Yana Suchy

Facial affect recognition in criminal psychopaths.

Prior studies provide consistent evidence of deficits for psychopaths in processing verbal emotional material but are inconsistent regarding nonverbal emotional material. To examine whether psychopaths exhibit general versus specific deficits in nonverbal emotional processing, 34 psychopaths and 33 nonpsychopaths identified with Hares (R. D. Hare, 1991) Psychopathy Checklist--Revised were asked to complete a facial affect recognition test. Slides of prototypic facial expressions were presented. Three hypotheses regarding hemispheric lateralization anomalies in psychopaths were also tested (right-hemisphere dysfunction, reduced lateralization, and reversed lateralization). Psychopaths were less accurate than nonpsychopaths at classifying facial affect under conditions promoting reliance on right-hemisphere resources and displayed a specific deficit in classifying disgust. These findings demonstrate that psychopaths exhibit specific deficits in nonverbal emotional processing.

Executive Functioning: Overview, Assessment, and Research Issues for Non-Neuropsychologists

BackgroundExecutive functioning (EF) is a multifaceted neuropsychological construct that can be defined as (1) forming, (2) maintaining, and (3) shifting mental sets, corresponding to the abilities to (1) reason and generate goals and plans, (2) maintain focus and motivation to follow through with goals and plans, and (3) flexibly alter goals and plans in response to changing contingencies.PurposeResearch involving EF has become increasingly popular in a number of disciplines including behavioral medicine and personality research.MethodsThe present article outlines some of the challenges faced by EF researchers, as well as briefly reviews historical perspective and neuroanatomical underpinnings of EF to provide broader context.ResultsClinical presentations of EF deficits, definitions and operationalization of the contsruct, as well as selection of appropriate assessment methods are provided.ConclusionThe article concludes with general cautions and guidelines for researchers.

Individual Differences in Executive Functioning: Implications for Stress Regulation

BackgroundExecutive functioning (EF) refers to the set of neurocognitive processes that facilitate novel problem solving, modification of behavior in response to environmental changes, planning and generating strategies for complex actions, and ability to override pre-potent behavioral and emotional responses to engage in goal-directed behavior.PurposeTo provide an overview of research on individual differences in EF and examine the extent to which these individual differences confer risk and resilience for poor stress regulation.ResultsReview of the literature suggests that individual differences in EF are evident at multiple levels of analysis including genotype, endophenotype (e.g., performance on cognitive tasks), and phenotype (e.g., temperament and personality). These individual differences are associated with differential stress exposure, reactivity, recovery, and restorative processes.ConclusionsA theoretical framework that includes individual differences in EF will inform behavioral medicine research on stress risk and resilience.

Putamen coactivation during motor task execution

Models of corticostriatal motor circuitry have focused on the role of the circuit in the hemisphere of the motor cortex providing primary control (contralateral to the movement). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging and functional connectivity analyses to study circuit function in both the controlling and noncontrolling hemispheres. During the completion of a unilateral motor task with either hand, each putamen nucleus demonstrated strong coactivation with structures in both hemispheres. The putamen in the noncontrolling hemisphere (ipsilateral to the movement) coactivated more strongly with the controlling motor cortex than with the noncontrolling cortex. These findings suggest that the two corticostriatal circuits are functionally integrated. New circuit models based on functional connectivity may need to be developed.

Ten-Year Follow-up Survey of Clinical Neuropsychologists: Part I. Practices and Beliefs

A 21-item questionnaire previously used to survey practices and beliefs of clinical neuropsychologists (Sweet & Moberg, 1990; Sweet, Moberg, & Westergaard, 1996) was mailed in February 1999 to all ABPP Diplomates in clinical neuropsychology and a larger sample of randomly selected non-ABPP members of Division 40 (Clinical Neuropsychology) of the American Psychological Association. Results were compared with data previously collected in 1989 and 1994. Across 10 years there have been some persistent differences between neuropsychologists based on board certification status. These differences include degree of involvement in neuropsychological practice and forensic practice, involvement in research and teaching, frequency of subscribing to or regularly reading a variety of relevant journals, employment settings, use of assistants, and use of projective assessment. There are also a number of areas of shared belief and common practice. These important areas of agreement are unrelated to board certification status and are interpreted as signs of cohesiveness and maturity in the continuing evolution of the subspecialty. Shared beliefs and common practices include: appropriate field of training, type of degree, assessment philosophy, most types of information to be gathered in evaluations, and time spent per assessment. In general, the use of assistants is correlated significantly with the number of evaluations performed per month. Although sometimes viewed as exclusively providing assessment, the majority of neuropsychologists are also involved in treating patients with brain dysfunction. Survey data appear useful in characterizing and monitoring professional status and trends of clinical neuropsychology.

Instrumental activities of daily living among community-dwelling older adults: discrepancies between self-report and performance are mediated by cognitive reserve.

The ability to engage in instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) is known to rely on cognitive abilities, primarily executive functioning and memory. There is also evidence that good self-awareness, which facilitates the use of compensatory strategies, may prolong functionality and delay the diagnosis of dementia. However, little is known about the mechanisms that mediate self-awareness among healthy elderly. The present study examined the correlates of discrepancies between self-report and performance-based measures of IADLs in a sample of 75 community-dwelling elderly. The results indicate that even among independently living individuals, there is still variability in functionality (i.e., 35% of the sample made IADL performance errors) and self-awareness (i.e., 38% of the sample demonstrated a discrepancy between IADL self-report and performances). Better awareness of IADL weaknesses was associated with higher levels of cognitive reserve but, unexpectedly, lower levels of executive abilities. Additionally, consistent with prior research, better IADL performances were associated with better cognition.

Intact emotion facilitation for nonsocial stimuli in autism: is amygdala impairment in autism specific for social information?

Atypical amygdala development may play a key role in the emergence of social disability and other symptoms of autism (Baron-Cohen et al., 2000; Schultz, 2005). The mechanisms by which this may occur have received little attention, however, and most support from behavioral and imaging studies has been concerned with socially relevant stimuli such as faces. Given the complexity of amygdala function and its known role in many other emotional tasks, we examined whether individuals with autism would demonstrate impaired performance on several tasks that have been shown to require activation of the amygdala but that do not have any explicit social meaning. Relative to a typical comparison group matched for age and IQ, our sample of 37 adolescents and adults with autism (mean age=19.7 years) demonstrated equivalent facilitation for perception and learning of emotionally relevant stimuli. On each of four tasks, there were significant main effects of emotion condition on performance for both groups. Future research regarding atypical amygdala function and emotion processing in autism should consider whether the response to nonsocial emotion factors (including negative valence or high arousal) may be intact, despite difficulties in responding to socially relevant stimuli.

Neurocognitive differences between pedophilic and nonpedophilic child molesters.

Although some evidence exists that child molesters may be characterized by structural and functional brain abnormalities, findings across studies are inconsistent. Past cognitive research in this area has been extensively criticized for relying on conceptually weak batteries, measures of questionable reliability, and poorly defined samples (i.e., failing to distinguish between pedophilic and nonpedophilic child molesters). The present study aimed to address the weaknesses of past research by comparing 40 child molesters (20 pedophilic and 20 nonpedophilic) and 20 demographically matched nonoffender controls on six well-defined neurocognitive composite scores of comparable reliability (i.e., semantic knowledge, executive functioning, processing speed, motor speed, auditory memory, and visual memory). Results indicated that pedophilic child molesters exhibit slower processing speed, nonpedophilic child molesters exhibit poorer semantic knowledge, and both molester groups exhibit executive weaknesses as compared to nonoffender controls. This study is the first to compare the two molester types on neurocognitive functions. The observed differences between the molester groups help explain inconsistencies in past research and demonstrate the need to distinguish between the two types of child molesters when studying neurobiologic underpinnings of sexual offending.

Age-related changes of the functional architecture of the cortico-basal ganglia circuitry during motor task execution

Normal human aging is associated with declining motor control and function. It is thought that dysfunction of the cortico-basal ganglia circuitry may contribute to age-related sensorimotor impairment, however the underlying mechanisms are poorly characterized. The aim of this study was to enhance our understanding of age-related changes in the functional architecture of these circuits. Fifty-nine subjects, consisting of a young, middle and old group, were studied using functional MRI and a motor activation paradigm. Functional connectivity analyses and examination of correlations of connectivity strength with performance on the activation task as well as neurocognitive tasks completed outside of magnet were conducted. Results indicated that increasing age is associated with changes in the functional architecture of the cortico-basal ganglia circuitry. Connectivity strength increased between subcortical nuclei and cortical motor and sensory regions but no changes were found between subcortical components of the circuitry. Further, increased connectivity was correlated with poorer performance on a neurocognitive task independently of age. This result suggests that increased connectivity reflects a decline in brain function rather than a compensatory process. These findings advance our understanding of the normal aging process. Further, the methods employed will likely be useful for future studies aimed at disambiguating age-related versus illness progression changes associated with neuropsychiatric disorders that involve the cortico-basal ganglia circuitry.

Understanding design fluency: Motor and executive contributions

Design Fluency (DF) is typically assumed to assess planning, cognitive flexibility, and fluency in generation of visual patterns, above and beyond contributions from motor speed (Delis, Kaplan, & Kramer, 2001; Ruff, 1998). The present study examined these assumptions, as little construct validation research has been done in the past. Sixty one community-dwelling elderly participants were administered the DF, Trail Making, and Letter Fluency tests from the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS), as well as electronically administered measures of motor planning and motor sequence fluency. Hierarchical regressions were used to parse out unique variance contributions to DF performance. The results showed that generation of novel designs (i.e., the first two trials on the D-KEFS DF) relied primarily on motor planning, the ability to generate novel motor actions, and, to a lesser extent, speed of drawing with a writing implement. In contrast, generation of unique designs while switching (i.e., the third trial on the D-KEFS DF) relied primarily on visual scanning and perhaps visual-attentional resources. These findings highlight the wisdom of interpreting the switching trial of the D-KEFS DF separately. Interestingly, cognitive flexibility did not contribute to performance on any of the three D-KEFS DF trials.