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Background: A number of studies have found that hypersexuality is associated with a high propensity for sexual excitation. In comparison, less is known about the relationship between hypersexuality and sexual arousal at the state level. Also, previous research has revealed a relationship between hypersexuality and negative mood. However, the possibility that sexual response might not be as negatively impacted by negative mood in hypersexual individuals has, as yet, not been tested., Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate sexual responsivity and the effects of negative mood on sexual arousal in hypersexual men who have sex with men (MSM)., Methods: A total of 211 MSM were assigned to a hypersexuality (N = 81) or a control (N = 130) group using an interview patterned with a semi-structured Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders format. Participants filled out questionnaires and were shown neutral, sexual, and anxiety- and sadness-inducing films., Outcomes: Changes in penile circumference and self-reported sexual arousal were the primary outcomes analyzed in this study., Results: Controlling for age and HIV status, no differences were found in genital response between hypersexual and non-hypersexual men. Also, the 2 groups did not differ in subjective sexual arousal. Moreover, no effects of negative mood were found. Time series clustering analyses revealed 3 groups-low responders and slow and fast high responders. Sexual excitation, but not sexual compulsivity or pornography use, predicted cluster membership., Clinical Translation: Hypersexual MSM may benefit more from an exploration of motivational and behavioral, as compared to psychophysiological, mechanisms underlying possible links between (negative) mood and sexual behavior., Strengths & Limitations: Strengths of the study include its sample size, making it one of the larger psychophysiological sex studies; the use of clinical interviews for group assignment; the inclusion of genital response measures; and the application of time series clustering to examine differences among participants. Limitations include possible sample heterogeneity and the reliance on researcher-selected stimuli., Conclusion: Given the lack of any effects of negative mood on sexual response in hypersexual MSM, future studies could explore in more depth possible motivational and behavioral effects, including, for example, the impact of negative mood on the tendency to seek out sex as a form of distraction or for validation or emotional support. Janssen E, Prause N, Romine RS, et al. Sexual Responsivity and the Effects of Negative Mood on Sexual Arousal in Hypersexual Men Who Have Sex With Men (MSM). J Sex Med 2020;17:1751-1760., (Copyright © 2020 International Society for Sexual Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Hypersexuality has been conceptualized as sexual addiction, compulsivity, and impulsivity, among others, in the absence of strong empirical data in support of any specific conceptualization., Aim: To investigate personality factors and behavioral mechanisms that are relevant to hypersexuality in men who have sex with men., Methods: A sample of 242 men who have sex with men was recruited from various sites in a moderate-size mid-western city. Participants were assigned to a hypersexuality group or a control group using an interview similar to the Structured Clinical Interview for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition. Self-report inventories were administered that measured the broad personality constructs of positive emotionality, negative emotionality, and constraint and more narrow constructs related to sexual behavioral control, behavioral activation, behavioral inhibition, sexual excitation, sexual inhibition, impulsivity, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and sexual behavior., Main Outcome Measures: Hierarchical logistic regression was used to determine the relation between these personality and behavioral variables and group membership., Results: A hierarchical logistic regression controlling for age showed a significant positive relation between hypersexuality and negative emotionality and a negative relation with constraint. None of the behavioral mechanism variables entered this equation. However, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis predicting sexual behavioral control indicated that lack of such control was positively related to sexual excitation and sexual inhibition owing to the threat of performance failure and negatively related to sexual inhibition owing to the threat of performance consequences and general behavioral inhibition, Conclusion: Hypersexuality was found to be related to two broad personality factors that are characterized by emotional reactivity, risk taking, and impulsivity. The associated lack of sexual behavior control is influenced by sexual excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms, but not by general behavioral activation and inhibitory mechanisms., (Copyright © 2016 International Society for Sexual Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The Cognitive Neuroscience Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia initiative highlighted a contour integration test as a promising index of visual integration impairment because of its well-established psychometric properties; its prior validation in healthy adults, patients, and nonhuman primates; and its potential sensitivity to treatment effects. In this multisite study, our goals were to validate the task on the largest subject sample to date, clarify the task conditions and number of trials that best discriminate patients from controls, and determine whether this discrimination can occur in standard clinical trial settings. For our task, subjects briefly observed a field of disconnected, oriented elements and attempted to decide whether a subset of those elements formed a leftward- or rightward-pointing shape. Difficulty depended on the amount of orientational jitter that was added to the shape's elements. Two versions of this Jittered Orientation Visual Integration task (JOVI) were examined. Study 1 did not reveal between-group differences in threshold (ie, the jitter magnitude needed to reach a performance level of ∼80%), but this likely owed to the wide sampling distribution of jitter levels and resulting floor/ceiling effects in many conditions. Study 2 incorporated a narrower range of difficulty levels and revealed lower thresholds (worse performance) among patients (p < .001). This group difference remained even when only the first half of the trials was analyzed (p = .001). Thus, the JOVI-2 provides a brief, sensitive measure of visual integration deficits in schizophrenia. Neural implications and potential future applications of the JOVI are discussed.

In this article, we describe results of the 5th Cognitive Neuroscience Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia meeting which identified candidate imaging biomarkers for used in measuring neural activity associated with specific component processes of cognition that are targeted for treatment development in schizophrenia and other disorders. This manuscript describes the process by which measures related to executive control were selected, along with the specific measures recommended for further development. Two paradigms were recommended for measurement of the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying 2 core component processes of executive control, rule generation and selection, and dynamic adjustments of Control. The 2 paradigms are the AX continuous performance task task (letter and dot forms), implemented as an functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm to engage neural systems supporting rule generation and selection, and the switching Stroop task, implemented as either fMRI or electroencephalography that may be used as a measure of both rule generation and selection as well as dynamic adjustment in control. A detailed description of each paradigm, together with a review of the relevant literature related to their cognitive and neural validity and measurement properties is provided. These 2 paradigms are recommended for further development, including further validation at the cognitive and neural level and optimization with respect to subject tolerability, psychometric, and neurometric features.

The goal of the current project was to further develop a measure of gain control--the Contrast-Contrast Effect (CCE)--for use in clinical studies of schizophrenia. The CCE is based on an illusion in which presenting a medium contrast patch surrounded by a high-contrast patch induces individuals to perceive that center patch as having lower contrast than when the patch is presented in isolation. Thus, in the CCE, impaired gain control should lead to more accurate perceptions of the center patch. We tested 132 individuals with Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 130 demographically similar healthy controls. The results indicated that the CCE effect can be obtained with standard equipment, simplified scoring, and a short interstimulus interval (100 ms), revealing a robust suppression of perceived contrast of the center patch when surrounded by a high-contrast annulus. Furthermore, we found a significant reduction in the effect of the high-contrast surround among individuals with schizophrenia, though the effect size was smaller than original reported by Dakin. However, when we eliminated subjects who performed poorly on "catch" trials that controlled for off-task performance, the reduced surround effect among patients was no longer significant in the main analyses. Importantly, this suggests that at least part of the reduced surround effect (if not all) in schizophrenia could be attributable to impaired attentional mechanisms that contribute to off-task performance. Additional analyses suggested that the length of the task could be shortened without losing power to detect surround effects in healthy individuals.

The third meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (CNTRICS) was focused on selecting promising measures for each of the cognitive constructs selected in the first CNTRICS meeting. In the domain of working memory, the 2 constructs of interest were goal maintenance and interference control. CNTRICS received 3 task nominations for each of these constructs, and the breakout group for working memory evaluated the degree to which each of these tasks met prespecified criteria. For goal maintenance, the breakout group for working memory recommended the AX-Continuous Performance Task/Dot Pattern Expectancy task for translation for use in clinical trial contexts in schizophrenia research. For interference control, the breakout group recommended the recent probes and operation/symmetry span tasks for translation for use in clinical trials. This article describes the ways in which each of these tasks met the criteria used by the breakout group to recommend tasks for further development.