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Canessa N, Iozzino L, Andreose S, Castelletti L, Conte G, Dvorak A, Ferrari C, Heitzman J, Macis A, Markiewicz I, Mattavelli G, Nicolò G, Picchioni M, Restuccia G, Rivellini G, Teti F, de Girolamo G. RISK aversion in Italian forensic and non-forensic patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. PLoS One 2023; 18:e0289152. [PMID: 37523390 PMCID: PMC10389697 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0289152] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2022] [Accepted: 07/07/2023] [Indexed: 08/02/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Goal-directed decision-making is a central component of the broader reward and motivation system, and requires the ability to dynamically integrate both positive and negative feedback from the environment in order to maximize rewards and minimize losses over time. Altered decision-making processes, in which individuals fail to consider the negative consequences of their decisions on both themselves and others, may play a role in driving antisocial behaviour. AIM The main study aim was to investigate possible differences in loss and risk aversion across matched patients, all with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD), but who varied according to whether they had a history of serious interpersonal violence or not, and a sample of healthy controls with no history of violence. RESULTS The sample included 14 forensic and 21 non-forensic patients with SSD, and 41 healthy controls. Among the three decision-making variables under investigation, risk aversion was the only significant predictor of membership of the three groups, with greater risk aversion among non-forensic patients with SSD compared to healthy controls. No differences were observed across groups in loss aversion and choice consistency. CONCLUSIONS This evidence suggests a new potential treatment target for rehabilitative measures aimed at achieving functional improvements in patients with SSD by selectively leveraging the neuro-cognitive processing of reward.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicola Canessa
- IUSS Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON) Center, Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS, Pavia, Italy
- Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri IRCCS, Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory of Pavia Institute, Pavia, Italy
| | - Laura Iozzino
- IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli, Unit of Epidemiological Psychiatry and Evaluation, Brescia, Italy
| | - Sonia Andreose
- IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli, Psychiatric Unit, Brescia, Italy
| | | | - Giovanni Conte
- Department of Mental Health, ASST di Brescia, Brescia, Italy
| | | | - Clarissa Ferrari
- IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli, Unit of Statistics, Brescia, Italy
| | - Janusz Heitzman
- Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, Department of Forensic Psychiatry, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Ambra Macis
- IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli, Unit of Statistics, Brescia, Italy
| | - Inga Markiewicz
- Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, Department of Forensic Psychiatry, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Giulia Mattavelli
- IUSS Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON) Center, Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS, Pavia, Italy
- Istituti Clinici Scientifici Maugeri IRCCS, Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory of Pavia Institute, Pavia, Italy
| | - Giuseppe Nicolò
- REMS Minerva, Department of Mental Health, ASL Roma 5, Rome, Italy
| | - Marco Picchioni
- Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Science, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, United Kingdom
- St Magnus Hospital, Surrey, United Kingdom
| | | | | | - Fabio Teti
- Sistema Polimodulare di REMS Provvisorie, ASST di Mantova, Castiglione delle Stiviere, Italy
| | - Giovanni de Girolamo
- IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli, Unit of Epidemiological Psychiatry and Evaluation, Brescia, Italy
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Buades-Rotger M, Smeijers D, Gallardo-Pujol D, Krämer UM, Brazil IA. Aggressive and psychopathic traits are linked to the acquisition of stable but imprecise hostile expectations. Transl Psychiatry 2023; 13:197. [PMID: 37296151 DOI: 10.1038/s41398-023-02497-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2022] [Revised: 05/12/2023] [Accepted: 05/30/2023] [Indexed: 06/12/2023] Open
Abstract
Individuals with hostile expectations (HEX) anticipate harm from seemingly neutral or ambiguous stimuli. However, it is unclear how HEX are acquired, and whether specific components of HEX learning can predict antisocial thought, conduct, and personality. In an online sample of healthy young individuals (n = 256, 69% women), we administered a virtual shooting task and applied computational modelling of behaviour to investigate HEX learning and its constellation of correlates. HEX acquisition was best explained by a hierarchical reinforcement learning mechanism. Crucially, we found that individuals with relatively higher self-reported aggressiveness and psychopathy developed stronger and less accurate hostile beliefs as well as larger prediction errors. Moreover, aggressive and psychopathic traits were associated with more temporally stable hostility representations. Our study thus shows that aggressiveness and psychopathy are linked with the acquisition of robust yet imprecise hostile beliefs through reinforcement learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Macià Buades-Rotger
- Radboud University, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
- Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.
- Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
| | - Danique Smeijers
- Division Diagnostics, Research, and Education, Forensic Psychiatric Center Pompestichting, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - David Gallardo-Pujol
- Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
- Institute of Neurosciences, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Ulrike M Krämer
- Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany
- Department of Psychology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany
- Center of Brain, Behavior and Metabolism (CBBM), University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany
| | - Inti A Brazil
- Radboud University, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
- Division Diagnostics, Research, and Education, Forensic Psychiatric Center Pompestichting, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
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Boxmeyer CL, Stager CG, Miller S, Lochman JE, Romero DE, Powell NP, Bui C, Qu L. Mindful Coping Power Effects on Children's Autonomic Nervous System Functioning and Long-Term Behavioral Outcomes. J Clin Med 2023; 12:jcm12113621. [PMID: 37297817 DOI: 10.3390/jcm12113621] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2023] [Revised: 05/18/2023] [Accepted: 05/20/2023] [Indexed: 06/12/2023] Open
Abstract
Mindful Coping Power (MCP) was developed to enhance the effects of the Coping Power (CP) preventive intervention on children's reactive aggression by integrating mindfulness training into CP. In prior pre-post analyses in a randomized trial of 102 children, MCP improved children's self-reported anger modulation, self-regulation, and embodied awareness relative to CP but had fewer comparative effects on parent- and teacher-reported observable behavioral outcomes, including reactive aggression. It was hypothesized that MCP-produced improvements in children's internal awareness and self-regulation, if maintained or strengthened over time with ongoing mindfulness practice, would yield improvements in children's observable prosocial and reactive aggressive behavior at later time points. To appraise this hypothesis, the current study examined teacher-reported child behavioral outcomes at a one-year follow-up. In the current subsample of 80 children with one-year follow-up data, MCP produced a significant improvement in children's social skills and a statistical trend for a reduction in reactive aggression compared with CP. Further, MCP produced improvements in children's autonomic nervous system functioning compared with CP from pre- to post-intervention, with a significant effect on children's skin conductance reactivity during an arousal task. Mediation analyses found that MCP-produced improvements in inhibitory control at post-intervention mediated program effects on reactive aggression at the one-year follow-up. Within-person analyses with the full sample (MCP and CP) found that improvements in respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity were associated with improvements in reactive aggression at the one-year follow-up. Together, these findings indicate that MCP is an important new preventive tool to improve embodied awareness, self-regulation, stress physiology, and observable long-term behavioral outcomes in at-risk youth. Further, children's inhibitory control and autonomic nervous system functioning emerged as key targets for preventive intervention.
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Affiliation(s)
- Caroline L Boxmeyer
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, College of Community Health Sciences, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
- Center for Youth Development and Intervention, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
| | - Catanya G Stager
- Division of Preventive Medicine, Heersink School of Medicine, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA
| | - Shari Miller
- Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27516, USA
| | - John E Lochman
- Center for Youth Development and Intervention, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
- Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences, The University of Alabam, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
| | - Devon E Romero
- Department of Counseling, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA
| | - Nicole P Powell
- Center for Youth Development and Intervention, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
| | - Chuong Bui
- Center for Youth Development and Intervention, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
- Alabama Life Research Institute, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
| | - Lixin Qu
- Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27516, USA
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Computational mechanisms underpinning greater exploratory behaviour in excess weight relative to healthy weight adolescents. Appetite 2023; 183:106484. [PMID: 36754172 DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2023.106484] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/07/2022] [Revised: 01/22/2023] [Accepted: 02/02/2023] [Indexed: 02/09/2023]
Abstract
Obesity in adolescence is associated with cognitive changes that lead to difficulties in shifting unhealthy habits in favour of alternative healthy behaviours, similar to addictive behaviours. An outstanding question is whether this shift in goal-directed behaviour is driven by over-exploitation or over-exploration of rewarding outcomes. Here, we addressed this question by comparing explore/exploit behaviour on the Iowa Gambling Task in 43 adolescents with excess weight against 38 adolescents with healthy weight. We computationally modelled both exploitation behaviour (e.g., reinforcement sensitivity and inverse decay parameters), and explorative behaviour (e.g., maximum directed exploration value). We found that overall, adolescents with excess weight displayed more behavioural exploration than their healthy-weight counterparts - specifically, demonstrating greater overall switching behaviour. Computational models revealed that this behaviour was driven by a higher maximum directed exploration value in the excess-weight group (U = 520.00, p = .005, BF10 = 5.11). Importantly, however, we found substantial evidence that groups did not differ in reinforcement sensitivity (U = 867.00, p = .641, BF10 = 0.30). Overall, our study demonstrates a preference for exploratory behaviour in adolescents with excess weight, independent of sensitivity to reward. This pattern could potentially underpin an intrinsic desire to explore energy-dense unhealthy foods - an as-yet untapped mechanism that could be targeted in future treatments of obesity in adolescents.
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Lochman JE, Vernberg E, Glenn A, Jarrett M, McDonald K, Powell NP, Abel M, Boxmeyer CL, Kassing F, Qu L, Romero D, Bui C. Effects of Autonomic Nervous System Functioning and Tornado Exposure on Long-Term Outcomes of Aggressive Children. Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol 2021; 49:471-489. [PMID: 33433778 PMCID: PMC7987880 DOI: 10.1007/s10802-020-00753-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/07/2020] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
This study examined whether pre-disaster indicators of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity moderated the relation between degree of disaster exposure from an EF-4 tornado and changes in the externalizing and internalizing behavior problems of children at-risk for aggression. Participants included 188 children in 4th-6th grades (65% male; 78% African American; ages 9-13) and their parents from predominantly low-income households who were participating in a prevention study when the tornado occurred in 2011. Fourth-grade children who exhibited elevated levels of aggressive behavior were recruited in three annual cohorts. Parent-rated externalizing and internalizing problems were assessed prior to the tornado (Wave 1; W1), and at 4-12 months (W2), 16-24 months (W3), 42-28 months (W4) and 56-60 months (W5) post-tornado. Children's pre-tornado Skin Conductance Level (SCL) reactivity and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA) withdrawal were assessed at W1 using SCL and RSA measured during resting baseline and during the first 5 min of the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). Children and parents reported their exposure to tornado-related trauma and disruptions at Wave 3. Children displayed less reduction in externalizing problems if there had been higher child- or parent-reported tornado exposure and less RSA withdrawal, or if they had lower parent-reported TORTE and less SCL reactivity or lower SCL baseline. Highlighting the importance of children's pre-disaster arousal, higher levels of disaster exposure negatively affected children's level of improvement in externalizing problems when children had less vagal withdrawal, and when tornado exposure disrupted the protective effects of higher SCL reactivity and higher SCL baseline.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Lixin Qu
- The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
| | - Devon Romero
- University of Texas at San Antonio, TX, San Antonio, USA
| | - Chuong Bui
- The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
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