BACKGROUND Stress-induced dissociative states involving analgesia are a common feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Our aim was to investigate the psychologic, somatosensory (pain sensitivity) and neural correlates of dissociative states in patients with these disorders. METHODS We included 15 women with BPD who were not taking medication;...

The accuracy of the JWKB method for determining the survival factor defined for dissociative electron attachment (DEA) processes is examined for a range of electronic resonance lifetimes within the local complex potential approximation. The author concludes that the accuracy is inadequate for molecules with properties commonly found for shape resonance induced DEA. More accurate methods using t...

BACKGROUND Neurobiological findings and clinical data suggest that dissociative experience inhibits conditioning processes, but experimental studies are lacking. The aim of our study was to determine whether high states of dissociative experience would specifically alter emotional learning, but not declarative knowledge. METHODS We used an aversive differential delay conditioning procedure in...

Background : Dissociative states exist on a continuum from nonpathological expressions, such as highway hypnosis and day-dreaming, to pathological states of derealization and depersonalization. Claims of communication with deceased individuals or mediumship have been dismissed as dissociative symptoms in the past, although current definitions of dissociative pathologies have been qualified to i...

Dissociative amnesia is a condition usually characterized by severely impaired retrograde memory functioning in the absence of structural brain damage. Recent case studies nevertheless found functional brain changes in patients suffering from autobiographical-episodic memory loss in the cause of dissociative amnesia. Functional changes were demonstrated in both resting state and memory retrieva...

In most of the recent scientific and clinical literature, dissociation has been equated with dissociative amnesia, depersonalization, derealization, and fragmentation of identity. However, according to Pierre Janet and several World War I psychiatrists, dissociation also pertains to a lack of integration of somatoform components of experience, reactions, and functions. Some clinical observation...