BACKGROUND Patients in recovery following episodes of major depressive disorder (MDD) remain highly vulnerable to future recurrence. Although psychological determinants of this risk are well established, little is known about associated biological mechanisms. Recent work has implicated the default mode network (DMN) in this vulnerability but specific hypotheses remain untested within the high r...

Stress and stress-associated high levels of glucocorticoid hormones are well-known risk factors in the development of drug addiction and vulnerability to relapse (Koob & Kreek, 2007; Koob, 2008). Human studies indicated that addicts often use drugs to relive their stress and anxiety. Moreover, psychological stress is known to increase vulnerability to addiction. This „self treatment” may initia...

OBJECTIVE To compare Hispanic and non-Hispanic White mothers and fathers of children with spina bifida on measures of individual adjustment, parental functioning, and perceived social support. METHOD Mothers (29 Hispanic, 79 non-Hispanic white) and fathers (26 Hispanic, 68 non-Hispanic white) completed questionnaires regarding psychological distress, parental functioning, and perceived social...

Disorder-specific cognitive biases have been observed in children whose parents suffer from psychological disorders. Despite those same biases being observed in individuals with insomnia, they have yet to be explored as an index of vulnerability in children of parents with insomnia. It was hypothesized that potentially vulnerable children would demonstrate cognitive biases to sleep-related cues...

Virtually no longitudinal research has examined psychological characteristics or events that may lead to adolescent nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI). This study tested a cognitive vulnerability-stress model as a predictor of NSSI trajectories. Clinically-referred adolescents (n = 143; 72% girls) completed measures of NSSI, depression, attributional style, and interpersonal stressors during baseli...

BACKGROUND Depression is a chronic mental health condition that affects millions of individuals worldwide. It is well-established that psychological stress plays an integral role in depression and that depression has numerous negative health outcomes. However, a closer look at components of stress vulnerabilities and depression is required to allow for the development and testing of appropriate...

In this study, the authors focused on older adults in Beijing with three objectives: to examine gender differences in functional health and mortality at the end of a five-year study period, controlling for initial functional health; to determine the extent to which these differences were a function of exposure versus vulnerability to risk factors; and to analyze the relative importance of socia...

Transhumanist visions appear to aim at invulnerability. We are invited to fight the dragon of death and disease, to shed our old, human bodies, and to live on as invulnerable minds or cyborgs. This paper argues that even if we managed to enhance humans in one of these ways, we would remain highly vulnerable entities given the fundamentally relational and dependent nature of posthuman existence....

categories can be helpful in analysing the psycho-social needs, although it is recognised that people affected by a ME can belong to different categories at the same time (a person can be both hospitalised and a relative of somebody deceased). It is also recognised that using a classification system that relates to the degree of physical injury is not the only method that could be used, and tha...

OBJECTIVE Most research on the effects of severe psychological stress has focused on stress-related psychopathology. Here, the author develops psychobiological models of resilience to extreme stress. METHOD An integrative model of resilience and vulnerability that encompasses the neurochemical response patterns to acute stress and the neural mechanisms mediating reward, fear conditioning and ...