Recent Research on Schizophrenia Reveals How Little We Know

Over the past several weeks, several high profile studies on schizophrenia have been released, one of the most complex and confusing mental illnesses we can experience. Most simply, schizophrenia is characterized by disordered thinking and lack of affect regulation - this often manifests as auditory hallucinations, delusions (sometimes paranoid), or highly idiosyncratic speech (word salad) and cognition, along with considerable social or work dysfunction.

Age of onset is typically 15-35 (young adulthood), although I am reading about early-onset schizophrenia in children (a diagnosis I find troubling at best). Prevalence is about 1/2 to 1%. There is no "test" for the disease, so diagnosis is based on behavior and the patient's self-report.

So far, no single isolated organic, social, or environmental cause has been identified (duh!?). So these studies represent the latest efforts in trying to understand this disease (if it is an actual disease).

Schizophrenic Brains Try to Repair

Neuroscience Research Australia
Monday, 06 August 2012

Most neurons are found in tissue near the surface of the brain, but people with schizophrenia have a high density of neurons in deeper areas. The researchers suggest this is because the neurons are migrating towards the surface, where they are lacking, in response to the disease. Image: Sashkinw/iStockphoto
New NeuRA research shows that the brains of people with schizophrenia may attempt to repair damage caused by the disease, in another example of the adult brain’s capacity to change and grow.

Prof Cyndi Shannon Weickert, Dr Dipesh Joshi and colleagues from Neuroscience Research Australia studied the brains of people with schizophrenia and focussed on one of the hardest-hit regions, the orbitofrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain involved in regulating emotional and social behaviour.

Most neurons – brain cells that transmit information – are found in tissue near the surface of the brain. However, in the brains of people with schizophrenia, the team found a high density of neurons in deeper areas.

Read more.

* * * * * * *

This is from PLoS ONE - just the abstract, the whole article is available by clicking on the title link.

Abnormal Neural Responses to Social Exclusion in Schizophrenia

Victoria B. Gradin^1*, Gordon Waiter², Poornima Kumar³, Catriona Stickle⁴, Maarten Milders⁵, Keith Matthews¹, Ian Reid⁴, Jeremy Hall⁶, J. Douglas Steele¹

1 Medical Research Institute, University of Dundee, Dundee, United Kingdom, 2 Biomedical Imaging Center, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom, 3 Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, 4 Institute of Mental Health, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom, 5 Department of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom, 6 Division of Psychiatry, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Abstract 

Social exclusion is an influential concept in politics, mental health and social psychology. Studies on healthy subjects have implicated the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), a region involved in emotional and social information processing, in neural responses to social exclusion. Impairments in social interactions are common in schizophrenia and are associated with reduced quality of life. Core symptoms such as delusions usually have a social content. However little is known about the neural underpinnings of social abnormalities. The aim of this study was to investigate the neural substrates of social exclusion in schizophrenia. Patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls underwent fMRI while participating in a popular social exclusion paradigm. This task involves passing a ‘ball’ between the participant and two cartoon representations of other subjects. The extent of social exclusion (ball not being passed to the participant) was parametrically varied throughout the task. Replicating previous findings, increasing social exclusion activated the mPFC in controls. In contrast, patients with schizophrenia failed to modulate mPFC responses with increasing exclusion. Furthermore, the blunted response to exclusion correlated with increased severity of positive symptoms. These data support the hypothesis that the neural response to social exclusion differs in schizophrenia, highlighting the mPFC as a potential substrate of impaired social interactions.

Full Citation:  

Gradin VB, Waiter G, Kumar P, Stickle C, Milders M, et al. (2012). Abnormal Neural Responses to Social Exclusion in Schizophrenia. PLoS ONE 7(8): e42608. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0042608

* * * * * * *

Brain Abnormalities in Schizophrenia Due to Disease, Not Genetics

By Traci Pedersen Associate News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on August 3, 2012 

 

 

The brain differences found in people with schizophrenia are mainly the result of the disease itself or its treatment, as opposed to being caused by genetic factors, according to a Dutch study.
___

“Our study did not find structural brain abnormalities in nonpsychotic siblings of patients with schizophrenia compared with healthy control subjects, using multiple imaging methods,” the team says.

“This suggests that the structural brain abnormalities found in patients are most likely related to the illness itself.”

 Read the whole article.

 * * * * * * *

Schizophrenia Linked to Inflammation in the Brain

By Traci Pedersen Associate News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on August 8, 2012 

 

 

The brains of people with schizophrenia may be under attack by their own immune system, say Australian researchers, who are offering the strongest proof so far of an association between schizophrenia and an immune dysfunction.
___

About 40 percent of people who suffer from schizophrenia have increased inflammation in an area of the brain called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — a key brain region affected by the disease.

“To find this immune pattern in nearly half of people with schizophrenia raises the possibility that this is in fact a new root cause of the disease,” said senior author of the study, Cyndi Shannon Weickert, Ph.D., from Neuroscience Research Australia and UNSW.

Read more.

* * * * * * *

Brain Hemispheres Out of Sync in Schizophrenia

By Traci Pedersen Associate News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on August 22, 2012

 

People with schizophrenia have significantly decreased interhemispheric coordination compared to those without the disorder, according to a new study.

Researchers discovered that interhemispheric connectivity was especially reduced in the occipital lobe, the thalamus and the cerebellum areas of patients with schizophrenia.

Read the whole article.


* * * * * * *

Face in the Mirror More Distorted in Schizophrenia

By Traci Pedersen Associate News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on August 11, 2012 

 

 

Individuals with schizophrenia experience more intense perceptual illusions while gazing into a mirror than do healthy people, according to a new study.

The new research also showed that patients with schizophrenia were more likely to believe the illusions they see in the mirror were real.

The research highlights the underlying ego dysfunction and body dysmorphic disorder found in schizophrenia.

According to the researchers, gazing at one’s own reflected face under low light can lead to ghostly experiences called “strange-face in the mirror” illusions. No study has previously focused on mirror gazing in schizophrenic patients, who already experience delirium, hallucination and self mis-attribution.

Read more.

The Wright Show - Robert Wright and Matthew Hutson - The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking

This is a nice discussion - wide ranging - on Matthew Hutson's new book, The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking: How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy, and Sane - from this week's edition of
The Wright Show on BloggingHeads.tv.

Here is the publisher's description of the book:

What is so special about touching a piano John Lennon once owned? Why do we yell at our laptops? What drove the Yankees to dig up the Red Sox jersey secretly buried beneath their new stadium? And what's up with the phrase "Everything happens for a reason"?

Psychologists have documented a litany of cognitive biases—misperceptions of reality—and explained their positive functions. Now, Matthew Hutson shows that all of us, even the staunchest skeptics, engage in magical thinking all the time—and that we can use it to our advantage, if we know how to outsmart it.

Drawing on cognitive science, neuroscience, psychology, and anthropology, Hutson shows us that magical thinking has been so useful to us that it's hardwired into our brains. It encourages us to think that we actually have free will. It helps us believe that we have an underlying purpose in the world. It can even protect us from the paralyzing awareness of our own mortality. In other words, magical thinking is a completely irrational way of making our lives make sense.

With wonderfully entertaining stories, personal reflections, and sharp observations, Hutson has written a book that is entertaining, useful, and ever so slightly alarming.

Wright and Hutson engage in a lively and entertaining conversation.

Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero) and Matthew Hutson (The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking)

• Matt's new book, "The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking"   7:08
• The psychology of knocking on wood   6:10
• Is it irrational to want to have a legacy after you die?   6:43
• Treating objects like women (or men)   5:48
• Everything doesn't happen for a reason   3:16
• Is magical thinking good for us?   5:58

Recorded: May 11 — Posted: May 19

Doug Contri - Empathy and Barriers to Altruism

This article comes from The Peace and Conflict Review, a publication hosted at the headquarters of the United Nations mandated University for Peace (UPEACE) in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Contri looks at the ways in which the wealthy (affluent) experience guilt and anxiety when confronted with extreme poverty, a condition that creates "defensive distortions" that appear to be (but aren't) "rational arguments against donating generously to the extreme poor." The solution to this problem, according to Contri, is to get the affluent more in touch with their empathy.

In essence, he argues that the affluent are not bad people (hence they do not donate more to help those most in need), but rather they are conflicted with guilt and anxiety, feelings that distance them from their empathy. Rather than condemn them, thereby creating more anxiety and guilt, we should assist them in accessing their empathy. Unfortunately, he offers little insight into how we might do this.

~ Doug Contri earned his doctorate in clinical psychology from Widener University’s Institute for Graduate Clinical Psychology. Since 1996 he has worked for the Federal Bureau of Prisons in the United States, providing psychological services to inmates, and has coordinated comprehensive drug, alcohol and criminal rehabilitation programs. 

Full Citation:

Contri, D. (2012). Empathy and barriers to altruism. The Peace and Conflict Review; Vol 6, Issue 1; ISSN: 1659-3995

Empathy and Barriers to Altruism

Doug Contri

PDF version

Concerned people respond generously to local human needs, while the needs of the extreme poor are neglected.  The affluent do not contribute more due to poorly managed empathy rather than indifference.  Specifically, the plight of the poor arouses anxiety and guilt among the affluent, who deploy cognitive distortions that protect them from these uncomfortable emotions.  These defensive distortions masquerade as rational arguments against donating generously to the extreme poor.  The guilt and anxiety of the affluent can be diminished by connecting them with their empathy rather than defending against it.  This will relieve the affluent of these psychological burdens and likely increase aid to the extreme poor. 

Contri makes extensive use of cognitive theory in this piece, through which he explains, in part at least, how people might arrive at what appears from the outside to be indifference.

Quoted below is one section of the article that I find highly relevant. In this section, he mentions a series of abbreviations for ideas previously discussed, called "barrier attitudes," that prevent people from offering charity to those in need - here is a list of those five attitudes:

• Magnitude View (MV), asserts the problems of the developing world are hopeless
• You Can’t Help Them All (YCHA), asserts that even were one to successfully help someone, there still remain a seemingly endless number of others needing help
• Help at Home First (HHF), asserts that we should help others in our own communities before looking beyond our borders
• Responsibility Position (RP), asserts that it is the responsibility of the people in developing societies to solve their own problems
• Responsibility Position (RP), asserts that it is the responsibility of the people in developing societies to solve their own problems

With that background, this will make more sense:

Analysis of empathy revealed its many effects, to include love, community, anxiety and guilt. Armed with this understanding, barrier attitudes were examined and found to contain thinking errors commonly found among criminals, errors whose chief purpose is to reduce anxiety and guilt, and which appear to be the explanation for these logically implausible postures. Barrier attitudes are one method for resolving the tension created by empathy. They allow for empathy’s positive effects of love and community while reducing its liabilities of anxiety and guilt.

Thus, the lack of ameliorative action towards the extreme poor, when expressed by the attitudes noted above, appears to be due NOT to indifference. On the contrary, it appears to be a reaction to empathy, caring if you will, a way to protect against the suffering compassion inevitably produces. So conceived, the barrier attitudes examined (MV, YCHA, HAHF, RP, LC) are a solution to an internal conflict for those who hold them; they are suffering in response to their empathy for others. While barrier attitudes are one method for resolving the tension created by empathy, these defensive cognitive distortions are not precise surgical instruments; rather they are blunt in their effects, such that their attenuation of anxiety and guilt also risks reducing connection to others generally rather than specifically. Stated plainly, though defensive cognitive processes reduce our dysphoria, they also reduce our connectedness, which is a principle foundation for happiness. They have side-effects; they are not free. For most of us there is a better solution to empathy’s conundrum.

Rather than deploying defensive cognitive distortions, most of us would be better off embracing our empathy in all of its ramifications. Of course, fully embracing empathy carries risks. However, it also carries enormous benefits. Recall that empathy is the basis for love and community, and that its expansion carries the possibility of deepening these experiences. Often, exposure to the extreme poor, and others in need, gives rise to greater connection and satisfaction than would have otherwise been attained.