Natasha S. Hansen

Comparison of visual perceptual organization in schizophrenia and body dysmorphic disorder

People with schizophrenia are impaired at organizing potentially ambiguous visual information into well-formed shape and object representations. This perceptual organization (PO) impairment has not been found in other psychiatric disorders. However, recent data on body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), suggest that BDD may also be characterized by reduced PO. Similarities between these groups could have implications for understanding the RDoC dimension of visual perception in psychopathology, and for modeling symptom formation across these two conditions. We compared patients with SCZ (n=24) to those with BDD (n=20), as well as control groups of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients (n=20) and healthy controls (n=20), on two measures of PO that have been reliably associated with schizophrenia-related performance impairment. On both the contour integration and Ebbinghaus illusion tests, only the SCZ group demonstrated abnormal performance relative to controls; the BDD group performed similarly to the OCD and CON groups. In addition, on both tasks, the SCZ group performed more abnormally than the BDD group. Overall, these data suggest that PO reductions observed in SCZ are not present in BDD. Visual processing impairments in BDD may arise instead from other perceptual disturbances or attentional biases related to emotional factors.

Functional activation during the Stroop is associated with recent alcohol but not marijuana use among high-risk youth

Despite studies showing the relevance of different decision-making abilities, including response inhibition, to likelihood of using substances during adolescence, few have examined these neural processes among high-risk, substance-using youth. The current study explored associations between alcohol and marijuana use and functional activation differences during Stroop performance among a large sample (N=80) of ethnically-diverse, high-risk youth in an fMRI-based task. In the absence of associations between substance use and task behavioral performance, adolescents with greater alcohol use showed less activation during the more cognitively difficult portion of the task across clusters in bilateral cuneus and precuneus, and right and left superior temporal gyrus. No associations were observed with marijuana use. The current results may suggest neural patterns of deactivation in regions important for cognitive control, such that alcohol use may confer additional risk for future decreased inhibition among these high-risk adolescents. The ability to inhibit prepotent responses has been shown to predict later response to treatment, and early interventions to encourage further development of cognitive control could represent promising options for treatment.

Changing the Context Is Important and Necessary, but Not Sufficient, for Reducing Adolescent Risky Sexual Behavior A Reply to Steinberg (2015)

Starting school later, keeping adolescents busy with structured programming, and making free condoms available, as Steinberg (2015) suggests, are important and necessary steps, but they are simply not sufficient if the goal is reducing sexually transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancy. We agree that the current state of affairs, which in many schools involves sexuality education using programs that are not empirically supported, is unacceptable. However, abandoning sexuality education entirely would leave adolescents ill equipped to protect themselves. Despite the fact that current intervention technology is neither perfect nor optimally effective, there are empirically supported, school-based sexual risk reduction interventions that teach these skills and are readily available. In addition, even though we agree that structured afternoon programs for school-aged adolescents would reduce the opportunity for sexual risk behavior during the school years, such programs would not address the demographic reality of sexual risk that continues for adolescents and emerging adults far past the end of traditional secondary education. We believe Steinberg’s suggestions are an excellent start and ought to be implemented. But complementary to this approach should be the use of existing empirically supported sexual risk reduction interventions and research into the development of even more effective interventions.