Deconstructing Mechanisms of Abnormal Categorical Perception of Emotional Facial Expressions in Schizophrenia Patients.

OBJECTIVE: The current study aims to find out the potential reasons why most schizophrenia patients have a relatively low sensitivity to the classification of emotional facial expressions. METHODS: By using an emotional categorical perception task, eighty-three schizophrenia patients and seventy-one healthy adults are provided with morphed emotional continuums with two emotional facial expressions (a positive emotional valence: happy; a negative emotional valence: sad). RESULTS: Through comparing the difference between schizophrenia patients and healthy adults in the processes of estimating facial expressions with ambiguous emotions, we find that the pattern of emotional categorical perception for schizophrenia patients is significantly different from that of healthy controls when they process signals on the local facial areas. Compared to healthy people, schizophrenia patients have a significantly separate classification pattern in processing emotional signals between the eyes and mouth regions. It indicates that compared to healthy adults, schizophrenia patients have larger conflicts in integrating emotional signals from different facial areas. To overcome conflicts, more cognitive resources are required. Unfortunately, the lack of cognitive resources leads to the failure of integration, which further increases the difficulty of estimating facial expressions with ambiguous emotions, and finally leads to the relatively low sensitivity of emotional facial expressions classification. CONCLUSION: To sum up, the deficit of abnormal perceptions of emotional facial expressions in schizophrenia patients results from an integrated deficit of signals on facial areas.

The neural foundation of associative memory: a dynamic functional connectivity study for right-handed young adults.

The medial temporal lobe (MTL) is the core neural construction related to associative memory. This study sought to explore the dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) between the subdivisions of MTL and other regions in the whole brain. Additionally, it sought to determine relationships between connectivity stability and associative memory function, to elucidate the neural foundation of associative memory from the perspectives of dFC. A Wechsler Memory Scale China revised edition (WMS-RC) measurement and a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging were conducted to clarify adults' function of associative memory and dFC patterns in subdivisions of the MTL. A multiple regression analysis was carried out to analyze the relationships described above. The results demonstrated that (i) connectivity in the left brain included the anterior hippocampus (aHIP) and right fusiform (Fusiform_R), middle hippocampus (mHIP) and right inferior parietal lobule (IPL_R), posterior hippocampus (pHIP) and left inferior parietal lobule (IPL_L), perirhinal cortex (PRC) and left supramarginal gyrus (SMG_L), entorhinal cortex (ERC) and [left middle temporal gyrus (MTG_L), left superior parietal lobule (SPL_L), right fusiform (Fusiform_R)], anterior parahippocampal cortex (aPHC) and right precentral gyrus (PCG_R); (ii) connectivity in the right brain included the aHIP and right supramarginal gyrus (SMG_R), mHIP and left paracentral lobule (PCL_L), pHIP and left superior occipital gyrus (SOG_L), PRC and left middle occipital gyrus (MOG_L), ERC and right middle occipital gyrus (MOG_R); (iii) for most connectivity patterns, the more stable the dFC, the better are the associative memory functions. This study elucidates the neural foundations of associative memory in terms of dFC patterns.

The Chinese Spiritual Coping Scale: Development and Initial Psychometric Evaluation.

The aim of the study was to develop and psychometrically evaluate the Chinese Spiritual Coping Scale. The items in the questionnaire were written according to the study's theoretical conception and literature research. A sample of 415 participants with or without religious beliefs was used for exploratory factor analyses to select the items. In addition, another sample of 207 participants was used to cross-validate the factor structure and examine the internal consistency. The results supported the four-factor structure of the Chinese Spiritual Coping Scale (17 items, four dimensions: Mystical Experience, Moral Practice, Meaning Exploration, and Transcendent Attitude). The analyses demonstrated adequate internal consistency and construct validity. The overall psychometric evaluation of the Spiritual Coping Scale suggested that this could be a promising measure of spiritual coping for Chinese individuals.

Correlates of intelligence via resting-state functional connectivity of the amygdala in healthy adults.

Intelligence is a form of advanced cognition that includes reasoning, problem solving, pattern recognition, and establishing relationships among items. The amygdala plays an important role in cognitive processing, but the relationship between amygdalar function and intelligence has rarely been explored directly. Here, we investigated the relationship between resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) of the amygdala and intelligence test performance in a large sample of healthy adults (N = 197). We found that two pairs of RSFCs were significantly increased in the high IQ group compared with that of the general IQ group. One of these RSFCs consisted of the right amygdala and the right superior parietal lobule, whereas the other RSFC consisted of the right amygdala and the left middle cingulum. In addition, we found that the brain regions in which the strength of RSFC significantly correlated with full IQ (FIQ) were mainly distributed in the parietal and limbic lobes. What's more, a further mediation analysis indicated that the functional connectivity of the right amygdala and the right superior parietal lobule significantly mediated the correlation between comprehension and object assembly, whereas the functional connectivity of the right amygdala and the left middle cingulum mediated the association between similarities and digit symbol. These findings suggest that amygdalar RSFC may reflect individual differences in intelligence and mediate specific relationships among different intellectual abilities.

The relationship between anti epidemic mentality and post traumatic stress disorder in medical college students during the COVID-19 pandemic / 中国学校卫生

Objective@#To explore the relationship between an anti epidemic mentality and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among college students during the corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and to provide a scientific basis for the prevention of PTSD when college students experience sudden crisis events in the future.@*Methods@#An online questionnaire survey was conducted among 9 399 undergraduates from Shanxi Medical University using the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist Civilian Version (PCL-C) and the public anti epidemic psychology self examination scale.@*Results@#During the COVID-19 pandemic, the total PCL-C scores of college students were (22.74±7.78), and the positive rate of PTSD symptoms was 5.3%. The detection rates of symptom recurrence, avoidance/numbness symptoms and increased alertness symptoms were 27.0%, 16.6% and 8.6 %, respectively. The average score of avoidance/numbness symptoms in the three symptom groups was (9.21±3.39), the two items with the highest scores were repeated recall of traumatic events (1.57±0.71) and impaired concentration (1.47±0.71). Females scored higher than males on the increased alertness dimension(6.82±2.61，6.67±2.72) ( t = -6.49 ， P <0.05). In respect to PCL-C total scores and the scores of each dimension, rural areas were associated with higher scores than urban areas, and non medical students scored higher than medical students, while the scores of those who grew up with siblings were higher than only children ( P <0.05). There was a significant positive correlation between an anti epidemic mentality and total PTSD scores ( r =0.51, P <0.01). Multiple regression analysis showed that the place of origin, choice of college major, and antiepidemic mentality were predictors of PTSD symptoms ( P <0.01).@*Conclusion@#Anti epidemic mentality is associated with the occurrence of PTSD among college students.

Dying and relational aftermath concerns among terminal cancer patients in China.

The need to make sense of one's mortality is of central concern for death studies. We aimed to explore the meaning of aftermath concerns in the process of preparing for death. Using a qualitative approach, we explored aftermath concerns among 25 participants with terminal cancer in China. Three aftermath concern themes were developed from the participants' narratives: mental concerns about parents, material concerns about children, and spiritual concerns about the self. Aftermath concerns are relational because they are not about what happens within an individual, but between individuals which are manifested within the broader cultural, social, economic, and political contexts.

The study on the core personality trait words of Chinese medical university students based on social network analysis.

The medical university students in China whose school work is relatively heavy and educational system is long are a special professional group. Many students have psychological problems more or less. So, to understand their personality characteristics will provide a scientific basis for the intervention of psychological health.We selected top 30 personality trait words according to the order of frequency. Additionally, some methods such as social network analysis (SNA) and visualization technology of mapping knowledge domain were used in this study.Among these core personality trait words Family conscious had the 3 highest centralities and possessed the largest core status and influence. From the analysis of core-peripheral structure, we can see polarized core-perpheral structure was quite obvious. From the analysis of K-plex, there were in total 588 "K-2"K-plexs. From the analysis of Principal Components, we selected the 11 principal components.This study of personality not only can prevent disease, but also provide a scientific basis for students' psychological healthy education. In addition, we have adopted SNA to pay more attention to the relationship between personality trait words and the connection among personality dimensions. This study may provide the new ideas and methods for the research of personality structure.

Evaluation of research topic evolution in psychiatry using co-word analysis.

With the rapid increase in the incidence of mental disorders and mental issues, psychiatry has become one of the fastest growing clinical medical disciplines. Development priorities and research foci in this field have evolved over different periods.All the articles in 10 psychiatric journals with the highest impact factors were selected from the Science Citation Index (SCI) in Web of Science from 2001 to 2015. The information visualization software Sci was used to conduct co-word and clustering analyses on these articles. The articles were divided into 3 periods: 2001 to 2005, 2006 to 2010, and 2011 to 2015. Each bibliographic record contained a title, author names, abstract, keywords, references, and other information.During the 3 periods between 2001 and 2015, child and adolescent psychiatry, major depression, schizophrenia, and prefrontal cortex were constant research foci. The brain and meta-analysis gradually became new research foci, although research on symptoms slowly decreased. Molecular genetics was also an area of interest.Using scientometrics technology to visualize research foci can provide us with new ideas and research methods. Co-word analysis for the preliminary exploration of research foci and developmental trends in psychiatry is helpful in finding developmental rules, choices of topics, and innovative research. Our study had some limitations. In the future, we should expand our research scope and use a variety of research methods to enrich our results.