Faculty Bibliography

The study examined emotional memory consolidation among cancer survivors with and without a history of intrusive recollection (IR). Eleven cancer survivors with a history of IR (IR+), 20 cancer survivors without a history of IR (IR-), and 20 healthy women were tested for emotional memory. The participants viewed emotionally arousing slides, and one week later, they were asked to return to the laboratory and were given an unexpected memory test to examine their retention of emotional memory. Only the IR- group did not show any significant enhancement in emotional memory, compared to neutral memory. These findings are discussed in light of possible inhibitory mechanisms of emotional memory consolidation.

Considerable evidence suggests that the adrenergic system plays an important role in the biological mechanism of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In the present pilot study the association between heart rate (HR) recorded prior to slide viewing and long-term emotional memory was compared between human subjects with a past history of PTSD (n = 6) and healthy women controls (n = 12). The correlation between HR during the anticipatory period and emotional memory was significant for the PTSD group (r = 0.93, P < 0.001) but not for the control group (r = 0.21, NS). The adrenergic reaction appears to be associated with emotional memory, which may be strengthened in subjects with a past history of PTSD.

The authors investigated the effect of hippocampal volume on enhanced emotional memory in 27 healthy women. Irrespective of age, education, intracranial volume, cognitive function, delayed recall, and neuroticism, left hippocampal volume showed a significant negative correlation with enhanced emotional memory.

The National Adult Reading Test (NART) is widely used as a measure of premorbid IQ of the English-speaking patients with dementia. The purpose of the present study was to develop a Japanese version of the NART (JART), using 50 Japanese irregular words, all of which are Kanji (ideographic script) compound words. Reading performance based on JART and IQ as measured by the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) was examined in a sample of 100 normal elderly (NE) persons and in 70 age-, sex-, and education-matched patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). The NE group was randomly divided into the NE calculation group (n=50) and the NE validation group (n=50). Using the NE calculation group, a linear regression equation was obtained in which the observed full-scale IQ (FSIQ) was regressed on the reading errors of the JART. When the regressed equation computed from the NE calculation group was applied to the NE validation group, the predicted FSIQ adequately fit the observed FSIQ (R2=0.78). Further, independent t-tests showed that the JART-predicted IQs were not significantly different between the NE and AD groups, whereas the AD group performed worse in the observed IQs. The reading ability of Kanji compound words is well-preserved in Japanese patients with AD. The JART is a valid scale for evaluating premorbid IQ in patients with AD.

The authors developed the Japanese-language version of the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R-J) and investigated its reliability and validity in four different groups: workers with lifetime mixed traumatic events, survivors of an arsenic poisoning case, survivors of the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake, and survivors of the Tokyo Metro sarin attack. Evidence includes retest reliability and internal consistency of the IES-R-J. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and partial PTSD cases indicated significantly higher scores than non-PTSD cases. The IES-R-J can be a useful self-rating diagnostic instrument particularly for survivors with PTSD symptoms as a clinical concern (PTSD + partial PTSD) by using a 24/25 cutoff in total score. In analysis of scale structure, the majority of intrusion and hyperarousal items were subsumed under the same cluster, whereas avoidance items made up a separate cluster. Female patients indicated higher scores than male patients. A negative weak correlation between age and the score was found only among female earthquake survivors. The IES-R-J can be used as a validated instrument in future international comparative research.

The reinforcement of biological studies of schizophrenia by the DSM-III had been promoted by the general medicalization of psychiatry itself, following the successful introduction of antipsychotic drugs as well as the advance in brain research. The traditional view of schizophrenia has included since the time of Kraepelin till present the presumed biological basic diseases and specific psychological reaction. The DSM notion of schizophrenia presumes exclusively biological aspects in that it is based on a very simple unitary model, although the lack of sufficient validity has not been compensated by the advance in the biological studies that produced a number of related findings but not the marker of schizophrenia. The exclusion of the concept of psychosis makes it difficult to discuss the semantic isolation in which the patients of this disorder are often entrapped. The symptoms are regarded as indices of presumed biological diseases rather than a product of semantic interaction. The simple model of schizophrenia is easy to use in biological studies but too weak to give clinical significance to the various findings detected. It will be insightful to look into other modes of diagnosis such as Kleist-Leonhardt or French school as well as subtle basic disturbance in German school that are not mentioned in the current DSM system.