Social intelligence, a neurological system?

The Emerging Disability Paradigm and Its Implications for Policy and Practice

In this article, the author summarizes four characteristics of an emerging disability paradigm and discusses a number of policy and practice implications posed by this paradigm. The four characteristics are functional limitations, personal well-being, individualized supports, and personal competence and adaptation. Changes that need to occur in policy and practice are discussed in relation to each of the characteristics. The author concludes with a discussion of potential changes at the individual, service delivery, and societal levels that may be used to evaluate the utility of the paradigm.

The Social, Emotional and Cultural Life of the Orbitofrontal Cortex

Formal assessment of the impact of frontal-lobe impairment on social and interpersonal function has been somewhat neglected relative to interest in documenting executive impairment on nonsocial tasks. Despite this, experimental evidence is accruing that attests to the role of the orbitomedial frontal lobes, the amygdala and related structures in the appraisal and interpretation of socially relevant stimuli. In this address the evidence regarding the frontal lobes and social cognition, that is, social information processing is reviewed. At least 3 different constructs have been proposed that appear to be mediated by cerebral systems encompassing the orbitomedial frontal cortex: (1) social schema or social knowledge networks that guide judgments and behavioural responses, (2) emotional processing, including both the ability to recognise different affective states in others and the ability to experience affective (somatic) responses to emotionally important environmental stimuli, and (3) theory of mind – the ability to conceptualise what others are thinking and feeling. On the basis of this recent experimental work it is argued that a variety of assessment techniques are becoming available that are both practical and potentially sensitive to psychosocial changes after frontal lobe damage.

Are schizophrenia and affective disorder related?: the problem of schizoaffective disorder and the discrimination of the psychoses by signs and symptoms

Schizophrenia and affective disorder are separately classified. Schizoaffective disorder has been considered a variant of these, or representing several diseases. Some hypothesize a psychosis continuum. One test of these contrasting views involves discriminating the psychoses by their classic symptoms. We used discriminant function analyses to assess the ability of systematically recorded psychopathology to distinguish 167 DSM-III schizophrenics from 74 affectives. We divided the schizophrenics into chronic and schizoaffective subgroups. We discriminated chronic schizophrenics from affectives, but schizoaffectives overlapped both groups. Schizoaffective/unipolars were like chronic schizophrenics, and schizoaffective/bipolars were like affectives. However, these discriminations also substantially overlapped, and among non-affective positive features formal thought disorder was best at discrimination. Our findings do not fully support the present classification system, and suggest that its emphasis on hallucinations and delusions is overvalued.