William Sulis

Quinpirole Induces Compulsive Checking Behavior in Rats: A Potential Animal Model of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Rats treated chronically with the dopamine agonist quinpirole (0.5 mg/kg, twice weekly x 10) met 5 criteria for performance of compulsive checking. Specifically, in a large open-field with single small objects in 4 of 25 locales, quinpirole rats revisited two places/objects excessively often and rapidly, compared with other locations in the environment or saline controls. They performed a ritual-like set of behavioral acts at these two places/objects and stopped in relatively few locales before returning to the preferred places/objects. Finally, they shifted their behavior to a new location when the object was moved there. Clomipramine (10 mg/kg, daily) postponed but did not prevent the development of the quinpirole effect. Quinpirole-induced compulsive checking may be an exaggeration of normal checking of home site in rats. Results suggest an animal model of obsessive-compulsive disorder and a role for dopamine in this disorder.

Nonlinear Dynamics in Human Behavior

This book represents a selection of papers presented at the Fourth Annual Conference of the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and the Life Sciences, held at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, June 24-27, 1995. The book reflects the Society as a whole, consisting of applications of nonlinear methodology in psychophysics, neurophysiology, business and social science as well as applications of the nonlinear paradigm to issues arising in psychotherapy and the study of creativity. Unique are contributions on the use of Boolean networks in the study of psychosis and quality of life; as well as the application of ideas in autonomous agent research to psychology. Review articles on the appropriate use of time series methods in psychology and psychophysics provide a valuable reference.

Fundamental Concepts of Collective Intelligence

A collective intelligence consists of a large number of quasi-independent, stochastic agents, interacting locally both among themselves as well as with an active environment, in the absence of hierarchical organization, and yet which is capable of adaptive behavior. The major concepts arising from our current understanding of collective intelligence are reviewed. These include stochastic determinism, interactive determinism, nondirected communication, nonrepresentational contextual dependency, stigmergy. These are illustrated using examples drawn from the literature on ant behavior. Several speculations into the dynamics of collective intelligence are presented, including nondispersive temporal evolution, broken ergodicity and broken symmetry. Several questions for future study are posed.

Formal descriptions of developing systems

Preface. Acknowledgements. Workshop Photograph. Workshop Participants. Formal Descriptions of Developing Systems J.B. Nation. 1: Global Systems. The Statistical Theory of Global Population Growth S.P. Kapitza. Maximum Reliancy as a Determinant of Food Web Behavior E.A. Laws. Thermodynamic Approach to the Problem of Economic Equilibrium V.M. Sergeev. 2: Biological Systems. Programmed Cell Death Phenomena at Various Levels of Development of the Living Systems V.P. Skulachev. Development of Motor Control in Vertebrates J. Stollberg. Disclocations in the Repetitive Unit Patterns of Biological Systems B. Zagorska-Marek, D. Wiss. The Description of Growth of Plant Organs: A Continuous Approach Based on the Growth Tensor J. Nakielski, Z. Hejnowicz. Using Deterministic Chaos Theory for the Analysis of Sleep EEG J.D. Rand, H.P. Collin, L.E. Kauniai, D.H. Crowell, J. Pearce. 3: Emergence. How Does Complexity Develop? J. Cohen. Adaptive Evolution of Complex Systems under Uncertain Environmental Constraints: A Viability Approach J.-P. Aubin. Archetypal Dynamics: An Approach to the Study of Emergence W.H. Sulis. 4: Modelling. Sociability, Diversity and Compatibility in Developing Systems: EVS Approach I.N. Trofimova. Tetrahymena and Ants- Simple Models of Complex Systems W.A.M. Brandts. Embryogenesis as a Model of a Developing System O.P. Melekhova. 5: Presentations for Discussion. Vagal Tone Chronology in Gulf War Veterans Illnesses and in Acute Stress Reactions H.A. Bracha. Limits of Developing a National System of Agricultural Extension F.H. Arion. An Accumulation Model for the Formation of Mini BlackHoles G.D. Esmer. Subject Index.

Naturally occurring computational systems

Abstract In this paper I propose a set of ideas for delimiting the concept of a naturally occurring computational system (NOCS). The concept of a NOCS is presented as a unifying theoretical notion for the life and social sciences. These ideas provide a means for assessing the relevance of theories, models and simulations directed towards these disciplines. These ideas are organized around 5 major themes: material constraints, environmental constraints, developmental constraints, hierarchical constraints, dynamical constraints.

Benefits of Distinguishing between Physical and Social-Verbal Aspects of Behavior: An Example of Generalized Anxiety

Temperament traits and mental illness have been linked to varying degrees of imbalances in neurotransmitter systems of behavior regulation. If a temperament model has been carefully structured to reflect weak imbalances within systems of behavior regulation, then in the presence of mental illness, these profiles should exhibit distinct patterns consistent with symptoms of mental illness. In contrast to other temperament models used in studies of anxiety disorders, the Functional Ensemble of Temperament (FET) model differentiates not only between emotionality traits, but also between traits related to physical, social-verbal and mental aspects of behavior. This paper analyzed the predictions of the FET model, which maps 12 functional aspects of behavior to symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) as described in the DSM/ICD. As an example, the paper describes a study of the coupling of sex, age and temperament traits with GAD using the FET framework. The intake records of 116 clients in treatment with confirmed diagnosis of GAD in a private psychological practice were compared using ANOVA against records of 146 healthy clients using their scores on the FET-based questionnaire, in age groups 17–24, 25–45, 46–65. Patients with GAD in all age groups reported significantly lower Social Endurance, Social Tempo, Probabilistic reasoning (but not in physical aspects of behavior) and higher Neuroticism than healthy individuals, however, no effects on the scales of Motor Endurance or Tempo were found. These findings show the benefits of differentiation between motor-physical and social-verbal aspects of behavior in psychological assessment of mental disorders.

A Study of the Coupling of FET Temperament Traits with Major Depression

Objective: Temperament and mental illness have been linked to the same systems of behavioral regulation. A temperament model, carefully structured to respond to subtle differences within systems of behavior regulation, should exhibit distinct temperament patterns in the presence of mental illness. Previous comparisons of temperament profiles in mental disorders used mostly emotionality-related traits. In contrast, the Functional Ensemble of Temperament (FET) model differentiates not only between emotionality traits, but also between traits related to physical, verbal, and mental aspects of behavior and maps 12 functional aspects of behavior to temperament traits as well as to symptoms of mental illnesses. This article reports on the coupling of sex, age, and temperament traits with Major Depression (MD) using the FET framework. Method: Intake records of 467 subjects, ages 17–24, 25–45, 46–65, 66–84 were examined, with temperament assessed by the Structure of Temperament Questionnaire (based on the FET). Results: The presence of MD was associated with changes in mean temperament scores on 9 of the 12 traits. The results were in line with the DSM-5 criteria of fatigue (patients with MD reported a significant decrease in three types of endurance – motor-physical, social-verbal, and mental), of psychomotor retardation (a significant decrease in physical and social-verbal tempo) and of worthlessness (as low Self-Confidence). The results also showed that three new symptoms, high Impulsivity, high Neuroticism, and diminished Plasticity, should be considered as depressive symptoms in future versions of the DSM. As a significant negative result, no interaction of age or sex (with the exception of the Self-Confidence scale) with MD was found for temperament traits. Conclusion: The value of differentiating between physical, social, and mental aspects of behavior is demonstrated in the differential effects of major depression and gender. The value of differentiating between endurance, dynamical and orientation-related aspects of behavior is also demonstrated. The deleterious impact of MD on temperament scores appeared to be similar across all age groups. The appearance of high impulsivity, neuroticism, and low plasticity deserve further study as associated factors in future versions of the DSM/ICD.

Driven Cellular Automata, Adaptation and the Binding Problem

The binding problem in neurobiology and the synchronization problem in distributed systems address a fundamental question, namely how can a collection of computational units interact so as to produce a stable response to environmental stimuli. It is proposed that the synchronization of responses of a complex system to a transient stimulus, socalled transient synchronization, provides a solution to this problem. Evidence is presented from studies involving inhomogeneous, asynchronous, adaptive cellular automata in support of this contention. In the transient synchronization approach, information is encoded as a distribution of response patterns in a global pattern space. The activation of such information requires a dynamic interaction between the system and its environment. Information is implicit rather than explicit. This permits a several orders of magnitude improvement in storage capacity over current models.

Assessing the continuum between temperament and affective illness: psychiatric and mathematical perspectives

Temperament of healthy people and mental illnesses, particularly affective disorders, have been conjectured to lie along a continuum of neurobehavioural regulation. Understanding the nature of this continuum may better inform the construction of taxonomies for both categories of behaviour. Both temperament and mental illness refer to patterns of behaviour that manifest over long time scales (weeks to years) and they appear to share many underlying neuroregulatory systems. This continuum is discussed from the perspectives of nonlinear dynamical systems theory, neurobiology and psychiatry as applied to understanding such multiscale time-series behaviour. Particular emphasis is given to issues of generativity, fungibility, metastability, non-stationarity and contextuality. Implications of these dynamical properties for the development of taxonomies will be discussed. Problems with the over-reliance of psychologists on statistical and mathematical methods in deriving their taxonomies (particularly those based on factor analysis) will be discussed from a dynamical perspective. An alternative approach to temperament based upon functionality, and its discriminative capabilities in mental illness, is presented. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Diverse perspectives on diversity: multi-disciplinary approaches to taxonomies of individual differences’.

Tempered neural networks

Tempered neural networks, which are cellular automaton neural networks in which the updating occurs according to the arrival times of action potentials within the network, are introduced. Simulations of integer timed networks displayed low activity levels for individual neurons, bursts consisting of the cooperative activity of groups of neurons, and encoding of information in complex spatiotemporal patterns. At low input levels a new form of memory called dynamic memory was demonstrated. A new route to chaos at high input levels is suggested.<<ETX>>