And third, they can correctly solve the right problem but do so in a poor environment.
This article is part of a special series on computational psychiatry.
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The Effects of Rumination Induction on Attentional Breadth for Self-Related Information
Maud Grol, Paula T. Hertel, Ernst H. W. Koster, and Rudi De Raedt
The attentional-scope model hypothesizes that negative mood narrows people's attentional focus and thereby increases the likelihood that their thoughts will become repetitive and ruminative. To test whether rumination leads to attentional narrowing, participants read a scenario and thought about it in either a ruminative or a problem-solving manner before performing an attentional-breadth task. The researchers found that taking a ruminative approach rather than a problem-solving approach was associated with greater attentional narrowing for self-related than for other-related information -- but only for people high in trait rumination.
This article is part of a special series on the mechanisms of repetitive thinking.
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For Ruminators, the Emotional Future Is Bound to the Emotional Past: Heightened Ruminative Disposition Is Characterized by Increased Emotional Extrapolation
Edward Watkins, Ben Grafton, Stacey Megan Weinstein, and Colin MacLeod
Processing-mode theory suggests that rumination -- a risk factor for depression -- is characterized by an abstract mode of processing rather than a concrete mode of processing. This is because concrete processing focuses more on the mechanics of how events occur, whereas abstract processing focuses more on the implications or consequences of events. In two experiments, participants were assessed for ruminative disposition and depression and completed an emotional extrapolation assessment task. In the first experiment, emotional extrapolation was measured using a self-report expectancy measure; in the second experiment, it was measured using a performance-based expectancy measure. Support for processing-mode theory was found only in the second experiment, providing tentative support for this theory and underscoring the importance of using objective measures to study cognitive processes.
This article is part of a special series on the mechanisms of repetitive thinking.
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Self-Distancing From Trauma Memories Reduces Physiological but Not Subjective Emotional Reactivity Among Veterans With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
Blair E. Wisco, Brian P. Marx, Denise M. Sloan, Kaitlyn R. Gorman, Andrea L. Kulish, and Suzanne L. Pineles
Self-distancing (i.e., taking a third-person perspective) has been shown to reduce emotional and physiological reactivity during self-reflection. In this study, veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were instructed to recount and analyze their worst traumatic event from either a first-person or a third-person perspective. Veterans' heart rates and skin-conductance responses were measured during the task, and they rated their emotional reactivity and arousal levels. The researchers found that veterans who took a first-person perspective experienced increases in physiological arousal, whereas veterans who took a third-person perspective did not. Self-distancing, however, had no effect on emotional reactivity, indicating that not all of the benefits of self-distancing extend to trauma memories.
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Boundary Restriction for Negative Emotional Images Is an Example of Memory Amplification
Melanie K. T. Takarangi, Jacinta M. Oulton, Deanne M. Green, and Deryn Strange
The authors examined memory distortions in relation to images of traumatic scenes by having participants view a series of pictures depicting traumatic stimuli. Participants then had to identify the previously seen images from among distractors that could include identical, close-up versions (i.e., narrow boundaries) or wide-angle versions (i.e., extended boundaries) of the same pictures. Across several experiments, participants were more likely to remember pictures as having extended boundaries. The extent to which participants reexperienced traumatic aspects of the images was associated with how often participants remembered the images as having narrower boundaries. The authors suggest that reexperiencing may result in the amplification of the most central and salient parts of an image, thus leading participants to misremember the image as having narrower boundaries.
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Rumination and Worry in Daily Life: Examining the Naturalistic Validity of Theoretical Constructs
Katharina Kircanski, Renee J. Thompson, James E. Sorenson, Lindsey Sherdell, and Ian H. Gotlib
Both rumination and worry are types of perseverative thought processes; however, rumination is traditionally linked to major depressive disorder (MDD), whereas worry is linked to generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). In a study examining the potential transdiagnostic nature of these constructs, adult women with MDD, GAD, or co-occurring MDD-GAD reported their levels of worry and rumination and responded to questions about theorized features of rumination. They used handheld devices to respond eight times a day for 7 or 8 consecutive days. All three groups reported similar levels of rumination and worry, identifying these as transdiagnostic processes. Participants' reports also provided some of the first naturalistic validation for theorized features of these two constructs.
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Clinical Psychological Science is a publication of the Association for Psychological Science . Please contact APS by email or by telephone at +1 202.293.9300 with questions or comments.
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