The authors review the more recent areas of research in the field of cerebral lateralized dysfunction in schizophrenia. The different approach consistently suggest a definite degree of abnormality in hemispheric functioning in schizophrenic patients: nevertheless, the heterogeneity of patients' populations, as well as some inherent characteristic of the disease (i.e. duration of the illness, length of hospitalization, duration of drug treatment and psychopathological symptoms) should be taken into the account in order to obtain a more accurate definition of the cerebral impairment in schizophrenia.

Cerebral Cortex↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Cognitive processes and cognitive progresses as didactic tools in psychiatry.

The authors expose the characteristics of two methods about the teaching and the learning of Psychiatry. Hermeneutic method is based on the model: "this want to say that". It gives rise to rapid and diffused learning which are rarely personalized and it attributes activity to the teacher and passivity to the pupil. "Conjectural" method is based on the model: "this is one of the aspects of a polymer of significances that we may point out as probable conjecture and not as truth". It produces learning less rapid, less diffused but more personal. It attributes activity and passivity as to the teacher as to the pupil. The first method tends to provoke pathological dependence as proselitism and/or contest so the pupil difficulty may assume the heritage of the teacher by having idealized or killed him. The second method tends to form self-governing pupils able to break away from the teacher after having learned from him new knowledges which they use in a personal way.

Humans↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Psychotherapy of the family as a measure for preventing relapses and improving the prognosis in schizophrenic patients.

The increasing interest in the relationship among psychoanalysis, linguistics and higher nervous activity (neurodynamic) is recalled. As most of the works on the therapy of the family have been based upon psychodynamic interpretations, the authors shall try to speculate on how much room this field should be given in the phenomena related to higher nervous activity. The study of Pavlov, Gantt and others on biological and social factors influencing human behaviour have been discussed in relation to the system represented by the family nucleus. Some aspects have been taken in consideration like the double bind, the perverse triangle and the formation of a scapegoat. Double bind theory and praxis is representing a paradoxical situation similar to unavoidable conditioned patterns. The behaviour of the "designed patient" may be interpreted as a tentative escape to express his disagreement to the fixed situation. What happens is a kind of abnormal conditioning which is realized through a progressive stratification of discordant learning. The final result is the disorganisation of cognitive processes. In the meantime, we observe a discordance of the activity of the first and the second signaling system because, very often, an apparent external calm is accompanied by intense cardiovascular or visceral turmoil. Every kind of communication should take care of both processes, the congnitive and the neurodynamic. The analysis of the verbal, as well as the non-verbal communication in the family setting, may be fruitfully based upon the study of the progressive significance of the cognitive-emotional dissyntony, as well as the dissyntony between the 1st and the 2nd S.S., and the transactional dissyntony implicit in the double bind. A group of 25 families of schizophrenics followed by one up to five years has been examined following the concepts above mentioned.

Double Bind Interaction↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Electrophysiological tests and CSF examination in patients with optic neuritis.

Electrophysiological tests (visual and somatosensory evoked potentials, flicker fusion test) and electrophoretic examination of cerebrospinal fluid were performed in 17 patients who previously suffered from one or more attacks of optic neuritis. The association of the tests revealed the demyelinating inflammatory pathogenesis in eight cases. In the remaining nine cases the CSF oligoclonal pattern was absent. The evidence that a bilateral delayed VEP, suggesting a subclinical contralateral involvement of optic pathways, could be related to multiple sclerosis, is discussed. A case was finally ascertained as being affected by Leber's optic atrophy.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Psychodynamic aspects of dialysis and renal graft].

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Anxiety↗