An instrument for the evaluation of muscle dysmorphia: The Italian validation of the adonis complex questionnaire.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Muscle dysmorphia (MDM), or bigorexia, is a subcategory of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), also known as "Adonis Complex" in nonscientific contexts. One of the most used tools to investigate MDM is the Adonis Complex Questionnaire (ACQ). The ACQ is a 13-item US questionnaire, designed for male subjects only, related to the dissatisfaction and concerns about physical appearance. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the validity of the Italian version of the ACQ. METHODS: The instrument was administered to a sample of 322 male adults, recruited from the general population. We used the maximum-likelihood confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA), analyzing the covariance matrices with AMOS 24.0, to evaluate the different factorial models proposed in the literature. RESULTS: The evaluation of the factorial structure of the Italian version of the ACQ demonstrates the greater stability and internal consistency of the two-factor model, compared to the original three-factor model. The factors have no correlation with the demographic characteristics of the sample. CONCLUSIONS: The present study confirms the validity and the reliability of the Italian two-factor version of the ACQ and highlights the general tendency, among Italian males, to have concerns about their own physical appearance with recurring thoughts and eating behaviors finalized to improve it. Our study represents an advance in the use of adequate and reliable instruments to assess concerns about physical appearance in the Italian male population.

Source monitoring task in a sample of in-patients with verbal auditory hallucinations compared to control sample.

Patients with psychosis, especially those with specific positive symptoms such as auditory verbal hallucinations, show a source monitoring deficit, the cognitive process involved in the recognition of the information source. This defect can lead to the erroneous conclusion that self-generated thoughts are not "proper" but derive from an external source. We evaluated 37 patients diagnosed with psychotic disorder and 40 healthy controls using a modified version of the Reality Monitoring Task developed by Larøi et al. in 2004. The patients were also evaluated with PANSS, VGF, PSP. We have found that the performance of the Source Monitoring Task differs between patients with hallucinations and controls. According to the literature we can therefore state that patients with hallucinations are characterized by a difficulty in identifying the source of the information they perceive. Our study also adds a new finding to the literature: the source monitoring dysfunction is not due to the presence of current hallucinatory symptomatology but could be considered a stable trait in psychotic patients.

Psychodynamically Oriented Psychopharmacotherapy: Towards a Necessary Synthesis.

The discovery of psychoanalysis and of psychotropic medications represent two radical events in understanding and treatment of mental suffering. The growth of both disciplines together with the awareness of the impracticality of curing mental suffering only through pharmacological molecules-the collapse of the "Great Illusion"-and the experience of psychoanalysts using psychotropic medications along with depth psychotherapeutic treatment, have led to integrated therapies which are arguably more effective than either modality alone. The authors review studies on the role of pharmacotherapy with psychoanalysis, and the role of the analyst as the prescriber. The psychotic disorders have specifically been considered from this perspective.

Alterations of cerebral white matter structure in psychosis and their clinical correlations: a systematic review of Diffusion Tensor Imaging studies.

Schizophrenia is a common, severe and chronically disabling mental illness. Most of MRI studies in schizophrenia suggest the involvement of white matter (WM) pathology in multiple cerebral regions in the neurobiology of this condition. White matter fiber tracts connecting numerous cortical regions have been the focus of a number of studies using a magnetic resonance technique called "Diffusion Tensor Imaging" (DTI). A literature search of published DTI studies was conducted using the major database National Centre for Biotechnology information (NCBI) PubMed (MEDLINE). Our review covers 95 published papers. We summarise the main DTI findings involving the different brain regions in patients affected by or at high-risk for psychosis; we discuss clinical implications of these white matter disruptions and the limitations of current studies, listing the potential confounds and suggesting potential future research directions.