Biomedical subjects

Jean-Louis Nandrino

Publications and source records attributed to Jean-Louis Nandrino.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Autobiographical memory deficit in anorexia nervosa: emotion regulation and effect of duration of illness.

Emotional deficits in anorexia nervosa can be expressed in autobiographical memory recall. The aim of this study is to test whether deficits in autobiographical memory exist in anorexic patients and concern specifically negative or positive emotional valence. Moreover, it is unclear whether these deficits are dependent upon comorbid aspects (depression, alexithymia, and anxiety) or upon illness duration. Anorexic patients (n=25) were compared to healthy volunteers based on their clinical assessment, explicit memory test score, and autobiographical memory test score. The study makes use of the autobiographical test of Williams and Scott, which involves specific emotional cues to elicit memory. Anorexic patients recalled more general memories than controls in autobiographical memory test, but had no deficit in explicit memory test. This pattern, observed both for negative and positive cues, was neither related to depression or alexithymia, nor to anxiety severity, but increased significantly with illness duration. These results show that anorexic patients are characterized by relative difficulty in the integration of both negative and positive emotional experiences, and that this impairment is reinforced by illness duration.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Dynamical quantification of schizophrenic speech.

Schizophrenic speech has been studied both at the clinical and linguistic level. Nevertheless, the statistical methods used in these studies do not specifically take into account the dynamical aspects of language. In the present study, we quantify the dynamical properties of linguistic production in schizophrenic and control subjects. Subjects' recall of a short story was encoded according to the succession of macro- and micro-propositions, and symbolic dynamical methods were used to analyze these data. Our results show the presence of a significant temporal organization in subjects' speech. Taking this structure into account, we show that schizophrenics connect micro-propositions significantly more often than controls. This impairment in accessing language at the highest level supports the hypothesis of a deficit in maintaining a discourse plan in schizophrenia.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Temperament and character inventory in homicidal, nonaddicted paranoid schizophrenic patients: a preliminary study.

This study assessed the personalities of 13 murderer schizophrenics using Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory, controlling different factors such as institution, treatment, detention or loss of liberty, and can discriminate between schizophrenic patients involved in homicide, schizophrenics with no past violent behavior, paranoiac murderers, and imprisoned murderers with no psychiatric history. Results show significantly that murderer schizophrenics had significantly higher scores on the subscale, Self-transcendence, than other groups, which suggests that Self-transcendence as measured may be an aggravating factor for schizophrenia and may be found in the personality of schizophrenic subjects who performed homicidal acts. This dimension constitutes a way and an additional element for diagnosis not available with the DSM-IV criteria. It may help understanding and predicting violent behavior among schizophrenic patients.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Cognitive processing of anorexic patients in recognition tasks: an event-related potentials study.

OBJECTIVE: We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to test whether anorexic subjects have difficulties in filtering out irrelevant stimuli in controlled information processing tasks. METHODS: ERPs from 12 anorexic patients were recorded during recognition of simple and complex body images and simple and complex geometrical shapes. RESULTS: Anorexic subjects had larger P300 amplitudes for frequent stimuli during body images and simple geometrical shape recognition tasks. Longer P300 latencies were also found in simple geometrical shape recognition tasks, although task complexity had no effect on the P300 latency and amplitude. DISCUSSION: These results are explained in terms of nonspecific hyperarousal in mental anorexia and relative inability to filter out irrelevant stimuli leading to working memory saturation.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Emotional information processing in first and recurrent major depressive episodes.

Depressive states are classically associated to increased sensitivity to negative events. However this hypersensitivity may not be stable in time, being absent in remission periods or further reinforced with recurrent depressive episodes, or may concern positive stimuli instead, e.g. in young depressive patients. To study the evolution of the processing of emotional information in depression we recorded late components of evoked potentials in first-episode and recurrent depressed patients before and after recovery. We used a visual attentional paradigm manipulating the processing of emotional information. Subjects first counted words with positive valence, and then words with negative valence from lists of usual words. The results showed that recurrent patients had increased P300 amplitudes for negative words selection only in negative words counting situation, while first-episode patients had decreased P300 amplitudes for positive words selection. After clinical improvement, the negative biases in recurrent patients group disappeared but P300 amplitudes of first-episode patients remained significantly low for positive words. First-episode depressed patients show a selective impairment for positive stimuli, with decreased response to pleasant stimuli, while recurrent depressive subjects show signs of hyperesthesia for negative stimuli. These results suggest that responses to emotional stimuli in word processing are related to the duration of the mood disorders.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Autobiographical memory in major depression: a comparison between first-episode and recurrent patients.

Autobiographical memory in depression is characterized by an increase in general memory evocation. The aim of this study is to compare autobiographical memory in patients with a first depressive episode and in recurrent patients before and after recovery, using Williams' and Scott's autobiographical memory test. Our results show an increase of the number of general memories only with positive cue words in both groups of patients during the depressive episode. After clinical improvement, this specificity remains in recurrent patients who, in addition, recall more general memories for negative words. By contrast, patients with a first depressive episode are no longer different from controls. These results show both an overgeneralization and a deficit in positive memory access during the depressive episode, whatever the number of previous episodes. Moreover, recurrence chronically modifies access to emotional memories.

Adult↗