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Mark F Lenzenweger

Publications and source records attributed to Mark F Lenzenweger.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2007

DSM-IV personality disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication.

BACKGROUND: The population prevalence of DSM-IV personality disorders (PDs) remains largely unknown. Data are reported here on the prevalence and correlates of clinician-diagnosed Clusters A, B, and C DSM-IV PDs in the general population of the United States. METHODS: Personality disorder screening questions from the International Personality Disorder Examination (IPDE) were administered in Part II (n = 5692) of the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R). A probability sub-sample was then interviewed with the IPDE and used to link screening question responses with IPDE clinical diagnoses. The method of Multiple Imputation (MI) was then implemented to estimate prevalence and correlates of PDs in the full sample. RESULTS: The MI prevalence estimates were 5.7% Cluster A, 1.5% Cluster B, 6.0% Cluster C, and 9.1% any PD. All three PD clusters were significantly comorbid with a wide range of DSM-IV Axis I disorders. Significant associations of PDs with functional impairment were largely accounted for by Axis I comorbidity. CONCLUSIONS: Strong Axis I comorbidity raises questions about the somewhat arbitrary separation of PDs from Axis I disorders in the DSM nomenclature. The impairment findings suggest that the main public health significance of PDs lies in their effects on Axis I disorders rather than in their effects on functioning.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Schizotaxia, schizotypy, and schizophrenia: Paul E. Meehl's blueprint for the experimental psychopathology and genetics of schizophrenia.

Paul E. Meehl proposed a model of the cause and pathogenesis of schizophrenia and related states in the early 1960s (Meehl, 1962), which he later revised in 1990 (Meehl, 1990). His model emphasized a genetically influenced aberration in neural transmission that could eventuate in clinical schizophrenia, nonpsychotic schizotypic states, or apparent normalcy depending on the coexistence of other factors. His model embodied the core ideas of the diathesis-stressor framework that would come to dominate experimental and developmental psychopathology for the next 40 years. The author reviews Meehl's model of schizotaxia, schizotypy, and schizophrenia and reviews and clarifies some frequent misunderstandings of the model.

Famous Persons↗
PubMed2006

Schizotypy and sustained attention: confirming evidence from an adult community sample.

Sustained attention deficits represent one of the most robust findings in the study of schizophrenia and schizotypy. However, very little is known about the nature of sustained attention performance and schizotypy in the general adult population. The present study assessed sustained attention performance in a large, normative adult community sample (N = 305) with no history of psychosis using the Continuous Performance Test-identical pairs version (CPT-IP). Associations between overall CPT-IP performance and schizotypal personality disorder features, controlling for the effects of age, sex, and educational level, revealed diminished sensitivity (d', discriminability), and increased random errors were related to increased reality distortion features. These data, drawn from a general population sample, provided support for overall sustained attention deficits as an endophenotype for schizophrenia liability.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Smooth pursuit eye movement and schizotypy in the community.

Deficits in smooth pursuit eye movements are well documented in schizophrenia and schizotypic psychopathology. The status of eye tracking dysfunction (ETD) as an endophenotype for schizophrenia liability is relatively robust. However, the relation of ETD to schizophrenia-related deviance in the general population has not been confirmed. This study examined smooth pursuit eye tracking and schizotypal personality features in the general population. Smooth pursuit eye movement and schizotypal features were measured in 300 adult community subjects. The sample included both sexes, subjects with a wide age and educational range, and subjects with no prior history of psychosis. Primary outcome measures were peak gain (eye velocity/target velocity), catch-up saccade rate, and schizotypal feature scores. Total schizotypal features were significantly associated with decreased peak gain and were associated at the trend level with increased catch-up saccade rate. These associations were essentially unchanged after controlling for age, sex, and intellectual level effects. These data confirm a hypothesized association between schizotypal features and poorer eye tracking performance (principally, peak gain) in the general population as well as support the conceptualization of ETD as an endophenotype for schizophrenia liability.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

The longitudinal study of personality disorders: history, design considerations, and initial findings.

The Longitudinal Study of Personality Disorders (LSPD) began in 1990 and it is the first NIMH-funded prospective multiwave longitudinal study of all DSM-defined personality disorders (PDs). The LSPD, now in its 16th year, has focused on several major issues including: (a) the epidemiology of the PDs; (b) the stability of individual differences and mean levels of PD features over time; (c); patterns of individual growth in PD features over time; (d) the development of a neurobehavioral model that links personality and personality disorder; (e) specification of those neurobehavioral systems predicting change in borderline personality disorder; and (f) illumination of simultaneous growth processes in neurobehavioral systems and PD. The LSPD possesses a number of methodological enhancements designed to increase the validity of the longitudinal findings such as a prospective multiwave design, use of a validated structured interview and well-known self-report instrument for Axis II assessments, double measurement of all major constructs under study, use of blinded interviewers for all interview Axis II assessments, and use of a community sample. The history and context in which the LSPD was developed is reviewed, methodological issues related to the study of PDs are discussed, primary LSPD findings to date are summarized, and future directions of the LSPD are introduced.

Humans↗
PubMed2005

Executive neurocognition, memory systems, and borderline personality disorder.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a common, disabling, and burdensome psychiatric condition. It is characterized by turbulent fluctuations of negative emotions and moods, unstable and conflictual interpersonal relationships, an incoherent and often contradictory sense of self, and impulsive, potentially lethal self-injurious behaviors. The neurobehavioral facets of BPD have not been extensively studied. However, clinical theoreticians and researchers have proposed that the symptoms and behaviors of BPD are, in part, associated with disruptions in basic neurocognitive processes. This review summarizes and evaluates research that has investigated the relationship between executive neurocognition, memory systems, and BPD. Three historical phases of research are delineated and reviewed, and the methodological and conceptual challenges this body of investigation highlights are discussed. Laboratory-based assessment of executive neurocognition and memory systems is integral to an interdisciplinary approach to research in BPD. Such an approach holds promise in elucidating the neurobehavioral facets, development, diagnostic boundaries, prevention, and optimal interventions for this debilitating and enigmatic disorder.

Borderline Personality Disorder↗
PubMed2005

The association between attentional and executive controls in the expression of borderline personality disorder features: a preliminary study.

BACKGROUND: Basic neurocognitive functions such as attention and executive cognitive control represent promising endophenotypes that may improve understanding of the development and expression of borderline personality disorders (BPD). We evaluated the association between performance on the Attention Network Task (ANT) and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), two neurocognitive laboratory instruments, and the extent of BPD psychopathology. SAMPLING AND METHODS: We studied 22 BPD-diagnosed individuals who were independently administered these two laboratory assays. Performance on these tests was used as a predictor of the extent of BPD psychopathology. RESULTS: Indexes of the ANT and the WCST were correlated with one another in this sample. Further, the extent of impairment in attention networks, specifically the orienting network, was associated with a greater spectrum of BPD psychopathology, independent of the effects of age and medication status. Finally, ANT and WCST performance were uncorrelated with general psychosocial functioning in this sample, implicating relative specificity to the extent, as contrasted with functional severity, of BPD psychopathology. CONCLUSIONS: Attentional and executive functions are promising endophenotypic markers of BPD psychopathology. The implications of these findings are considered from developmental, experimental, and clinical perspectives.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Paul E. Meehl's influence on experimental psychopathology: fruits of the nexus of schizotypy and schizophrenia, neurology, and methodology.

Paul E. Meehl made numerous contributions to clinical science and a hallmark of many of these contributions was their integrative nature. Meehl's positions on complex topics, especially one such as schizophrenia, were reflective of input from a variety of disciplines and levels of analysis. In this essay the authors focus on Meehl's uniquely rich contribution to our understanding of schizophrenia through his theoretical model of schizotypy, his abiding interest in exploring neurologically based indicators of schizophrenia liability and encouragement to others to pursue such indicators, and his passion for rigorous research methodology. Meehl's contributions in each of these areas continue to influence the direction and research strategies used in experimental psychopathology to illuminate the fundamental nature of schizophrenia. These contributions have also shaped inquiry into many other psychopathological entities.

History, 20th Century↗
PubMed2005

Predicting change in borderline personality: Using neurobehavioral systems indicators within an individual growth curve framework.

The natural history and course of borderline personality disorder (BPD) has long been the focus of speculation, typically guided by impressions from clinical work with BPD-affected individuals. Not unlike the other personality disorders (PDs), it has long been assumed that BPD is relatively stable, traitlike, and enduring in nature. The extent to which BPD is or is not a plastic construct has implications not only for understanding its longitudinal course, but also for understanding its development and, ultimately, its treatment and/or prevention. This paper consists of two parts. The first part reviews the longitudinal research corpus that bears directly upon the issue of stability of BPD in both adolescents and adults. The consistent trend in very nearly all studies, whether using a categorical or dimensional approach to assessment, is one of considerable change over time. This literature presents complexities, however, because most of the extant studies examine BPD-affected individuals who have been exposed to treatment. However, at least two large-scale longitudinal studies, which include both treated and untreated persons, also provide support for viewing BPD as a malleable disorder that declines in severity over time. The second part presents original data from the Longitudinal Study of Personality Disorders that specifically examine the predictors of change in BPD using a neurobehavioral model of personality within an individual growth curve (IGC) analytical framework. This IGC analysis revealed important predictors of both overall level of BPD features as well as rate of change in BPD features, with particularly important roles played by the agentic positive emotion (i.e., incentive motivation) and anxiety (negative emotion) systems. The benefits of the IGC approach for understanding the developmental psychopathology of BPD is also stressed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Somatosensory processing and schizophrenia liability: proprioception, exteroceptive sensitivity, and graphesthesia performance in the biological relatives of schizophrenia patients.

In the present study, the authors examined somatosensory processing in 30 biological relatives of persons with schizophrenia (hereafter called "schizophrenia relatives"), 30 biological relatives of persons with bipolar affective disorder (psychiatric family control subjects), and 30 healthy control subjects with no family history of psychopathology. All 3 groups completed a weight discrimination task, a 2-point discrimination task, and a complex cognitive somatosensory task (i.e., graphesthesia). The schizophrenia relatives performed significantly worse on all 3 somatosensory tasks compared with both the healthy control subjects and the bipolar relatives. The healthy control subjects and psychiatric family control subjects showed no significant differences on any of the somatosensory tasks. Within the weight discrimination and 2-point discrimination tasks, schizophrenia relatives showed group differences on the d' index, the measure of sensitivity, whereas all 3 groups did not differ on lnbeta, the measure of response bias, suggesting a genuine difference in weight and touch sensitivity. The d' value of the weight discrimination task was significantly associated with both the cognitive-perceptual factor and negative symptom factor of the clinical questionnaire (e.g., Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire; SPQ), whereas the 2-point discrimination d' value and graphesthesia scores were significantly associated only with the cognitive-perceptual factor of the SPQ. Implications for the possible relation between somatosensory task performance and schizophrenia liability are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Individual growth curve analysis illuminates stability and change in personality disorder features: the longitudinal study of personality disorders.

BACKGROUND: The long-term stability of personality pathology remains an open question. Its resolution will come from prospective, multiwave longitudinal studies using blinded assessments of personality disorders (PD). Informative analysis of multiwave data requires the application of statistical procedures, such as individual growth curve modeling, that can detect and describe individual change appropriately over time. The Longitudinal Study of Personality Disorders, which meets contemporary methodological design criteria, provides the data for this investigation of PD stability and change from an individual growth curve perspective. METHODS: Two hundred fifty subjects were examined for PD features at 3 different time points using the International Personality Disorders Examination during a 4-year study. Stability and change in PD features over time were examined using individual growth modeling. RESULTS: Fitting of unconditional growth models indicated that statistically significant variation in PD features existed across time in the elevation and rate of change of the individual PD growth trajectories. Fitting of additional conditional growth models, in which the individual elevation and rate-of-change growth parameters were predicted by subjects' study group membership (no PD vs possible PD), sex, and age at entry into the study, showed that study group membership predicted the elevation and rate of change of the individual growth curves. Comorbid Axis I psychopathology and treatment during the study period were related to elevations of the individual growth trajectories, but not to rates of change. CONCLUSIONS: From the perspective of individual growth curve analysis, PD features show considerable variability across individuals over time. This fine-grained analysis of individual growth trajectories provides compelling evidence of change in PD features over time and does not support the assumption that PD features are traitlike, enduring, and stable over time.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Consideration of the challenges, complications, and pitfalls of taxometric analysis.

The taxometric analytic procedures developed by P. E. Meehl and colleagues represent powerful statistical tools for use in the evaluation of observed quantitative data for the possible existence of a qualitative latent class, natural subgroup, or, more commonly, a taxon. Taxometric methods, like any other statistical procedures, require thoughtful application, and the responsibility for proper interpretation of the results from a taxometric study lies with the investigator. Any investigator using taxometric methods must be mindful of those substantive and methodological issues that will facilitate the most fruitful utilization of the general taxometric approach, as well as those issues that will handicap or, perhaps, fatally flaw a taxometric investigation. A number of these issues are highlighted and discussed in this article, and a reader's, writer's, and reviewer's guide for the evaluation of taxometric research reports is provided.

Classification↗
PubMed2004

Investigating graphesthesia task performance in the biological relatives of schizophrenia patients.

This study compared the performance of 39 biological relatives of persons with schizophrenia to that of 30 normal adult controls on graphesthesia processing, a complex somatosensory processing task. The relatives performed significantly worse on the graphesthesia task compared to the healthy controls. The relatives and control subjects, however, did not differ on two neurocognitive control tasks. These data are interpreted within the context of a somatosensory deficit linked to schizophrenia liability.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

The Personality Disorders Institute/Borderline Personality Disorder Research Foundation randomized control trial for borderline personality disorder: rationale, methods, and patient characteristics.

The Personality Disorder Institute/Borderline Personality Disorder Research Foundation randomized control trial (PDI/BPDRF RCT) is a controlled outcome study for borderline personality disorder (BPD), in which 90 participants were randomized to one of three manualized and monitored, active psychosocial treatment conditions. These treatments are: (a) Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP; Clarkin, Yeomans, & Kernberg, 1999), a treatment for BPD based on object-relational and psychoanalytic principles first applied to BPD by Kernberg (1996), notable for its particular emphasis on interpretation of object relations activated in the ongoing therapeutic relationship; (b) Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT; Linehan, 1993), a popular treatment for BPD, with evidence of efficacy (Linehan, Armstrong, Suarez, Allmon, & Heard, 1991) that emphasizes a balance between acceptance and change in its combination of cognitive-behavioral and Zen principles; and (c) supportive psychotherapy (Rockland, 1992), another object-relational and psychoanalytically based treatment for BPD which, in contrast to TFP, eschews transference interpretation and places primary emphasis on development of a collaborative engagement with the patient to foster identity development. Patients received medication, if clearly indicated, according to the treatment algorithm developed by Soloff (2000). This article describes the significance and rationale of the study and the overall design, methods, plan of analysis, and demographic characteristics of the recruited sample of patients.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Executive neurocognitive functioning and neurobehavioral systems indicators in borderline personality disorder: a preliminary study.

It is argued that borderline personality disorder (BPD) represents the interaction of underlying neurobehavioral systems that are reflected principally in the phenotypic constructs of positive emotion, negative emotion, and nonaffective constraint (Depue & Lenzenweger, 2001). This preliminary and exploratory study sought to examine predictions made from the Depue-Lenzenweger model with respect to controlled (effortful) information processing in BPD. It was hypothesized that (a) BPD subjects may display deficits on tasks that require controlled information processing (sustained attention, spatial working memory, and executive functioning), (b) they may reveal elevated negative emotion as well as decreased positive emotion and nonaffective constraint, and (c) nonaffective constraint should be substantially inversely associated with accurate performance on controlled information processing tasks. The results of this study, which examined 24 BPD diagnosed individuals and 68 normal adults, found support for each of these predictions in relation to performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. The implications of these results for further experimental psychopathology investigations of BPD as well as further refinement of theoretical models of the disorder are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Finding the "genuine" schizotype: a model and method for resolving heterogeneity in performance on laboratory measures in experimental psychopathology research.

Heterogeneity in the performance of persons affected with schizophrenia or schizotypic psychopathology on various laboratory tasks has long been recognized, both for its consistency across tasks and studies and for the massive methodological and substantive challenges it poses for experimental psychopathology, genetic, and other investigations. Traditional multivariate techniques, such as factor analysis, discriminant function analysis, and cluster analysis, have all been deemed inadequate for resolving heterogeneity, because of one or another statistical limitation. Here, an objective statistical approach based on a formal statistical model that uses the ubiquitous and well-developed expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm (A. P. Dempster, N. M. Laird, & D. B. Rubin, 1977) is presented, which enables one effectively to partition a group of experimental subjects, in this case identified initially using the well-known Perceptual Aberration Scale (L. J. Chapman, J. P. Chapman, & M. L. Raulin, 1978), in a manner that reduces heterogeneity and allows for the separation of what are termed genuine and false-positive schizotypes. The validity of the parsing strategy was supported by reference to other laboratory indexes of relevance to schizophrenia and schizotypy that were not included in the initial EM-based analyses. The potential utility of this approach is discussed with reference to future schizophrenia and schizotypy research.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Memory distortion in people reporting abduction by aliens.

False memory creation was examined in people who reported having recovered memories of traumatic events that are unlikely to have occurred: abduction by space aliens. A variant of the Deese/Roediger-McDermott paradigm (J. Deese. 1959; H. L. Roediger III & K. B. McDermott, 1995) was used to examine false recall and false recognition in 3 groups: people reporting recovered memories of alien abduction. people who believe they were abducted by aliens but have no memories, and people who deny having been abducted by aliens. Those reporting recovered and repressed memories of alien abduction were more prone than control participants to exhibit false recall and recognition. The groups did not differ in correct recall or recognition. Hypnotic suggestibility, depressive symptoms, and schizotypic features were significant predictors of false recall and false recognition.

Adult↗