Characterizing a psychiatric symptom dimension related to deficits in goal-directed control
نویسندگان
چکیده
Prominent theories suggest that compulsive behaviors, characteristic of obsessive-compulsive disorder and addiction, are driven by shared deficits in goal-directed control, which confers vulnerability for developing rigid habits. However, recent studies have shown that deficient goal-directed control accompanies several disorders, including those without an obvious compulsive element. Reasoning that this lack of clinical specificity might reflect broader issues with psychiatric diagnostic categories, we investigated whether a dimensional approach would better delineate the clinical manifestations of goal-directed deficits. Using large-scale online assessment of psychiatric symptoms and neurocognitive performance in two independent general-population samples, we found that deficits in goal-directed control were most strongly associated with a symptom dimension comprising compulsive behavior and intrusive thought. This association was highly specific when compared to other non-compulsive aspects of psychopathology. These data showcase a powerful new methodology and highlight the potential of a dimensional, biologically-grounded approach to psychiatry research.
منابع مشابه
Translational studies of goal-directed action as a framework for classifying deficits across psychiatric disorders
The ability to learn contingencies between actions and outcomes in a dynamic environment is critical for flexible, adaptive behavior. Goal-directed actions adapt to changes in action-outcome contingencies as well as to changes in the reward-value of the outcome. When networks involved in reward processing and contingency learning are maladaptive, this fundamental ability can be lost, with detri...
متن کاملNeurocognitive abnormalities during comprehension of real-world goal-directed behaviors in schizophrenia.
Origins of impaired adaptive functioning in schizophrenia remain poorly understood. Behavioral disorganization may arise from an abnormal reliance on common combinations between concepts stored in semantic memory. Avolition-apathy may be related to deficits in using goal-related requirements to flexibly plan behavior. The authors recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) in 16 patients with medi...
متن کاملO17: Social Cognition in Patients with Anxiety Disorders
Social cognition is defined as the capacity to generate, perceive and interpret and responses to the dispositions, intentions and behaviors of other people. It includes different specific cognitive processes that underlie social interactions. Four domains of social cognition are named Theory of Mind (also known as mentalizing), emotion recognition, social perception and attributional style. Anx...
متن کاملPsychiatric Symptom Dimensions Are Associated With Dissociable Shifts in Metacognition but Not Task Performance
BACKGROUND Distortions in metacognition-the ability to reflect on and control other cognitive processes-are thought to be characteristic of poor mental health. However, it remains unknown whether such shifts in self-evaluation are due to specific alterations in metacognition and/or a downstream consequence of changes in decision-making processes. METHODS Using perceptual decision making as a ...
متن کاملChronic/Negative and Acute/Positive Schizophrenia and Attention Deficits
Background: Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder that impairs several intellectual functions, including attention processes. Objectives: To investigate attention deficit in a group of patients with schizophrenia. Method: Thirty patients with schizophrenia hospitalized in three psychiatric wards in Shiraz and Isfahan and 30 normal healthy subjects matched for age, gender and years of educat...
متن کامل