While investigating social cognitive impairments in schizophrenia, prominent evidence has been found that patients with schizophrenia show a tendency to misclassify neutral stimuli as negatively valenced. Within this population, patients... more
While investigating social cognitive impairments in schizophrenia, prominent evidence has been found that patients with schizophrenia show a tendency to misclassify neutral stimuli as negatively valenced. Within this population, patients presenting delusions are more prone to this phenomenon. In a previous study, Schizophrenia spectrum (SzSp) patients rated positive, negative and neutral stimuli that were multimodally presented, while assessed with a checklist exploring anomalous subjective experiences and evaluated for positive and negative symptomatology. In the present work, we aimed to further explore the relationship between neutral stimuli misperception, anomalous experiences and positive/negative symptoms in SzSp patients. To this end, we adopted a dimensional approach by reconstructing from available data: (1) four a priori scales representing essential dimensions of SzSp experiential pathology following Parnas et al. (2005); and (2) five clinically meaningful factors to des...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Background: Self-disorders (SDs) have been described as a core schizophrenia spectrum vulnerability phenotype, both in classic and contemporary psychopathological literature. However, such a core phenotype has not yet been investigated... more
Background: Self-disorders (SDs) have been described as a core schizophrenia spectrum vulnerability phenotype, both in classic and contemporary psychopathological literature. However, such a core phenotype has not yet been investigated adopting a trans-domain approach that combines the phenomenological and the neurophysiological levels of analysis. The aim of this study is to investigate the relation between SDs and subtle, schizophrenia-specific impairments of emotional resonance that are supposed to reflect abnormalities in the mirror neurons mechanism. Specifically, we tested whether electromyographic response to emotional stimuli (i.e. a proxy for subtle changes in facial mimicry and related motor resonance mechanisms) would predict the occurrence of anomalous subjective experiences (i.e. SDs). Sampling and Methods: Eighteen schizophrenia spectrum (SzSp) patients underwent a comprehensive psychopathological examination and were contextually tested with a multimodal paradigm, rec...
Research Interests: Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Science, Emotion, Electrophysiology, Mirror Neurons, and 15 morePhenomenology, Medicine, Emotions, Humans, Multisensory Integration, Female, Male, Electromyography, Clinical Sciences, Ego, Middle Aged, Facial Mimicry, Adult, Neuropsychological Tests, and Affective symptoms
Research Interests: Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Depression, Schizophrenia, Psychopathology, and 15 morePleasure, Medicine, Emotions, Humans, Basic Symptoms Schizophrenia, Female, Male, Anhedonia, Clinical Sciences, Middle Aged, Adult, Cognition disorders, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, european psychiatry, and Medical and Health Sciences
This research is an attempt to gain a comprehensive insight into alexithymia in schizophrenia. Previous studies offered clinically-descriptive and phenomenologically oriented suggestions regarding alexithymia putative contribution in... more
This research is an attempt to gain a comprehensive insight into alexithymia in schizophrenia. Previous studies offered clinically-descriptive and phenomenologically oriented suggestions regarding alexithymia putative contribution in shaping schizophrenic psychopathology. However, the factorial structure of the scales used to assess alexithymia had never been applied to a schizophrenic sample as a preliminary step to interpret results, thus assuming the purported dimensions of the alexithymia construct (i.e. difficulties identifying feelings, difficulties describing feelings, and externally oriented thinking) to be transnosographically stable. In order to explore the psychopathologic meaning and interrelations with other schizophrenic symptoms, we evaluated 76 chronic schizophrenic outpatients using the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, standardized measures of positive, negative, disorganized and depressive symptoms, social and physical anhedonia scales, and the Bonn Scale for the...
Research Interests: Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Schizophrenia, Psychopathology, Medicine, and 12 moreAlexithymia, Biological Sciences, Humans, Anhedonia, Feeling, Middle Aged, Adult, Subjective Experience, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Toronto Alexithymia Scale, Affective symptoms, and Medical and Health Sciences
Research Interests: Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Psychiatry, Bipolar Disorder, Psychopathology, and 15 moreMedicine, Factor analysis, Humans, Mania, Female, Male, Psychotic Disorder, Medical Diagnosis, Adult, Retrospective Studies, Psychotic Disorders, Psychiatric, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences
Research Interests: Psychology, Borderline Personality Disorder, Adolescent, Medicine, Comorbidity, and 15 moreDopamine, Brain, Humans, Female, Male, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Benzodiazepines, Hallucinogens, Risk factors, Clinical Sciences, RISPERIDONE, Risk Factors, Neurosciences, clomipramine, and Antipsychotic agents
Abnormal neuropsychological and cognitive functions in nonpsychotic relatives of schizophrenics are currently the subject of intense interest, mainly because of attention being focused again on the theoretical construct of schizotaxia.... more
Abnormal neuropsychological and cognitive functions in nonpsychotic relatives of schizophrenics are currently the subject of intense interest, mainly because of attention being focused again on the theoretical construct of schizotaxia. Contextually, in recent years the issues of ...