Brain structure analysis for patients with antisocial personality disorder by MRI / 中南大学学报(医学版)

OBJECTIVE@#To investigate the structural abnormalities of brain in patients with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) but without alcoholism and drug abuse.@*METHODS@#Volunteers from Hunan Reformatory (n=36) and the matched healthy subjects (n=26) were examined by high-spatial resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Voxel-based morphometry and fractional anisotropy (FA) maps were generated for each subject to reveal structural abnormalities in patients with ASPD.@*RESULTS@#Compared with the healthy controls, ASPD patients showed significantly higher gray matter volumes in the inferior parietal lobule (P≤0.001, uncorrected), white matter volumes in the precuneus (P≤0.001, uncorrected), FA in the left lingual gyrus, bilateral precuneus, right superior frontal gyrus and right middle temporal gyrus (P≤0.01, uncorrected).@*CONCLUSION@#Our results revealed the abnormal neuroanatomical features in ASPD patients, which might be related to the external behavioral traits in ASPD patients.

Pathological mechanisms of chronic insomnia: Evidence from neuro-electrophysiology and neuroimaging research / 中南大学学报(医学版)

As a widely recognized public health problem as well as prevalent and challenging to modern society, chronic insomnia is involved in wide brain areas (such as prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and thalamus) and emotion-cognition neuro-circuit. It is closely related to the conditioned hyperarousal and the increased information process and/or the impaired inhibitory ability to withdraw from awaking state. Thus, some specific abnormal mode may exist in the emotion-cognition circuit, which is associated with abnormal cognition load, such as repeated retrieval/intrusion of aversive memories during night. Studies through the combination of multiple techniques including psychology, electrophysiology and neuroimaging methods are needed to further enhance the understanding of chronic insomnia.

Pharmacological intervention of conditioned fear and its extinction / 中南大学学报(医学版)

Conditioned fear and its abnormal extinction are involved in the psychopathology of anxiety disorders, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Cognitive enhancing agents have been demonstrated to alter fear extinction in many animal research literatures. The present review has examined the pharmacological role of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), glutamatergic, cholinergic, adrenergic, dopaminergic, and cannabinoid as well as compounds able to alter the epigenetic and neurotrophic mechanism in fear extinction, highlighting great hope for the future treatment of anxiety disorders with new agents based on the fear extinction.

The impact of childhood abuse and exposure to family violence on college students' self-esteem / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

Objective To investigate the impact of childhood abuse and exposure to family violence on college students'self-esteem.Methods Using Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-28 Item Short Form(CTQ-SF),Witness to interparental Violence Questionnaire,Self-esteem Scale(SES),and to investigate 412 college students tional abuse,emotional ignorance,physical ignorance or exposure to interparental physical violence had lower selfesteem(28.04±4.31,28.43±3.81,28.55±3.70,28.66±3.67,28.15±3.87),compared to the students withStudy showed the self-esteem was negatively correlated with childhood physical abuse,emotional abuse,sexual abuse,emotional ignorance,physical ignorance and exposure to interparental physical violence(r=-0.134,-0.216,-0.359,-0.250,-0.170,P＜0.01).Study showed most significant correlation between childhood emotional ignorance,childhood emotional abuse and self-esteem.Conclusion The experience of childhood abuse and ignorance,exposure to family violence have side effects on college students'self-esteem.The most important factors are childhood emotional ignorance and emotional abuse.