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1. In the marine mollusk Aplysia, egg laying is a complex behavior that lasts for up to several hours. We used behavioral and electrophysiological methods to determine how egg laying occurs in groups of animals and how it is related to other aspects of reproductive behavior. 2. Prolonged contact with an existing egg mass by the lips and tentacles of an animal is a sign stimulus for release of egg-laying behavior and two other fixed action patterns in the same individual, mating as a female during egg laying and mating as a male after egg laying. 3. Prolonged contact with the egg mass initiated repetitive spike activity in bag cell neurons, which are part of a peptidergic neural system that modulates neuronal activity in the CNS for up to several hours. The sign stimulus thus activates the neuromodulatory system, which may serve as an innate releasing mechanism, and an associated internal drive, for control of the behavioral sequence.

Prior work has found evidence of hyperpriming in schizophrenics, which has been related to a persistence of associational activation in thought disorder. We extended this work by administering a lateralized version of the lexical decision task to 10 thought-disordered schizophrenics (TD), 10 non-thought-disordered schizophrenics (NTD), and 11 control subjects to localize the patterns of priming. All subjects were right-handed males. Associated, unassociated, and neutral prime-target pairs were displayed across seven stimulus location combinations: prime and target both presented to the center, left visual field (LVF), or right visual field (RVF); prime presented to the center with target presented to the LVF or RVF; and prime and target presented contralaterally. TD schizophrenics exhibited priming effects comparable to those of the other subject groups, suggesting intact semantic memory structures and memory processes that may be unimpaired under the conditions studied. It is believed that the associative process mediating priming effects found in schizophrenia are later in the sequence than those examined in this study.

Pediatricians are often asked to advise parents who are having difficulty managing the oppositional behaviors of their toddlers and preschool-age children. A large number of articles provide advice to pediatricians and parents on effective disciplinary strategies. However, despite the fact that verbal explanations, reasoning, and instructions are commonly used by parents, few articles directly address the use of these strategies to affect children's behavior. In this paper, we review studies that explicitly investigate the ability of adults' verbal explanations or instructions to alter the behavior of young children. These studies suggest that under most circumstances, verbal explanations and instructions are not effective in changing young children's problem behaviors. We then discuss how theories in developmental and behavioral psychology help explain the limitations of using verbal reasoning and instructions to change young children's problem behaviors. Finally, we provide some recommendations for parents on the use of verbal explanations and instructions in disciplining young children.

The authors report findings from a blind, controlled study of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Prevalence rates of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) were compared among first-degree relatives of probands with OCD and co-morbid GAD or MDD, respectively. Rates of MDD were not increased in relatives of probands with OCD and MDD; neither were rates of GAD increased in relatives of probands with OCD and GAD, although rates of GAD were increased among relatives of probands with OCD compared to relatives of healthy controls. The authors explore the implications of the findings.

This study reports on the demographics, phenomenology, and family history of 22 compulsive hair pullers. Subjects were recruited through a psychiatric outpatient clinic as well as newspaper advertisements. Subjects completed a semistructured interview focused on hair-pulling behavior and demographics, the Diagnostic Interview Schedule to assess major (Axis I) mental disorders, and the Structured Interview for DSM-III-R Personality Disorders to assess Axis II disorders. The typical subject was a 33-year-old woman who had completed 1 or more years of college and had been pulling her hair for 19 years. Nearly two-thirds met the criteria for a major mental disorder (particularly anxiety and mood disorders), and more than one-half met the criteria for a personality disorder. Nearly three-quarters of first-degree relatives were reported to have a psychiatric disorder, and about 5% were reported to be hair pullers.

The lifetime prevalence of eating disorders and pathologic gambling was assessed in first-degree relatives of subjects with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and well controls. There were no significant differences between the groups. The authors conclude that eating disorder and pathologic gambling have no familial relationship to OCD.

Objective: The authors sought to determine the frequency of DSM-III personality disorders in subjects with obsessive-compulsive disorder, well comparison subjects, and their first-degree relatives., Method: Thirty-two subjects with obsessive-compulsive disorder and 33 age-(within 5 years) and gender-matched well comparison subjects were assessed with the Structured Interview for DSM-III Personality Disorder and several self-report instruments. Their first-degree relatives were assessed in a blind manner with the same instruments., Results: Subjects with obsessive-compulsive disorder were more likely than well comparison subjects to have a personality disorder, but compulsive personality was not the most frequent. No significant differences were found in the prevalence of personality disorders among first-degree relatives, including compulsive personality, or in obsessional, hysterical, or oral character traits., Conclusions: Personality disorders are highly prevalent among patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, but the data do not support a relationship between obsessive-compulsive disorder and compulsive personality.

This study examined whether changes in diagnostic criteria from the DSM-III to the DSM-III for personality disorders (PDs) had the intended effects. Seventy-two subjects at the University of Iowa from three research studies and one clinical sample were administered two structured interviews (the Structured Interview for DSM-III Personality [SIDP] and the revised SIDP [SIDP-R]) to assess DSM-III and DSM-III-R criteria. Major changes in rates of diagnoses were observed between the DSM-III and DSM-III-R criteria with kappas for agreement ranging between -.025 and .571. As expected, the switch from monothetic to polythetic definitions had an effect on which patients were assigned a given diagnosis. However, not all of the other revisions associated with the DSM-III-R had the intended effects. For instance, the frequency of the diagnosis of schizoid PD did not increase, nor did the overlap between borderline and histrionic PDs decrease. In addition, there was an unintended increase in the rate of paranoid PD. An analysis of individual criteria showed how small, apparently minor changes in the wording of criteria can sometimes have major effects on which patients received a diagnosis of PD.

Objective: To determine the content and urgency of pages and their effect on the activities of pediatric residents., Design: Prospective survey., Setting: University-affiliated teaching hospital., Participants: Seventeen pediatric residents on regular pediatric services., Interventions: None., Measurements/main Results: On daily logs, interns recorded the activity interrupted by a page and rated the urgency and importance of the page. Almost half of all pages interrupted patient care activities, and 24% interrupted scheduled work rounds or teaching conferences. Interns reported that 34% of pages resulted in a change in patient treatment, but they rated 25% of all pages as unimportant., Conclusions: "Beepers" frequently interrupt pediatric residents involved in patient care activities and scheduled educational conferences. Studies of interventions aimed at decreasing unnecessary interruptions by pages are needed.

The authors systematically interviewed 88 bariatric clinic patients presenting for vertical banded gastroplasty. The typical subject was middle-aged, female and of low socioeconomic status as indicated by his or her method of payment. Morbidly obese subjects were more likely than a comparison group to have first-degree relatives with a history of depression, bipolar disorder, antisocial personality, and other psychiatric disorders. These data indicate that relatives of morbidly obese subjects are frequently emotionally disturbed. Reasons for the findings are discussed.

First-degree relatives of probands with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) (n = 32) and psychiatrically normal controls (n = 33) were blindly interviewed with the use of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule. The morbidity risk for anxiety disorders was increased among the relatives of obsessional subjects compared with that for the relatives of controls, but the risk for OCD was not. Risk for a more broadly defined OCD (including relatives with obsessions and compulsions not meeting criteria for OCD) was increased among the parents of obsessional subjects but not among the parents of controls (16% vs 3%). The findings suggest that an anxiety disorder diathesis is transmitted in families with OCD, but that its expression within these families is variable. The findings also support the current practice of classifying OCD as an anxiety disorder.

Night-float systems have recently been proposed as a way to reduce resident stress resulting from irregular sleep patterns. We prospectively evaluated the effects of a night-float system in which designated residents relieved on-call senior residents and interns of routine admissions of patients in medically stable condition during the late-night period (11 PM to 7 AM). Senior residents (3.7 vs 2.4 hours) and interns (3.7 vs 3.2 hours) reported sleeping more under the night-float system than under the traditional system. The night-float system did not affect residents' overall ratings of call nights. Educators who reviewed medical records agreed with residents' decisions about patients' appropriateness for admission using the night-float system in 95 (81%) of 117 cases. When educators disagreed with residents, the most common reasons were the patient's potential educational value or medical instability. The night-float system did not affect interns' ratings of the educational value of late-night admissions or parents' ratings of satisfaction with medical care. We conclude that the night-float system can increase resident sleep with little cost to parent satisfaction, but standards for selective use may be needed to avoid compromising patient care and resident education.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a distressing and potentially disabling disorder characterized by intrusive obsessional thoughts and repetitive ritualistic behaviors. In recent years, OCD has been recognized as a relatively common condition that responds well to treatment, usually a combination of medication and behavioral therapy. Support groups, usually patient-generated, have become popular adjuncts to the treatment of a variety of conditions. Their applicability to OCD is explored in this report and a successful model developed by the authors is described. The model emphasizes patient education and emotional support. A similar group for family members is also described. Both groups have provided interdisciplinary training experiences for resident physicians in psychiatry, medical and nursing students, and social work practicum students.

Multisite, passive microprobes have been developed to allow simultaneous recording of action potential activity from multiple neurons at different locations in the brain. The microprobes were fabricated using standard integrated circuit techniques. The probe is a planar structure that consists of gold electrodes sandwiched between two polyimide dielectric layers and bonded to a molybdenum structural support. Windows in the top dielectric layer expose the electrode sites and bonding pads. In two distinct versions of the probe four or six recordings sites, respectively, of approximately 25 microns 2 are arranged on a dagger-shaped structure which can penetrate the pia. The bonding pads and interconnect wires at the probe head are entirely encapsulated in a tubular fixture that is packed with silicone RTV and sealed with epoxy to protect the interconnections from contact with body fluids. The site impedances at 1 kHz are typically between 2 and 4 M omega. Probe lifetimes for continuous immersion in physiological saline solution, as measured by impedance, have exceeded 750 h. The failure mechanism is believed to be due to moisture and ion absorption in the top dielectric layer. In acute neurophysiological experiments using the four site probes, action potential activity was recorded from physiologically identified neurons in the dorsal column nuclei of anesthetized rat.

We administered the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ) to a sample of 25 individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and 35 normal controls. As predicted, OCD cases scored much higher on the harm avoidance dimension than normal controls. Findings for the novelty seeking and reward dependence dimensions were less dramatic, although compatible with the underlying theory. Despite a theoretical link between the harm avoidance dimension and serotonin-mediated neuropathways, we failed to find an association between this dimension and platelet imipramine binding in either OCD cases or controls.

Goldstone and Sarbin proposed that auditory hallucinations occur because imagery in a non-preferred sensory mode is more easily misinterpreted as having an external origin. This led to the hypothesis that auditory hallucinators would show less preference for auditory than for visual imagery. Our results suggest that this is true. We also compared the vividness of internally-generated auditory imagery with that of visual imagery, independently of preference, to see whether vividness was impaired in the nonpreferred mode in hallucinators. The evidence suggested that this was not the case, but we did find a significantly deficient capacity for creating vivid images of either kind in process patients (i.e. those with poor premorbid status) compared with reactive (good premorbid) patients, regardless of any history of hallucinations. The withdrawal of external attention which characterizes process patients might also be expected to impair their ability to confirm or disconfirm the external origin of an auditory stimulus. We predicted therefore that process hallucinators would be particularly incompetent in spatial location of sounds: our experimental results confirmed this to be the case.

Forty-four psychiatric patients were separated into four groups on the basis of presence/absence of hallucinations and reactive/process status. Reactive hallucinators were found to be singularly impaired in two aspects of cognitive processing: (1) tolerance of ambiguity; and (2) availability of alternative meanings. The perceptual errors produced by premature judgment and limited consideration of alternative meanings for misperceptions are discussed as factors predisposing to auditory hallucination.

This paper reports two studies bearing upon the role of defensive projection in paranoid conditions. The first study considered a proposal explaining the mechanics of projection. People who use their social environment for standards of comparison in making self-evaluations may distort the social comparison process in the case of a threatening characteristic. False attribution or selective perception may allow a social standard to be shifted toward the negative attribute. Given the modified standard, the characteristic can be minimized or denied. Evidence supporting this hypothesis was found when high projectors (among normals) reported greater use of social comparison in reaching self-evaluation judgments concerning negative qualities. The second study considered the clinical implications of the proposition that defensive projection, defined this way, would be found among those who are more heavily invested in their social environment. It was predicted that reactive paranoid schizophrenics, identified by greater premorbid commitment to their social environment, would use projection; process paranoid schizophrenics, having a greater premorbid history of social withdrawal, would not. This prediction was confirmed. Process paranoids demonstrated the most idiosyncratic free associations to verbal cues, suggesting the autistic (self-preoccupied) quality of their thinking and delusions.

Repeat visitors to psychiatric emergency services constitute 7 to 18 percent of the total patients and account for up to a third of the visits. This frequently difficult-to-treat group has been described in six controlled and two uncontrolled studies. In a critical review of findings and methodology, the authors interpret and compare the available data about repeaters. Their major conclusions are that repeaters are more likely to lack social supports, to be currently in psychiatric treatment, and to have a chronic illness. Research approaches to further elucidate these patients' characteristics are suggested.