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The mixed 5-HT receptor agonist/antagonist meta-chlorophenylpiperazine (mCPP) is known to suppress locomotor activity in mice and rats. This study aimed: (1) to determine whether mCPP induces cognitive and motor changes in normal human volunteers and how these changes relate to the neuroendocrine effects of mCPP; and (2) to compare these cognitive and motor changes to the known cognitive and motor slowing patterns in depression and schizophrenia. A computerized method (used in previous research) analyzed fine motor behavior during figure-copying tasks. In 14 normal male volunteers behavioral responses, body temperature, plasma levels of prolactin and cortisol, and cognitive and motor performance during figure-copying tasks were measured after a single oral dose of mCPP (0.5 mg/kg). mCPP-induced prolongation of the reaction times in all copying tasks, parallel to increases in cortisol and prolactin and some self-reported behavioral effects. There were no changes in the movement times or the velocities of the writing movements. In conclusion, mCPP induced cognitive, but not motor slowing, in normal male volunteers. This indicates that the human serotonin system is also implicated in psychomotor behavior. This pattern of slowing was different from that in depressed and schizophrenic patients. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Disturbances in emotion regulation have been identified as a core feature of patients with a borderline personality disorder (BPD). Findings of studies using experimental measures of emotion processing are mixed, which may be partially explained by the heterogeneity of the BPD population. To address this issue, we investigated differences in experimental measures of emotional action tendencies (approach-avoidance behaviour) and attentional bias to emotional stimuli in BPD subtypes. Data of the Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) and the Emotional Stroop Task (EST) were collected in 140 BPD patients, previously clustered into four BPD subtypes based on temperament dimensions. We investigated (1) the relationship between temperament dimensions and the performance on the AAT and EST and (2) compared performance on these tasks in previous defined BPD subtypes. The results of the present study demonstrated a positive relationship between effortful control (EC) and AAT effect-scores. A higher level of EC was positively associated with a general emotional action tendency towards faces with directed gaze, even when controlling for gender, age and BPD severity. Preliminary results on the comparison of the BPD subtypes demonstrated no significant differences in AAT and EST performance. These findings emphasize the relevance of EC in emotional action tendencies in BPD patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research points to cognitive slowing in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), although there have been negative reports. The present study is one of few that examines fine motor processing and the inhibition of automatic responses in a well-characterised CFS population. A total of 35 female CFS patients without current major depression and 25 female controls performed two computerised figure-copying tasks. The cognitive and fine motor processing of visual-spatial information was measured by recording reaction time (RT) and movement time (MT), respectively. The inhibition of automatic responses was assessed by introducing 'conflicting patterns' (i.e., patterns that were difficult to draw from the preferred left to right). A multivariate general linear model was adopted for the statistical analysis of the movement recordings. As a result, CFS was significantly associated with longer RT and MT in the pooled and in the task-specific analyses. However, there was no interaction between disease status and conflicting character of the patterns. In conclusion, these performance data on the figure-copying tasks provide confirmatory evidence for psychomotor slowing in CFS, but not for a disturbed inhibition of automatic responses. Computerised figure-copying tasks may be promising tools for use in neurobiological research and clinical trials in CFS., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)