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10.1111/j.1365-2214.2010.01151.x

Child: care, health and development

Child Care Health Dev

Development of the Children's Attributions about Psychological Problems in their Peers Scale.

Research has shown that children's beliefs about the causes of psychological problems are related to their attitudes and reactions towards affected peers. This study describes the development of the Children's Attributions about Psychological Problems in their Peers (CAPPP) Scale, which assesses children's beliefs about the causes of an internalizing and an externalizing condition. The 16 items comprising the CAPPP are derived from previous qualitative research findings. Five hundred and ninety-five young people, drawn from five different age groups spanning early childhood to late adolescence, completed a CAPPP Scale for each of two vignettes describing the behaviour of hypothetical peers with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and depression. Modifications following consideration of psychometric properties and conceptual fit resulted in a 12-item scale. For both the ADHD and depression conditions, the components that emerged were 'Volition', 'Recent Life Stress', 'Family Factors' and 'School Factors'. The present study represents the first field trial of the CAPPP. Results suggest that children's and adolescents' beliefs about the causes of psychological problems are multidimensional and incorporate both individual and environmental factors.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1146/annurev-neuro-060909-153151

Annual review of neuroscience

Annu Rev Neurosci

How does neuroscience affect our conception of volition?

Although there is no clear concept of volition or the will, we do have intuitive ideas that characterize the will, agency, and voluntary behavior. Here I review results from a number of strands of neuroscientific research that bear upon our intuitive notions of the will. These neuroscientific results provide some insight into the neural circuits mediating behaviors that we identify as related to will and volition. Although some researchers contend that neuroscience will undermine our views about free will, to date no results have succeeded in fundamentally disrupting our common sense beliefs. Still, the picture emerging from neuroscience does raise new questions, and ultimately may put pressure on some intuitive notions about what is necessary for free will.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

Rivista di psichiatria

Riv Psichiatr

[Paraphrenia: the modernity of Emil Kraepelin's thinking].

Paraphrenia is a chronic psychotic disorder similar to paranoid schizophrenia, but with a better-preserved affect and rapport, and a much less personality deterioration. It was at first described by Kraepelin in 1913 as a group of patients who exhibited delusional symptoms typical of dementia praecox, but with minimal disturbances of emotion and volition. After the publication of Mayer-Gross's report in 1921, the view to differentiate paraphrenia from schizophrenia was considered to be unfounded and the term "paraphrenia" was not included in the current DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10 diagnostic criteria. Consequently, this disorder is now diagnosed relatively infrequently. However, several authors have recently suggested that the paraphrenia concept has not lost its usefulness. It seems to be that many psychiatrists recognize the illness, but labelled it as "atypical psychosis", "schizoaffective disorder" or "psychotic disorder not otherwise specified" for the lack of a better diagnostic category. Very few systematic studies on paraphrenia have been conducted in the past 70 years. Aim of this article is to underline the modernity of Kraepelin's thinking and his "paraphrenia" concept, suggesting that it could be possible to define and recognize the illness if practitioners would be induced to use a viable diagnostic entity.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1037/a0019486

Psychological bulletin

Psychol Bull

Ego depletion and the strength model of self-control: a meta-analysis.

According to the strength model, self-control is a finite resource that determines capacity for effortful control over dominant responses and, once expended, leads to impaired self-control task performance, known as ego depletion. A meta-analysis of 83 studies tested the effect of ego depletion on task performance and related outcomes, alternative explanations and moderators of the effect, and additional strength model hypotheses. Results revealed a significant effect of ego depletion on self-control task performance. Significant effect sizes were found for ego depletion on effort, perceived difficulty, negative affect, subjective fatigue, and blood glucose levels. Small, nonsignificant effects were found for positive affect and self-efficacy. Moderator analyses indicated minimal variation in the effect across sphere of depleting and dependent task, frequently used depleting and dependent tasks, presentation of tasks as single or separate experiments, type of dependent measure and control condition task, and source laboratory. The effect size was moderated by depleting task duration, task presentation by the same or different experimenters, intertask interim period, dependent task complexity, and use of dependent tasks in the choice and volition and cognitive spheres. Motivational incentives, training on self-control tasks, and glucose supplementation promoted better self-control in ego-depleted samples. Expecting further acts of self-control exacerbated the effect. Findings provide preliminary support for the ego-depletion effect and strength model hypotheses. Support for motivation and fatigue as alternative explanations for ego depletion indicate a need to integrate the strength model with other theories. Findings provide impetus for future investigation testing additional hypotheses and mechanisms of the ego-depletion effect.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.3233/WOR-2010-1005

Work (Reading, Mass.)

Work

Comparing working role values of employed and unemployed Clubhouse members.

Examine the impact of the Clubhouse Model of Vocational Rehabilitation by comparing the roles values of employed and unemployed members. It is a model of psychiatric rehabilitation and community support, which emphasizes the importance of work as a major re-integrative force for Clubhouse members. Sixty Clubhouse members consisting of 31 employed members and 29 non-employed members. A convenience sample of sixty participants completed the Role Checklist (Revised) (Oakley, Kielhofner, Barris, and Klinger-Reichler, 1988), the Maryland Addiction Questionnaire Short-Form (O'Donnell, 1997), and the Historical Background Survey (Gregitis, 2003). The study was completed at an ICCD certified Clubhouse in the United States. Results showed that there was no significant difference in the working role values of employed and unemployed participants. However, there was a significant difference in resistance to treatment of substance use by employed and unemployed participants. Volition and motivation of the employed Clubhouse members was higher when seeking work and pursuing life roles outside the Clubhouse environment. Unemployed Clubhouse members derived personal satisfaction and volition in the work-ordered day within the clubhouse setting. Further research should include verification, with a larger sample, of the importance of the working role in relation to mental health.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1186/1753-4631-4-S1-S8

Nonlinear biomedical physics

Nonlinear Biomed Phys

A graph-theoretical approach in brain functional networks. Possible implications in EEG studies.

Recently, it was realized that the functional connectivity networks estimated from actual brain-imaging technologies (MEG, fMRI and EEG) can be analyzed by means of the graph theory, that is a mathematical representation of a network, which is essentially reduced to nodes and connections between them. We used high-resolution EEG technology to enhance the poor spatial information of the EEG activity on the scalp and it gives a measure of the electrical activity on the cortical surface. Afterwards, we used the Directed Transfer Function (DTF) that is a multivariate spectral measure for the estimation of the directional influences between any given pair of channels in a multivariate dataset. Finally, a graph theoretical approach was used to model the brain networks as graphs. These methods were used to analyze the structure of cortical connectivity during the attempt to move a paralyzed limb in a group (N=5) of spinal cord injured patients and during the movement execution in a group (N=5) of healthy subjects. Analysis performed on the cortical networks estimated from the group of normal and SCI patients revealed that both groups present few nodes with a high out-degree value (i.e. outgoing links). This property is valid in the networks estimated for all the frequency bands investigated. In particular, cingulate motor areas (CMAs) ROIs act as ''hubs'' for the out fl ow of information in both groups, SCI and healthy. Results also suggest that spinal cord injuries affect the functional architecture of the cortical network sub-serving the volition of motor acts mainly in its local feature property.In particular, a higher local efficiency El can be observed in the SCI patients for three frequency bands, theta (3-6 Hz), alpha (7-12 Hz) and beta (13-29 Hz).By taking into account all the possible pathways between different ROI couples, we were able to separate clearly the network properties of the SCI group from the CTRL group. In particular, we report a sort of compensatory mechanism in the SCI patients for the Theta (3-6 Hz) frequency band, indicating a higher level of "activation" Omega within the cortical network during the motor task. The activation index is directly related to diffusion, a type of dynamics that underlies several biological systems including possible spreading of neuronal activation across several cortical regions. The present study aims at demonstrating the possible applications of graph theoretical approaches in the analyses of brain functional connectivity from EEG signals. In particular, the methodological aspects of the i) cortical activity from scalp EEG signals, ii) functional connectivity estimations iii) graph theoretical indexes are emphasized in the present paper to show their impact in a real application.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

La Clinica terapeutica

Clin Ter

Action, human.

The term "human action" designates the intentional and deliberate movement that is proper and exclusive to mankind. Human action is a unified structure: knowledge, intention or volition, deliberation, decision or choice of means and execution. The integration between these dimensions appears as a task that demands strength of will to achieve the synthesis of self-possession and self-control that enables full personal realisation. Recently, the debate about the dynamism of human action has been enriched by the contribution of neurosciences. Thanks to techniques of neuroimaging, neurosciences have expanded the field of investigation to the nature of volition, to the role of the brain in decision-making processes and to the notion of freedom and responsibility.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

Zhurnal nevrologii i psikhiatrii imeni S.S. Korsakova

Zh Nevrol Psikhiatr Im S S Korsakova

[Peculiarities of organic psychic infantilism in adolescents].

An aim of the study was to specify peculiarities of the clinical dynamics of organic psychic infantilism and psychopathological presentations of this disorder in adolescence. A significant prevalence of psychic infantilism caused by organic CNS damage in patients seeking psychiatric help in adolescence and a negative effect of this disorder on social adaptation in this period of life were found. Sixty-seven patients, aged 15-18 years, (ICD-10 diagnosis F06) with signs of psychic infantilism were studied. In these cases, psychic infantilism encompassed all aspects of mental activity and manifested itself as a constant personality trait that caused the infantile type of reaction to the most of life situations. The clinical heterogeneity of organic infantilism determined by the different degree of psychic immaturity in some areas of psychic activity and concomitant encephalopathy symptoms was noted. This allowed to single out 3 groups of patients: with domination of psychic infantilism in volition (28 patients), in emotional sphere (21 patients) and immaturity of cognitive functions (20 patients). The clinical heterogeneity of psychic infantilism likely reflects the character of CNS damage (localization and time of the damage) and specifics of related organic dysontogenesis.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.11.078

NeuroImage

Neuroimage

Volition diminishes genetically mediated amygdala hyperreactivity.

Individuals carrying the short allele of a common polymorphism in the promoter region of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) exhibit heightened amygdala responses to passive stimulation with aversive emotional material. In turn, the level of amygdala activation in response to emotion can be decreased by will, for example by using cognitive emotion regulation strategies. In the present study, 37 female subjects (s-carriers: n=21; l/l-homozygotes: n=16) performed an emotion regulation task during functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine whether cognitive emotion regulation can modulate the genetically determined amygdala hyperreactivity in 5-HTTLPR short allele carriers. Our results demonstrate that cognitive emotion regulation diminishes the difference in amygdala reactivity to threat-related stimuli between 5-HTTLPR genotype groups. Furthermore, we also provide evidence that the effect of cognitive regulation is mediated through altered coupling between the amygdala and prefrontal regulatory regions. Our findings demonstrate that while the presence of the 5-HTTLPR short allele leads to heightened responses in the amygdala, cognitive regulation can modify genetically mediated effects upon brain function by volitionally altering prefrontal-amygdala connectivity.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1109/IEMBS.2009.5332696

Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. Annual International Conference

Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc

Modeling limbic influences on habituation deficits in chronic tinnitus aurium.

About 93% of healthy subjects suffer from tinnituslike symptoms when deprived of auditory stimuli, e.g., in a sound-proof chamber. This suggests an underlying physiological mechanism causing auditory sensations during absence of an external sound source. Grossberg suggested a mechanism by which hallucinations arise from mechanisms of learning, attention and volition. According to this mechanism notch-like hearing deficits are sufficient for experiencing auditory hallucinations, while their chronification is attributed to reorganization processes. In tinnitus sufferers the auditory sensation is accompanied by the inability to habituate to this endogenous sound. This disability might originate from a coactivation of brain areas that are only indirectly involved in cognitive processing such as areas belonging to the limbic system. Moreover subjective loudness of the tinnitus sensation is likely to depend on the amount of selective attention assigned to the tinnitus stream. Here we propose a functional model of pure-tone tinnitus in which exogenous and endogenous input into processing modules is represented as streams. We model the selection of the tinnitus stream at the subthalamic level according to its weighting. Then we propose a mechanism for the inability to habituate to this stream due to limbic coactivation and amplification by mechanisms of attentional guidance, and by the influence corticofugal projections on lower auditory processing stages. The model is able to replicate the phase stability of auditory evoked potentials as seen in tinnitus sufferers and controls.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

Brain and nerve = Shinkei kenkyu no shinpo

Brain Nerve

[Symptoms of frontotemporal dementia].

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD)-a common clinical manifestation of frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD)--is characterized by alterations in personality and social conduct. Its symptoms include inertia, loss of volition, social disinhibition, and distractibility, with relative preservation of memory and visuospatial function. We present the typical case of patient with typical clinical symptoms including "going my way" behavior, inactivity, lack of awareness of illness, stereotypic behavior, perseveration, and environmental dependency syndrome. These clinical symptoms can be interpreted on the basis of extent of damage to the frontal lobes and the interaction between the frontal lobes and other neural systems such as the posterior association cortices, basal ganglia or limbic systems. We also address several complex clinical issues, including the relationship between clinical manifestations and pathological findings, underestimation of FTD in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and/or motor neuron disease (MND), and impairment in a single cognitive domain such as isolated agraphia in ALS/MND and FTD. To address these problems, it is essential to observe the clinical symptoms in patients with FTD and ALS/MND in detail and to compare clinical characteristics with pathological findings. It is also critical to develop clinical tests that minimize the impact of speech and motor dysfunction on performance, particularly on the basis of a longitudinal analysis.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

Zhongguo yi liao qi xie za zhi = Chinese journal of medical instrumentation

Zhongguo Yi Liao Qi Xie Za Zhi

[Analysis of scalp potential activity and heart rate variability during volitional control of heart beat].

In the study the changes of scalp potential and cardiac autonomic nervous system during volitional control of heart beat are explored with the wavelet packet parameters and approximate entropy (ApEn) of Electroencephalogram (EEG) and heart rate variability. The results show that volition can control heart beat and the changes of brain activity are earlier than that of autonomic activity. But its control of heart beat is very different from the motor nervous system because different cortical positions are respectively concerned during the quick and slow control of heart beat. The pre-central areas of brain are correlated with parasympathetic activity by which HR is controlled to slow down. The post-central areas of brain are correlated with sympathetic activity by which HR is controlled to accelerate.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/j.comppsych.2009.03.008

Comprehensive psychiatry

Compr Psychiatry

Cannabis abuse and severity of psychotic and affective disorders in Israeli psychiatric inpatients.

The influence of cannabis abuse on the severity of existing psychotic and affective symptoms is still unclear. Among 470 consecutively admitted psychotic or affective patients, 54 active (in the previous month) cannabis abusers were detected via urine tests (Sure Step TM kits; Applied Biotech Inc, San Diego, Calif) and Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID- IV) questionnaire. In 24 cases, substances other than cannabis were abused; 392 patients were nonabusers. All patients were diagnosed according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, criteria. The following rating scales were used: Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D-21), Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), and Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS). Cannabis abusers (n = 54) were significantly younger and more frequently males than nonuser patients. In this group, there were more schizophrenic patients and fewer affective and anxiety patients (chi(2) = 11.76; P < .01). The double-diagnosed patients had more prominent psychotic symptoms than the nonusers (n = 392)-PANSS positive: 19.056 +/- 8.30 vs 16.128 +/- 8.031 (P < .02; t(446) = 2.510). The difference was statistically significant for hallucinatory behavior, excitement, grandiosity, and hostility. General PANSS scale rate of abusers was lower: 33.012 +/- 9.317 vs 37.3575 +/- 11.196 (P < .01; t = 2.727), especially for depression, anxiety, somatic concern, guilt feelings, tension, motor retardation, and volition disturbances. Rates of PANSS negative scale of abusers and nonusers were not significantly different (13.815 +/- 6.868 vs 14.983 +/- 6.446) except for lower rates of social withdrawal and stereotyped thinking for abusers. No significant difference in general level of manic symptoms (YMRS) between abusers and nonusers was observed (6.778 +/- 10.826 vs 4.910 +/- 7.754), but severity of thought/language disturbances and poor insight was found significantly higher in the abusers. Cannabis abusers are obviously less depressive (HAM-D): 5.944 +/- 10.291 vs 12.896 +/- 13.946 (P < .0005, t = 3.535). Such differences were observed in the high number of the subscales. Abusers' rates were higher (although not significantly) for paranoid symptoms and general somatic symptoms. Cannabis possibly produces some antidepressive and anxiolytic effect on psychotic and affective inpatients. The "price" of this effect is often an exacerbation of psychotic and some manic symptoms.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2009.10.026

Neuropsychologia

Neuropsychologia

EEG activations during intentional inhibition of voluntary action: an electrophysiological correlate of self-control?

An important aspect of volition is the internal decision whether to act or to withhold an action. We used EEG frequency analysis of sensorimotor rhythms to investigate brain activity when people prepare and then cancel a voluntary action. Participants used a rotating clock-hand to report when they experienced the intention to press a key with their right hand, even on trials where they freely decided to inhibit movement at the last moment. On action trials, we observed the classical pattern of reduced beta-band spectral power prior to movement, followed by beta rebound after movement. On inhibition trials where participants prepared but then cancelled a movement, we found a left frontal increase in spectral power (event-related synchronisation: ERS) peaking 12 ms before the perceived intention to move. This neural correlate of intentional inhibition was significantly different from the activity at the corresponding moment in action trials. The results are discussed in the context of a recent model of voluntary action (WWW model; Brass & Haggard, 2008). Planned actions can be subjected to a final predictive check which either commits actions for execution or suspends and withholds them. The neural mechanism of intentional inhibition may play an important role in self-control.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1177/0003065109342588

Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association

J Am Psychoanal Assoc

The role of unconscious volition in psychoanalysis: commentary on Meissner.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1177/0003065109339034

Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association

J Am Psychoanal Assoc

Volition and will in psychoanalysis.

To clarify the role and function of the will in psychoanalytic theory and praxis, the use and meaning of the concept of will are traced in the philosophical tradition influencing Freud, in Freud's own view of will, and in the subsequent history of psychoanalysis. Functions of the will relevant to psychoanalysis are described in terms of intellective preference and executive functioning. Operations of will as an executive function of the ego-self are analyzed, emphasizing will as efficient cause of motivated actions. The will functions to decide, choose, and initiate action directed to motivationally determined goals. The conclusion is drawn that will action is determined and directed by motivational influences, and that will decision and choice, while predominantly secondary process in organization, can operate consciously or unconsciously. Expressions of will action in psychopathology and in the analytic process are briefly discussed.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1007/s11013-009-9155-1

Culture, medicine and psychiatry

Cult Med Psychiatry

"A massive long way": interconnecting histories, a "special child," ADHD, and everyday family life.

Focusing on one family from a study of dual-earner middle-class families carried out in Los Angeles, California, this article draws on interview and video-recorded data of everyday interactions to explore illness and healing as embedded in the microcultural context of the Morris family. For this family, an important aspect of what is at stake for them in their daily lives is best understood by focusing on 9-year-old Mark, who has been diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In this article, we grapple with the complexity of conveying some sense of how Mark's condition is experienced and relationally enacted in everyday contexts. Through illuminating connections between lives as lived and lives as told, we explore the narrative structuring of healing in relation to Mark's local moral world with the family at its center. We examine how his parents understand the moral consequences of the child's past for his present and future, and work to encourage others to give due weight to his troubled beginnings before this child joined the Morris family. At the same time, we see how the Morris parents act to structure Mark's moral experience and orient to a desired future in which Mark's "success" includes an appreciation of how he is accountable to others for his actions. Through our analyses, we also seek to contribute to discussions on what is at stake in everyday life contexts for children with ADHD and their families, through illuminating aspects of the cultural, moral and relational terrain that U.S. families navigate in contending with a child's diagnosis of ADHD. Further, given that ADHD is often construed as a "disorder of volition," we seek to advance anthropological theorizing about the will in situations where volitional control over behavior is seen to be disordered.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1176/ps.2009.60.9.1198

Psychiatric services (Washington, D.C.)

Psychiatr Serv

Four-year follow-up of long-stay patients settled in the community after closure of Italy's psychiatric hospitals.

This study reports on the final phase (1996-1999) of closure of Italy's psychiatric hospitals. In this phase the last group of patients was resettled in community-based care. These patients were particularly difficult to resettle, and many hospital staff considered their discharge impossible or inappropriate. Shorter-stay inpatients who were previously resettled in community facilities showed improvement in quality of life and socialization and apparent stability of psychotic symptoms. Compulsory resettlement, implemented by community-based practitioners, provided an opportunity to determine whether it could be considered positive for all patients. A total of 176 patients were discharged in 1998 from two psychiatric hospitals in Northern Italy until 2002. All patients had been hospitalized for more than 20 years (median stay of 37 years). Patients were resettled in sheltered communities with 24-hour staff (N=101), in apartments with daily support (N=24), in residential health care facilities (N=49), and to their previous homes (N=2). Follow-up evaluations were at three and six months and then yearly (total of six). Psychological condition was evaluated with the 18-item Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. Autonomy and relational skills were assessed with scales developed for the closure project. Analyses of variance were used to assess data. Clinical condition steadily improved and substantial improvements were noted in autonomy, socialization, and expression of volition. No worsening occurred in any category. Even among patients with very long hospital stays, resettlement in community-based care and changes in the social framework can have positive results in psychological and social functioning and quality of life.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1007/s00115-009-2796-z

Der Nervenarzt

Nervenarzt

[The assessment of free volitional competence in cases of suicide with life insurance].

The German insurance law stipulates that in cases of suicide, life insurance providers are not obligated to pay within a restriction period of 3 years, except if it can be proven that the suicide was committed in a state that precludes the insured's ability to make free choices. The relevant psychiatric assessment criteria are identical with those of mental and volitional competence in general. However, a different profile of patients and other disorders are involved, mainly depressive syndromes, but also chronic alcoholism as well as schizophrenic and paranoid syndromes. The assessment has to be based on the legal concept of mental disorder, which is different from the current diagnostic classifications in psychiatry. Decisive psychopathological symptoms are impairment of reality control, of volition and/or of judgement. These posthumous assessments are particularly difficult and require a thorough knowledge of psychopathology as well as of the relevant jurisdiction. The latter is summarised in this article.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1080/00207590701749146

International journal of psychology : Journal international de psychologie

Int J Psychol

A cross-cultural comparison of the coexistence and domain superiority of individuating and relating autonomy.

The consensus definition of autonomy in the psychological literature emphasizes self-governance through free volition, not separation or independence from others. Since the concept of self may differ cross-culturally, several researchers have tried to incorporate types of self into the notion of autonomy; however, only the dual model of autonomy has been able to do this while retaining an emphasis on volition. The dual model describes two distinct forms of autonomy-individuating and relating-each with superior function in a specific domain of individual functioning. Individuating autonomy represents a volitional capacity to act against social constraints and offers a route to achieve an independent self-identity by expressing individualistic attributes and distinctions. Relating autonomy represents a volitional capacity to act by emphasizing the harmony of self-in-relation-to-others, the quality of interpersonal relationships, and self-transcendence. These two forms of autonomy have been shown to coexist at the individual level in a Taiwanese sample. This study takes the next step, with a cross-cultural test of the coexistence and domain superiority hypotheses of individuating and relating autonomy. Participants included 306 college students from Taiwan and 183 college students from the United States. Structural equation modelling by multigroup analyses confirmed the cross-cultural equivalence of the two-factor individuating autonomy and relating autonomy measurement model. Across both samples the two forms of autonomy were shown to be mutually inclusive and not exclusive or independent. The domain-superior function of each form of autonomy was also confirmed cross-culturally; each form of autonomy has a dominant, but not necessarily exclusive, domain of functioning. Specifically, individuating autonomy was more associated with intrapersonal than interpersonal domain dependent variables, while relating autonomy was more associated with interpersonal than intrapersonal domain dependent variables. Limitations of the study and considerations for future research are discussed.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1126/science.1173827

Science (New York, N.Y.)

Science

Neuroscience. The sources of human volition.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1055/s-0029-1202291

Die Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation (Stuttg)

[The "Rubicon-Misunderstanding" - a problem in motivating mentally ill employees to return to work].

The Rubicon model of action phases can help clear a typical misunderstanding between patient and medical rehabilitation measures in the return-to-work process. This misunderstanding is named "The Rubicon-Misunderstanding". Patients remain on their side of the Rubicon with insufficient motivation and volition to cross over, while rehabilitation professionals assume a motivational and volitional state beyond the Rubicon. So sophisticated help is offered to enhance their reduced abilities and occupationally relevant capabilities. To help overcome this misunderstanding, a Rubicon model with status-adapted intervention planning is presented in the following: (a) on this side of the Rubicon, for those patients who are searching clarification and individual meaning in life, the model empowers motivation for new goal settings, (b) on the verge of the Rubicon, the indecisive patient, where therapeutic experiments allow practising the crossing over, and (c) beyond the Rubicon, the active patient, where the model empowers individual coping with problems in the working place and in life.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1111/j.1369-1600.2009.00147.x

Addiction biology

Addict Biol

Effect of concurrent saccharin intake on ethanol consumption by high-alcohol-drinking (UChB) rats.

This study examined the effect of concurrent presentation of a highly palatable saccharin solution on ethanol consumption during the acquisition or maintenance of ethanol drinking by high-alcohol-drinking (UChB) rats. Rats were exposed to ethanol (10% v/v) and water under a home cage, two-bottle, free-choice regimen with unlimited access for 24 hours/day. After 7 days (acquisition) of ethanol exposure, a third bottle containing saccharin (0.2% w/v) was concomitantly offered for an additional seven consecutive days, and the same process was repeated after 3 months (maintenance) of ethanol exposure. We found that concurrent saccharin intake significantly reduced ethanol intake by UChB rats after 7 days of ethanol exposure indicating that preference for sweet taste tends to override the preference for ethanol. However, the concurrent saccharin presentation to rats after 3 months of stable ethanol consumption did not reduce ethanol intake, whereas their saccharin consumption reached polydipsic-like values. These results support the notion that in UChB rats, a time-dependent sensitization to the rewarding effects of ethanol is developed that may account for the increases in ethanol volition seen following chronic ethanol intake.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1111/j.1749-6632.2008.04121.x

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

Ann N Y Acad Sci

Neuroimaging and the vegetative state: resolving the behavioral assessment dilemma?

The accurate assessment of patients with impaired consciousness following a brain injury often remains a challenge to the most experienced clinician. A diagnosis of vegetative or minimally conscious state is made on the basis of the patient's clinical history and detailed behavioral examinations, which rely upon the patient being able to move or speak in order to demonstrate residual cognitive function. Recently, the development of noninvasive neuroimaging techniques has fostered a rapid increase in the exploration of residual cognitive abilities in these patient populations. However, while this body of literature is growing rapidly, at present the enterprise remains one of scientific endeavor with no inclusion in standard clinical practice. Correctly administered behavioral testing in survivors of brain injury may provide sufficient information to identify patients who are aware and are able to signal that this is the case via a recognized motor output. However, it remains possible that a subgroup of these patients may retain some level of awareness, but lack the ability to produce any motor output and are therefore mistakenly diagnosed as vegetative. It is in this latter situation that functional neuroimaging may prove to be most valuable, as a unique clinical tool for probing volition and residual cognition without necessarily assuming that the patient is able to produce any motor output.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1002/erv.917

European eating disorders review : the journal of the Eating Disorders Association

Eur Eat Disord Rev

Let eating disorder patients decide: Providing choice may reduce early drop-out from inpatient treatment.

Premature drop-out from treatment is a highly prevalent phenomenon among eating disorder (ED) patients. In a specialized inpatient treatment unit a major change was made in the admission strategy in 2001, giving a maximum of personal choice to the patients. A quasi-experimental research was carried out comparing 87 patients treated till 2000 ('old' strategy) with 87 patients treated from 2001 on ('new' strategy). The results indicate that the provision of choice at the beginning of treatment significantly reduced drop-out during the first weeks of inpatient treatment. No differences between both strategies on later drop-out and weight change (in anorexia nervosa patients) during inpatient treatment were found. The results are discussed in the light of the importance placed on dynamics of personal choice, autonomy and volition within the framework of the self-determination theory (SDT).

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

The journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law

J Am Acad Psychiatry Law

Clinical and conceptual problems in the attribution of malingering in forensic evaluations.

The authors review clinical and conceptual errors that contribute to false attributions of malingering in forensic evaluations. Unlike the mental disorders, malingering is not defined by a set of (relatively) enduring symptoms or traits; rather, it is an intentional, externally motivated, and context-specific form of behavior. Despite this general knowledge, attributions of malingering are often made by using assessment tools that may detect feigning but cannot be relied upon to determine incentive and volition or consciousness (defining characteristics of malingering). In addition, forensic evaluators may overlook the possibility that feigning is a function of true pathology, as in Ganser syndrome or the factitious disorders, or that a seemingly malingered presentation is due to symptoms of an underlying disorder, such as dissociative identity disorder (DID). Other factors that set the stage for false positives, such as pressure on forensic specialists to identify malingering at all costs, failure to consider the base rate problem, and cultural variables, are also reviewed.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1093/sw/53.3.233

Social work

Soc Work

Conation: a missing link in the strengths perspective.

Conation is action derived from instinct, purposeful mode of striving, volition. It is a conscious effort to carry out self-determined acts and, as such, may result in the same goal being approached by different individuals through the use of different actions. It is a critical, yet neglected aspect of the "tripartite" human mind, which is composed of cognitive, affective, and conative elements. Because most social workers are not familiar with the concept, client behavior that represents action toward a goal might not be understood or might be misunderstood. A true strengths-based approach to social work requires this understanding. The authors use case studies to describe conation and to demonstrate its applicability. They present examples of how clients' and social workers' conative ability are important to the assessment and intervention process and describe implications for research.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1002/bsl.856

Behavioral sciences & the law

Behav Sci Law

Concepts of intentional control.

Whether a perpetrator with a mental disorder was able to act according to his insight into the unlawfulness of the intended act, or whether his ability to control his drives and criminal intentions was severely diminished, is a central aspect of legal responsibility as defined by the German penal code. This article aims to give the legal concept of capacity to control an empirical, psychological background. This concept is intrinsically interwoven with motivation, conscious decision-making and volition as well as with the ability to convert intention into action. For neuroscientific research, it is important to have a valid psychological model of decision making. This article presents a psychological model of intentional action control and the problem of deactualization. It proposes a differentiation between the executive and the motivational capacities of controlling one's decisions and actions, each of which can separately be disturbed by various mental disorders.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1002/bsl.855

Behavioral sciences & the law

Behav Sci Law

Behavioral and neurological foundations for the moral and legal implications of intoxication, addictive behaviors and disinhibition.

Disinhibition and addictive behaviors are related and carry moral implications. Both typically involve diminished consideration of negative consequences, which may result in harm to oneself or others. Disinhibition may occur on state and trait levels, and addictive substances may elicit disinhibitory states, particularly when intoxication is reached. Data suggest that trait disinhibition and addictions may be conceptualized as involving misdirected motivation with underlying biological bases including genetic factors, alterations in neurotransmitter systems and differences in regional brain function. The influences of intoxication on the brain share similarities with cognitive impairments in individuals with chronic substance abuse and those with trait disinhibition related to frontal lobe injuries. These findings raise questions about volitional impairment and morality. Although impaired volition related to disinhibition and addictive behaviors has been studied from multiple perspectives, additional research is needed to further characterize mechanisms of impairment. Such findings may have important implications in multiple legal and psychiatric domains.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.3143/geriatrics.45.615

Nihon Ronen Igakkai zasshi. Japanese journal of geriatrics

Nihon Ronen Igakkai Zasshi

[Localized cerebral blood flow changes in response to ADL-related vitality in elderly patients with dementia using single photon emission computed tomography].

To clarify the area in the brain related to responsible for vitality and volition. We studied 123 outpatients (39 men, 84 women, 77.7+/-6.7 years old) who visited the Center for comprehensive care on memory disorders in Kyorin University Hospital. No patients were prescribed with anti-depressants, anti-anxiety agents, psychomimetics, acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, Chinese herbal medicines or cerebrovascular circulation modifying drugs. Patients with frontotemporal dementia or depression were excluded. ADL-related vitality and volition was measured by a vitality index. Cerebral brain blood flow was measured by single photon emission computed tomography (99mTc-ECD SPECT). Relative blood flow changes were calculated by Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM). Absolute blood flow changes were calculated by a three-dimensional stereotaxic ROI template on anatomically standardised 99mTc-ECD SPECT (3D SRT). Statistically significant correlations between semi-quantitatively measured scores of vitality index and blood flow changes in SPM and 3D-SRT were tested and displayed on a brain map. Analysis of relative and absolute blood flow showed that the common responsible area in the brain related to vitality was the frontal lobe, fronto-cingulate gyrus, temporal lobe, basal ganglia (caudate nucleus) and thalamus. Blood flow changes in the orbital gyrus were strongly correlated with vitality index specially in the frontal lobe. ADL-related vitality is affected mainly by the blood flow in the frontal-subcortical circuit. However, deep white matter was also important to determine vitality and volition.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1080/15265160802617993

The American journal of bioethics : AJOB

Am J Bioeth

The target of the self and the arrows of volition and self-representation.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1038/nrn2497

Nature reviews. Neuroscience

Nat Rev Neurosci

Human volition: towards a neuroscience of will.

The capacity for voluntary action is seen as essential to human nature. Yet neuroscience and behaviourist psychology have traditionally dismissed the topic as unscientific, perhaps because the mechanisms that cause actions have long been unclear. However, new research has identified networks of brain areas, including the pre-supplementary motor area, the anterior prefrontal cortex and the parietal cortex, that underlie voluntary action. These areas generate information for forthcoming actions, and also cause the distinctive conscious experience of intending to act and then controlling one's own actions. Volition consists of a series of decisions regarding whether to act, what action to perform and when to perform it. Neuroscientific accounts of voluntary action may inform debates about the nature of individual responsibility.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1097/YCO.0b013e328314b7a1

Current opinion in psychiatry

Curr Opin Psychiatry

Imaging and imagining: current positions on the epistemic priority of theoretical concepts and data in psychiatric neuroimaging.

To give an overview of recent developments in neuroimaging in psychiatry and on the current discussion about the relationship between theoretical concepts and data from neuroimaging studies. In psychiatric neuroimaging, broad concepts such as the self, well being, insight, empathy and volition form an integral part of the questions to be answered and cannot be avoided. Although, currently, the intradisciplinary discussion in neuroscience is mainly focused at the methodological and neurobiological level, psychological and philosophical theories are also needed for the interpretation of results. This raises questions regarding the epistemic priority of neuroimaging data and theories. In the current paper, we present the hypothesis that there is an interdependence of neuroimaging data and theoretical concepts. An approach to 'correlational neuroscience' with an awareness of this issue may help in avoiding misunderstandings and oversimplifications as well as building an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that is able to integrate findings from life sciences, mind sciences and humanities.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1080/11038120802409762

Scandinavian journal of occupational therapy

Scand J Occup Ther

Doing everyday life--experiences of the oldest old.

The purpose of this article is to explore how a group of elderly people, living and managing on their own, describe and experience their everyday doings. Interviews and observations were conducted with 18 community-living people aged 85 and above. The experiences of 'Doing everyday life' are described in five overarching themes: 'Experiencing being old', 'Doings in everyday life', 'Patterns of the day', 'Altered doings', and 'The importance of time'. What is done during an ordinary day does not differ much from earlier in life, but how the doings are performed has changed. Being occupied and staying healthy and sound in mind was stressed as important in old age and even if reduced energy and functional constraints limited the doings, a strong volition to manage independently was expressed. The participants perceived society as regarding the elderly as useless and worthless. Knowledge emanating from the very old themselves is vital to diversify the image of elderly people and to offer interventions and support adapted to their needs and desires.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

Brain and nerve = Shinkei kenkyu no shinpo

Brain Nerve

[A brain-like computer involving emotion and volition].

This paper outlines the concept of "Associative Interacting Intelligence" with regard to a brain-like computer that evolves by learning the relationship between sensory input and behavioral output through active interaction with the real-world environment. We developed the architecture of this intelligent system by using hypotheses based on the established features of brain function. Our central hypotheses are as follows: (1) intellect, emotion, and volition are processed by interactions between parts of the new brain, the old brain, and the body, (2) the heterogeneous hardware architecture of the brain is ontogenically developed, (3) the anatomically modular hardware structure of the brain, (4) reinforcement learning in the brain is motivation-based, and (5) the firing properties of neurons vary. The 2 different levels of our model, which challenges our concepts of the old brain, were proposed using these hypotheses. The spiking neuron model of the basal ganglia circuitry demonstrated the capability of our model to perform probabilistic selections of behavior. In addition, the model also indicated that the selection probability and execution time could be modulated. The parallel modular neural network model for reinforcement learning illustrated the effectiveness of rich internal state representation and internal rewards for achieving a goal in a reduced number of trials. The results of the models showed their potential toward the "Associative Interacting Intelligence", especially regarding efficiency, flexibility, and adaptability. However, many issues, have yet to be addressed and resolved. Our models, which are yet to be tested in detail, must be morphed to a human body in order to demonstrate the ability of these models to reproduce learned abilities. The future success of our study will depend on multidisciplinary collaborations and advances in allied research areas.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/S0079-6123(08)00924-2

Progress in brain research

Prog Brain Res

Neurobiological basis of serotonin-dopamine antagonists in the treatment of Gilles de la Tourette syndrome.

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a heritable neuropsychiatric disorder that presents in childhood with a constellation of motor and non-motor symptoms. The defining feature of the disorder is the presence of brief, stereotyped, motor or vocal behaviours called tics. Although tics are themselves voluntary, they are typically performed secondary to involuntary sensory symptoms or irresistible urges. TS is therefore said to be a disorder of human volition that likely represents a general failure of inhibition. It shares many features with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and impulse control disorder with which it is also commonly associated. Much of the anatomic substrate for TS probably lies in the circuits that connect multiple areas of cortex with the basal ganglia and thalamus to subserve motivation, inhibition of behaviour, planning of motor acts and detection of threats. To date, pathological studies of TS have been very few and the number of subjects evaluated too small to reliably elucidate the nature and significance of several reported abnormalities. However, evidence derived from both pharmacological trials and selected functional imaging studies suggests that disturbances of the dopaminergic and serotonergic neurotransmitter systems play a key role in the pathogenesis of TS. At the same time, multiple studies have demonstrated reciprocal interactions between the serotonin and dopamine systems of the brain. This information, when placed in the context of the observed functional imaging abnormalities, may generate further insights into the pathophysiology of TS.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/S0079-6123(08)00657-2

Progress in brain research

Prog Brain Res

Volition and eye movements.

Although the conceptual distinction between voluntary and automatic acts seems intuitively obvious, its neural basis remains opaque. Assigning volition--or some paraphrase such as action selection--to discrete parts of the brain arguably tells us nothing about what volition actually is in neural terms. Equally, exploring the relative sensitivity of discrete brain areas to manipulations of action choice, including its asymptote--free choice--would only be informative if voluntary processes could thereby be reliably isolated. Unfortunately, such manipulations are subject to ineliminable confounds, such as the complexity of the underlying condition-action associations. Here we propose an adaptation of a classic oculomotor task--saccadic choice with asynchronous targets--where the processes engaged in free choice manifest as interference in the performance of an automatic task, thereby circumventing the difficulties in parameterising volition. We suggest that this task may be useful in probing deficits in voluntary action in pathological states.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1111/j.1447-0594.2008.00454.x

Geriatrics & gerontology international

Geriatr Gerontol Int

White matter lesions as a feature of cognitive impairment, low vitality and other symptoms of geriatric syndrome in the elderly.

White matter lesions (WML) are common findings on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in elderly persons. In this study, we analyzed the relation of WML with global cognitive function, depression, vitality/volition, and 19 symptoms of geriatric syndrome in Japanese elderly patients who attended three university geriatric outpatient clinics. Two hundred and eighty-six subjects (103 men and 183 women; mean +/- standard deviation age, 74.5 +/- 7.8 years) were included in this study. MRI scans were performed for the diagnosis of WML, and the severity of periventricular and deep white matter hyperintensities (PVH and DWMH) was rated semiquantitatively. Concurrently, all subjects underwent tests of cognitive function, depressive state and vitality, and were examined for 19 symptoms of geriatric syndrome. The study subjects showed cognitive decline, depression and low vitality, all to a mild extent. Univariate linear regression analysis showed a negative correlation between the severity of WML and cognitive function or vitality. Multiple logistic analysis revealed that the severity of WML was a significant determinant of cognitive impairment and low vitality, after adjustment for confounding factors such as age, sex and concomitant diseases. PVH and/or DWMH score was significantly greater in subjects who exhibited 13 out of 19 symptoms of geriatric syndrome. Logistic regression analysis indicated that WML were associated with psychological disorders, gait disturbance, urinary problems and parkinsonism. WML were associated with various symptoms of functional decline in older persons. Evaluating WML in relation to functional decline would be important for preventing disability in elderly people.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/j.concog.2008.05.004

Consciousness and cognition

Conscious Cogn

Effort awareness and sense of volition in schizophrenia.

Contemporary experimental research has emphasised the role of centrally generated signals arising from premotor areas in voluntary muscular force perception. It is therefore generally accepted that judgements of force are based on a central sense, known as the sense of effort, rather than on a sense of intra-muscular tension. Interestingly, the concept of effort is also present in the classical philosophy: to the French philosopher Maine de Biran [Maine de Biran (1805). Mémoire sur la décomposition de la pensée (Tome III), Vrin, Paris (1963)], the sense of effort is the fundamental component of self-experience, the landmark of the exercise of the will. In the present review, after a presentation of the nature and neurophysiological bases of effort sensation, we will examine its possible involvement in the neurocognitive process of agency. We will further focus on delusions of alien control in schizophrenic patients. Experimental data suggest that these patients have an abnormal awareness of effort caused by cerebral anomalies in the frontal and parietal lobes.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/j.ejphar.2008.06.069

European journal of pharmacology

Eur J Pharmacol

Ethanol induces stronger dopamine release in nucleus accumbens (shell) of alcohol-preferring (bibulous) than in alcohol-avoiding (abstainer) rats.

Several studies on the differences between ethanol-preferring versus non-preferring rat lines suggest an innate deficit in the mesolimbic dopaminergic system as an underlying factor for ethanol volition. Rats would try to overcome such deficit by engaging in a drug-seeking behaviour, when available, to drink an ethanol solution over water. Thus, in the present study we compared the effect of a single dose of ethanol (1 g/kg, i.p.) on the extracellular levels of monoamines measured by microdialysis in the shell of nucleus accumbens of University of Chile bibulous (UChB) and University of Chile Abstainer (UChA) rats, bred for 79 and 88 generations to prefer or reject ethanol, respectively. It is reported that under basal conditions extracellular dopamine levels are lower in the bibulous than in the abstainer rats, while ethanol induced a 2-fold greater increase of dopamine release in bibulous than in abstainer rats. The greater effect of ethanol in bibulous rats was not associated to differences in blood ethanol levels, since the concentration and elimination of ethanol were virtually identical in both rat lines, indicating that bibulous rats are more sensitive to the stimulation of dopamine release by ethanol than abstainer rats. No differences were observed in 5-hydroxytryptamine or metabolites measured simultaneously under basal or ethanol-stimulating conditions in bibulous and abstainer rats. Overall, the present results suggest that a low dopaminergic tone and a strong mesolimbic dopamine response to ethanol are concerted neurochemical features associated to an ethanol-seeking behaviour in rats.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1080/13554790801992750

Neurocase

Neurocase

Kindled non-convulsive behavioral seizures, analogous to primates. A 24th case of 'limbic psychotic trigger reaction': bizarre parental infanticide--might nonvoluntariness during LPTR become objectified by primate model?

Limbic psychotic trigger reaction (LPTR) includes paroxysmal, out-of-character, motiveless, unplanned felonies (or similarly bizarre social misbehavior), all committed during flat affect, autonomic arousal and a fleeting de novo psychosis. A transient limbic hyperactivation is implicated that impairs prefrontal monitoring (judgment, planning, intent, volition, emotional participation) but preserves memory for the acts. It is hypothesized that LPTR implicates an atavistic regression to a limbic 'paleo-consciousness', exemplified by a 24th patient (parental infanticide), presented herein. He had closed head injury and borderline abnormal posterior brain pathology (EEG/CT), which might have contributed to his unusually numerous visual hallucinations.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/j.comppsych.2007.12.003

Comprehensive psychiatry

Compr Psychiatry

The prevalence and correlates of trauma-related symptoms in schizophrenia spectrum disorder.

Research has suggested that many with schizophrenia have been exposed to significant trauma, both after and before the onset of their illness. Less clear is how commonly significant levels of trauma symptoms are found in schizophrenia, how often they co-occur, and what their relationship is with positive and negative symptoms. To examine these issues, we concurrently assessed trauma history, trauma symptoms using the Trauma Symptom Inventory, and symptoms using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Participants were 68 individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders who provided reliable reports of at least one traumatic event from an original sample of 81 individuals. Results revealed that two thirds of participants reported clinically significant trauma symptoms that included at least intrusive experiences, defensive avoidance, or dissociation. Greater levels of depression and disturbance of volition were significantly correlated with greater levels of anxious arousal, intrusive experiences, defensive avoidance, dissociation, and total number of significantly elevated trauma scales. Delusions were correlated with intrusive experiences, dissociation, and number of significantly elevated trauma scales, whereas hallucinations were correlated with irritability and total number of significantly elevated trauma scales. Results suggest that trauma symptoms may be commonly experienced in schizophrenia and linked with the phenomenology of the disorder.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1002/mus.21007

Muscle & nerve

Muscle Nerve

Turning off the central contribution to contractions evoked by neuromuscular electrical stimulation.

Neuromuscular electrical stimulation can generate contractions through both peripheral and central mechanisms. The peripheral mechanism involves the direct activation of motor axons, while the central mechanism involves the activation of sensory axons that recruit spinal neurons through a reflex pathway. For use in functional electrical stimulation. One must have control over turning the central mechanism on and off. We investigated whether inhibition developed through antagonist muscle (tibialis anterior, TA) contractions elicited by electrical stimulation or by volition can turn off the central mechanism in triceps surae. Both electrical stimulation and voluntary contractions of TA reduced or eliminated plantar flexion torque produced by the central mechanism, indicating that inhibition induced via these contractions can effectively turn off the central contribution to force. These findings suggest that patterns of electrical stimulation may be able to generate periodic muscle contractions by turning the central contribution to muscular contractions on and off.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1080/09084280801917863

Applied neuropsychology

Appl Neuropsychol

Processing speed deficits associated with traumatic brain injury: processing inefficiency or cautiousness?

This study used speed-accuracy trade-off (SAT) methodology to test competing explanations for processing speed deficits due to traumatic brain injury (TBI): fixed limited capacity and volition. Twenty TBI participants and 20 comparison participants performed a visual scanning task with processing times controlled by the experimenter using a response deadline procedure. Results of the study demonstrated marked differences in SAT functions between the two groups. Participants who had TBIs were significantly slower on information accrual across processing deadlines (supporting a fixed limit explanation), but when early responding was allowed they chose to hold off responding despite being no more accurate in their responses with the additional time (a finding supporting a volitional explanation). Results of the study are discussed in terms of a resource allocation model that incorporates the influences of both processing capacity and volitional processes for individuals who suffer from brain injuries.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2008.01.004

International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology

Int J Psychophysiol

Orthostatic blood pressure regulation predicts classroom effort in children.

The increase in orthostatic systolic blood pressure associated with the shift in posture from lying to standing requires several compensatory mechanisms to ensure adequate cerebral perfusion. Decreased efficiency in the various mechanisms controlling orthostatic blood pressure regulation can result in dizziness, lightheadedness, and syncope. The degree of effectiveness of orthostatic systolic blood pressure regulation (OBPR) serves as a marker for a variety of problems including fatigue, depression, anxiety, reduced attention, impulsive behavior and reduced volition. In normal children, an insufficient increase in systolic blood pressure in response to upright posture is predictive of mild cognitive and affective problems. The present study examined orthostatic systolic blood pressure regulation in relation to yearlong teachers' evaluations of academic grades and effort in 7-11 year old children. Poorer systolic blood pressure regulation in response to orthostasis was associated with reduced levels of classroom effort, while academic grades were spared. Converging evidence from clinical as well as experimental studies suggests that the linkage between (OBPR) and effort may be partially mediated by sympathetic dysfunction, altered release of neurotransmitters, or reduced cerebral blood flow.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

Journal of applied measurement

J Appl Meas

Rasch measurement of self-regulated learning in an information and communication technology (ICT)-rich environment.

This report describes how a linear scale of self-regulated learning in an ICT-rich environment was created by analysing student data using the Rasch measurement model. A person convenience sample of (N = 409) university students in Western Australia was used. The stem-item sample was initially 41, answered in two perspectives ("I aim for this" and "I actually do this"), and reduced to 16 that fitted the measurement model to form a unidimensional scale. Items for motivation (extrinsic rewards, intrinsic rewards, and social rewards), academic goals (fear of performing poorly) (but not standards), self-learning beliefs (ability and interest), task management (strategies and time management) (but not cooperative learning), Volition (action control (but not environmental control), and self-evaluation (cognitive self-evaluation and metacognition) fitted the measurement model. The proportion of observed variance considered true was 0.90. A new instrument is proposed to handle the conceptually valid but non-fitting items. Characteristics of high self-regulated learners are measured.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

Seishin shinkeigaku zasshi = Psychiatria et neurologia Japonica

Seishin Shinkeigaku Zasshi

[Informed diagnosis and psycho-education on psychiatric illnesses by primary care physicians--a result from pathway to psychiatric care in Japan study].

On the path to psychiatric care, many patients who experience their first episode of mental disorder consult general practitioners or physicians of general hospitals before consulting psychiatrists. Some patients receive proper care promptly while others experience a delay in treatment. We investigated treatments and psycho-education given to patients by general practitioners or physicians of general hospitals, particularly focusing on informed diagnosis. We conducted a multi-center collaborative study in Japan. In this study, 15 facilities participated, including 4 university hospitals, 3 general hospitals, and 8 psychiatric hospitals. A total of 382 patients experiencing their first episode of mental disorder were enrolled. Among them, 157 patients primarily consulted general practitioners or general hospitals. We divided the 157 patients into 3 groups according to the kind of psycho-education given by general practitioners or physicians of general hospitals: those who were told nothing about their diagnosis nor mental condition (N = 74, 47.1%), those who were not given a direct diagnosis but were informed about their condition in some way (N = 55, 35.0%), and those who were directly informed of their diagnosis (N = 28, 17.8%). We found that almost half of the patients were told nothing about their diagnosis nor mental condition by general practitioners or physicians of general hospitals. Patients who were likely to be directly informed of their diagnosis were those who were recommended to see a doctor by someone, or those with a lower global psychosocial function. The patients who were told nothing about their diagnosis nor mental condition were mainly covered by national health insurance, and had decided to go to hospitals or clinics under their own volition. Sorted by ICD-10 F code, patients diagnosed as F0, F3, or F4 accounted for 89.9% of all subjects. We compared treatment delays among these 3 categories. The median treatment delay in patients diagnosed correctly as F0 by general practitioners or physicians of general hospitals was 50 weeks, that in patients diagnosed as F3 was 4 weeks, and that in patients diagnosed as F4 was 5 weeks. These findings suggest that patients might be treated in different ways according to their diagnosis by general practitioners or physicians in general hospitals. Our results suggest the importance of further educating general practitioners and physicians of general hospitals about mental disorders, in order to not only shorten the duration of untreated psychosis, but also for patients to be given proper primary care.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/j.schres.2007.12.467

Schizophrenia research

Schizophr Res

Personality in relation to genetic liability for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: differential associations with the COMT Val 108/158 Met polymorphism.

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may share aspects of genetic etiology. Evidence supports the Val 108/158 Met polymorphism of the Catechol-o-Methyltransferase (COMT) gene as potentially contributing to the etiology of both disorders. To determine whether the COMT gene is associated with personality traits related to genetic risk for either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, we examined dimensions of personality psychopathology in biological relatives of individuals with the disorders. Specifically, we contrasted personality characteristics of first-degree relatives of people with schizophrenia, first-degree relatives of people with bipolar-I disorder, and nonpsychiatric control participants using scores from the Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology-Brief Questionnaire (DAPP-BQ). We also characterized the COMT Val 108/158 Met polymorphism of subjects. Compared to controls, relatives of schizophrenia patients scored lower on stimulus seeking and higher on restrictive expression and social avoidance. Compared to relatives of bipolar patients, relatives of schizophrenia patients had lower scores on narcissism, rejectionality (i.e., rejection of ideas of others), stimulus seeking, passive-aggressive oppositionality, and self-harm. The subset of relatives of schizophrenia patients who were COMT val homozygotes exhibited lower scores on narcissism, rejectionality, and stimulus seeking than met homozygote relatives of schizophrenia patients and control participants. Although relatives of bipolar patients showed scale elevations consistent with emotional dysregulation, the scores failed to be associated with the Val 108/158 Met polymorphism. Abnormally low narcissism and rejectionality in val homozygote relatives of schizophrenia patients suggests that the val allele of the COMT polymorphism may be associated with an underdeveloped self-concept phenomenologically similar to made volition and passivity experiences comprising first-rank symptoms of schizophrenia.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/S0079-6123(07)68007-8

Progress in brain research

Prog Brain Res

Computational studies of consciousness.

In this chapter we present a computational architecture intended to add clarity to the concept of consciousness. We briefly review some of the motivations of work done in this area in various institutes around the world and looks closely at our own work which specifically includes phenomenology, the sense of a self in a perceptual world. This breaks consciousness into five axioms: presence, imagination, attention, volition and emotions. It develops plausible mechanisms of each and how they interact to give a single sensation. An abstract architecture, the kernel architecture, is introduced as a starting point for building computational models. It is shown that through this architecture it is possible to discuss puzzling aspects of consciousness, for example are animals conscious? What happens when we dream? What goes on when we experience an illusion? This paper is intended to elucidate and update some concepts introduced in Aleksander (2005).

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

/S0716-97602008000400010

Biological research

Biol Res

Voluntary modulations of attention in a semantic auditory-visual matching task: an ERP study.

The present study explores the neural correlates of voluntary modulations of attention in an auditory-visual matching task. Visual stimuli (a female or a male face) were preceded in close temporal proximity by auditory stimuli consisting of the Spanish word for "man" and "woman" ("hombre" or "mujer"). In 80% of the trials the gender of the two stimuli coincided. Participants were asked to mentally count the specific instances in which a female face appeared after hearing the word "man" (10 % of the trials). Our results show attention-related amplitude modulation of the early visual ERP components NI and anterior P2, but also amplitude modulations of (i) the N270 potential usually associated with conflict detection, (ii) a P300 wave related to infrequency, and (iii) an N400 potential related to semantic incongruence. The elicitation of these latter components varied according to task manipulations, evidencing the role of voluntary allocation of attention in fine-tuning cognitive processing, which includes basic processes like detection of infrequency or semantic incongruity often considered to be volition-independent.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

The Israel journal of psychiatry and related sciences

Isr J Psychiatry Relat Sci

The civil liability for damages of the criminally insane.

As a rule, mentally ill patients are held to be responsible for their acts just like everyone else. Notwithstanding, the law in Israel contains special rules which distinguish individuals with mental illness from other people. The instructions laid out in article 34h of the Israeli Penal Law empower the court to release a defendant from criminal responsibility. To do this the following criteria must be met: (a) the defendant was mentally ill, (b) he/she was in a psychotic state at the time he/she performed the felony, (c) his/her mental illness deprived him/her of his/her abilities in at least one of the two following areas: 1] he/she could not understand what he/she was doing, or the forbidden nature of the act; 2] he/she was incapable of preventing him/herself from carrying it out. In the case presented, a mentally ill individual was charged with the murder of his child and with an attempt to murder another child. The court ruled him to be legally insane and therefore non-punishable. He was later sued by the other child's parents for damages on the grounds of the assault tort. The issue in question was how does the fact that the defendant was ruled legally insane while committing the wrong doing affect the legal ruling of the defendant's liability especially regarding the tort of assault? The Magistrate's Court ruled that the Israeli Tort Law did not determine exemption from responsibility for the mentally ill. Liability for damages will be imposed upon an individual whenever the prerequisites to define a tort are met, even if the mental requisite is an outcome of one's mentally ill state. The District Court determined that an individual who intended to inflict harm is guilty of assault, even though the intent was an outcome of his mental state. Lack of volition due to one's inability to refrain from action does not constitute a defense for assault. In this case liability for damages was imposed on the defendant. The Court related to the issue of justice according to which an innocent person's damages should not remain uncompensated, and the assailant was required to pay damages to the victim.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1037/0735-7044.121.6.1174

Behavioral neuroscience

Behav Neurosci

The influence of volition on breathing-swallowing coordination in healthy adults.

This research was designed to clarify the role of cortical modulation in the coordination of respiration and swallowing. Time-locked recordings of submental surface electromyography, nasal airflow, and thyroid acoustics were used to evaluate nonnutritive breathing-swallowing coordination (BSC) and swallowing apnea duration (SAD) of 20 healthy adults during 3 conditions. These conditions represented a continuum of volitional through nonvolitional swallowing control on the basis of a decreasing level of cortical activation: voluntarily initiated swallows during wakefulness, nonvolitional awake swallows, and reflexively initiated swallows during sleep. Differing proportions of swallows at the cusps between inspiration and expiration were found between the volitional and nonvolitional conditions, irrespective of the level of arousal. SAD was unaltered by condition. In conclusion, BSC is influenced by degree of volition but not by level of arousal. This implies that cortical influence on BSC is limited to conditions in which swallowing is voluntarily initiated and indirectly implicates the recruitment of the supplementary motor or insular cortices. SAD remained stable across conditions and may therefore be considered relatively impervious to suprabulbar influence.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

Problemy sotsial'noi gigieny, zdravookhraneniia i istorii meditsiny

Probl Sotsialnoi Gig Zdravookhranenniiai Istor Med

[The awareness of patients about the risk factors].

The medical sociological study of the municipal polyclinics of the City of Toliatti included the specification of the health self-assessment, the personal medical activity, the presence of adverse habits, the awareness of the principles of healthy life-style. One's own health was considered as good by 21.7% of respondents; about 46% assumed it as satisfactory and 5.5% determined it as bad. The males considered one's own health as good more frequently than women. Among the causes of bad health state the respondents pointed at adverse ecology, improper diet, hereditary factors, stressing conditions, alcohol consumption, tobacco smoking. The distribution of the priority causes according gender and age is presented. Mainly, only females and males older than 50 years visit the physician regularly. Among the causes of disregarding by the respondents the principles of healthy life-style are the insufficient volition, the lack of spare time, the work overload, the non-availability of needed material resources for health-improving activities. The respondents enumerated among the causes stimulating to lead healthy life-style the alcohol abuse refusal, active physical training, the healthy diet, the tobacco smoking refusal. The females give more attention to their health, actively search for the sources of medical information, more frequently consult the medical specialists. The males more often give preference to the advices of relatives and friends. The need in additional information related to one's own health and the health-improving activities experience 83.4% of females and 71.6% of males. The established gender characteristics of this need is to be considered by the physicians providing the consultation services on the issues of health promotion and disease prevention.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1080/02770900701247137

The Journal of asthma : official journal of the Association for the Care of Asthma

J Asthma

Ethical issues in adolescent and parent informed consent for pediatric asthma research participation.

This article reviews the empirical literature related to knowledge, competence, volition, and financial compensation in the biomedical research decision-making of children, adolescents, and parents. Research findings indicate there are differences in adolescent and parent understanding and appreciation of research risks and procedures, that opinions about decision-making authority and physician influence for research participation are different in adolescents and parents, and that financial compensation can be a salient factor in the research-related decision-making process. Pediatric asthma researchers can consider these psychological factors involved in adolescent and parent research participation decision-making processes to develop effective informed consent procedures.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1901/jeab.2007.65-06

Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior

J Exp Anal Behav

Stochastic matching and the voluntary nature of choice.

Attempts to characterize voluntary behavior have been ongoing for thousands of years. We provide experimental evidence that judgments of volition are based upon distributions of responses in relation to obtained rewards. Participants watched as responses, said to be made by "actors," appeared on a computer screen. The participant's task was to estimate how well each actor represented the voluntary choices emitted by a real person. In actuality, all actors' responses were generated by algorithms based on Baum's (1979) generalized matching function. We systematically varied the exponent values (sensitivity parameter) of these algorithms: some actors matched response proportions to received reinforcer proportions, others overmatched (predominantly chose the highest-valued alternative), and yet others undermatched (chose relatively equally among the alternatives). In each of five experiments, we found that the matchingactor's responses were judged most closely to approximate voluntary choice. We found also that judgments of high volition depended upon stochastic (or probabilistic) generation. Thus, stochastic responses that match reinforcer proportions best represent voluntary human choice.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0924-07.2007

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience

J Neurosci

To do or not to do: the neural signature of self-control.

Voluntary action is fundamental to human existence. Recent research suggests that volition involves a specific network of brain activity, centered on the fronto-median cortex. An important but neglected aspect of intentional action involves the decision whether to act or not. This decision process is crucial in daily life because it allows us to form intentions without necessarily implementing them. In the present study, we investigate the neural correlates of intentionally inhibiting actions using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Our data show that a specific area of the fronto-median cortex is more strongly activated when people prepare manual actions but then intentionally cancel them, compared with when they prepare and then complete the same actions. Our results suggest that the human brain network for intentional action includes a control structure for self-initiated inhibition or withholding of intended actions. The mental control of action has an enduring scientific interest, linked to the philosophical concept of "free will." Our results identify a candidate brain area that reflects the crucial decision to do or not to do.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1080/02699050701504273

Brain injury

Brain Inj

Stroke rehabilitation in a patient with cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome.

It has become evident that the cerebellum plays a role in cognitive function, and Schmahmann et al. have introduced the term "Cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome (CCAS)." In the present paper we report a patient with cerebellar hemorrhage who developed CCAS. A case study. The patient was a 61-year-old right-handed man who was admitted to our hospital because of sudden headache, dizziness and vomiting. The patient showed ataxia of the trunk and the extremities, but no paralysis and disturbance of sensation. He was disoriented in time and showed recent memory disturbance, disturbance of attention, impairment of executive functions and reduced volition, and due to these symptoms, his daily living was also severely impaired. With the aim of returning home, the patient received exercise therapy and cognitive rehabilitation, while home modification was performed, and living at home under the supervision of his family became possible. Cognitive function improved, while memory and attention disturbance, impairment of executive function remained. Cognitive dysfunction in patients with cerebellar damage is assumed to develop from disturbance of the cerebrocerebellar circuit, and that rehabilitation of these patients must include assessment of not only the motor function, but also of detailed assessment of cerebral function.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1590/s1516-44462007000200005

Revista brasileira de psiquiatria (Sao Paulo, Brazil : 1999)

Braz J Psychiatry

Pathological gambling and obsessive-compulsive disorder: towards a spectrum of disorders of volition.

Pathological gambling is proposed as a participant of an impulsive-compulsive spectrum related to obsessive-compulsive disorder. This study aims to contrast pathological gambling and obsessive-compulsive disorder regarding course, comorbidity, and personality, hence testing the validity of the impulsive-compulsive spectrum. 40 pathological gambling and 40 obsessive-compulsive disorder subjects matched to 40 healthy volunteers according to gender, age, and education were assessed with the Temperament Personality Questionnaire and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale. Psychiatric patients were also assessed for course and comorbidity data. Obsessive-compulsive disorder presented an earlier onset, but the full syndrome took longer to evolve. Pathological gambling had higher comorbidity with substance-related disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorder higher comorbidity with somatoform disorders. Gamblers scored higher than controls on the sub-factors Impulsiveness, Extravagance, Disorderliness, and Fear of Uncertainty. Obsessive-compulsive patients scored higher than controls on Fear of Uncertainty. Impulsiveness, Extravagance, and Disorderliness significantly correlated with the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale total score, Fear of Uncertainty did not. The course and comorbidity profiles of pathological gambling resemble an addiction and differ from obsessive-compulsive disorder. Pathological gambling combines impulsive and compulsive traits. Impulsivity and compulsivity should be regarded as orthogonal constructs, and as drives implicated in volition aspects of behavioral syndromes.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1080/00048670701449203

The Australian and New Zealand journal of psychiatry

Aust N Z J Psychiatry

Validity and reliability of the Behavioural Assessment Tool for Cognition and Higher Function (BATCH) in neuropsychiatric patients.

Patients with mental health disorders frequently have difficulties with their cognitive functioning. Assessment of cognition in this population can be complicated by psychiatric symptomatology, making standard written and verbal assessment methods difficult. In these situations, observations by nursing and allied staff of patients' routine activities provide an important source of information about cognitive ability. The Behavioural Assessment Tool for Cognition and Higher Function (BATCH) was developed to record observations of patients' daily functioning under subheadings that reflect cognitive domains. Its capacity to provide a measure of cognitive function through observational means was assessed in a neuropsychiatric unit. A consecutive sample of 76 adult neuropsychiatry inpatients were assessed over 6 months using BATCH. BATCH measures the frequency of given behaviours grouped under 10 functional and cognitive domains: orientation, attention/concentration, personal responsibility, volition, adaptation, problem-solving/judgement, executive function, memory, language, and visuospatial function. Data from routine standardized cognitive (Mini-Mental Status Examination, MMSE; Neuropsychiatry Unit Cognitive Screening Tool, NUCOG), psychiatric (Neuropsychiatric Inventory; Health of the Nation Outcome Scale) and functional (Bristol Activities of Daily Living Scale; Barthel Index) instruments were collected to determine the relative contribution of cognitive function to scores on the BATCH. A strong correlation was found between total BATCH scores and total NUCOG and MMSE scores. BATCH and NUCOG subdomains correlated significantly in all subscales. BATCH demonstrated very high internal consistency. Linear regression analysis showed that the strongest determinant of BATCH scores was cognitive function as measured on the NUCOG. A significant subscale x group effect showed lower BATCH scores in memory, orientation, attention, executive function and language in dementia sufferers compared to psychiatric and neurological patient groups. BATCH scores correlated strongly with pencil-and-paper measures of cognitive function. BATCH provides clinicians with a means of assessing cognitive function through behavioural observation, thus enabling assessment of patients with behavioural disturbance or severe psychopathology. This tool has practical application for adult and aged clients across all observational mental health settings.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1007/s10548-007-0018-1

Brain topography

Brain Topogr

Estimate of causality between independent cortical spatial patterns during movement volition in spinal cord injured patients.

Static hemodynamic or neuroelectric images of brain regions activated during particular tasks do not convey the information of how these regions communicate to each other. Cortical connectivity estimation aims at describing these interactions as connectivity patterns which hold the direction and strength of the information flow between cortical areas. In this study, we attempted to estimate the causality between distributed cortical systems during a movement volition task in preparation for execution of simple movements by a group of normal healthy subjects and by a group of Spinal Cord Injured (SCI) patients. To estimate the causality between the spatial distributed patterns of cortical activity in the frequency domain, we applied a series of processing steps on the recorded EEG data. From the high-resolution EEG recordings we estimated the cortical waveforms for the regions of interest (ROIs), each representing a selected sensor group population. The solutions of the linear inverse problem returned a series of cortical waveforms for each ROI considered and for each trial analyzed. For each subject, the cortical waveforms were then subjected to Independent Component Analysis (ICA) pre-processing. The independent components obtained by the application of the ThinICA algorithm were further processed by a Partial Directed Coherence algorithm, in order to extract the causality between spatial cortical patterns of the estimated data. The source-target cortical dependencies found in the group of normal subjects were relatively similar in all frequency bands analyzed. For the normal subjects we observed a common source pattern in an ensemble of cortical areas including the right parietal and right lip primary motor areas and bilaterally the primary foot and posterior SMA areas. The target of this cortical network, in the Granger-sense of causality, was shown to be a smaller network composed mostly by the primary foot motor areas and the posterior SMA bilaterally. In the case of the SCI population, both the source and the target cortical patterns had larger sizes than in the normal population. The source cortical areas included always the primary foot and lip motor areas, often bilaterally. In addition, the right parietal area and the bilateral premotor area 6 were also involved. Again, the patterns remained substantially stable across the different frequency bands analyzed. The target cortical patterns observed in the SCI population had larger extensions when compared to the normal ones, since in most cases they involved the bilateral activation of the primary foot movement areas as well as the SMA, the primary lip areas and the parietal cortical areas.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/j.clinph.2007.03.019

Clinical neurophysiology : official journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology

Clin Neurophysiol

Volitional control of movement: the physiology of free will.

This review deals with the physiology of the initiation of a voluntary movement and the appreciation of whether it is voluntary or not. I argue that free will is not a driving force for movement, but a conscious awareness concerning the nature of the movement. Movement initiation and the perception of willing the movement can be separately manipulated. Movement is generated subconsciously, and the conscious sense of volition comes later, but the exact time of this event is difficult to assess because of the potentially illusory nature of introspection. Neurological disorders of volition are also reviewed. The evidence suggests that movement is initiated in the frontal lobe, particularly the mesial areas, and the sense of volition arises as the result of a corollary discharge likely involving multiple areas with reciprocal connections including those in the parietal lobe and insular cortex.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1159/000101729

Psychopathology

Psychopathology

Standardized assessment of psychopathology by relatives of mentally disordered patients. Preliminary results of using the positive and negative syndrome scale to compare schizophrenic and affective disorders.

For optimizing the validity of diagnoses of mental disorders, several sources of information should be used to assess psychopathological symptoms. Among these are relatives of patients with mental illness. The very low number of empirical studies examining the assessment of psychopathology by relatives of adult, nondemented mentally ill patients stands in significant contrast to the clinical importance of this source of information, however. Using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), researchers asked 163 relatives of patients with the main clinical ICD-10 diagnosis of schizophrenic, recurrent depressive or bipolar disorders to rate the current symptoms of the patients at the time of outpatient community-oriented treatment. On average, severity of symptoms was rated as absent or minimal, although anxiety, depression and passive/apathetic social as well as emotional withdrawal, motor retardation, poor attention, and disturbance of volition were clearly rated above the PANSS mean total score for all patients. A six-factor structure identified by factor analysis better illustrates the significant differences in the assessments of the three main diagnostic groups than the three established PANSS scales. With the exception of 'problematic social behavior', differences among the diagnostic groups appeared in all factors and were particularly pronounced for 'delusional beliefs' and 'motor impairments'. The results of this study showed that the use of standardized instruments such as PANSS for the assessment of psychopathology by relatives is not only practical, but produces adequately reliable results. The use of PANSS for this purpose, however, requires interviewing of relatives by trained experts able to explain technical terms. Because this study did not sufficiently explore the validity of this approach, further research on this specific issue is urgently needed and should, for example, assess the concordance of ratings between professionals and relatives as well as correlation with suitable external criteria.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/j.schres.2007.02.019

Schizophrenia research

Schizophr Res

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation at M1 disrupts cognitive networks in schizophrenia.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is rapidly gaining acceptance as a non-invasive probe into brain functionality. We utilize TMS to study the connectivity of a simple motor network in patients of schizophrenia (N=19), and in healthy control subjects (N=9). TMS was used in an externally paced finger tapping task, perturbing the internal network oscillations invoked by the finger motion as it keeps pace with a metronome. TMS perturbations were synchronized to the metronome and applied to the network at the level of the primary motor cortex (M1). Contrary to initial expectations, TMS did not affect the sensorimotor synchronization of subjects with schizophrenia or their tapping accuracy. TMS did cause extreme deviations in the finger's trajectory, and altered the timing perceptions of subjects with schizophrenia. Additionally, it invoked high-level deficiencies related to attention and volition in the form of lapses, implying that the connectivity between modules in the brain that underlie motor control, sensorimotor synchronization, timing perception and awareness of action, can be disrupted by TMS in subjects with schizophrenia, but not in healthy subjects. The ability to disrupt high level network functions with perturbations to the lower level of M1 supports models describing deficits in connectivity of distributed networks in the brains of schizophrenia patients. It also demonstrates the use of TMS to probe connectivity between components of such networks.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/j.pneurobio.2007.01.005

Progress in neurobiology

Prog Neurobiol

Mind does really matter: evidence from neuroimaging studies of emotional self-regulation, psychotherapy, and placebo effect.

This article reviews neuroimaging studies of conscious and voluntary regulation of various emotional states (sexual arousal, sadness, negative emotion). The results of these studies show that metacognition and cognitive recontextualization selectively alters the way the brain processes and reacts to emotional stimuli. Neuroimaging studies of the effect of psychotherapy in patients suffering from diverse forms of psychopathology (obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, unipolar major depressive disorder, social phobia, spider phobia, borderline personality) are also examined. The results of these studies indicate that the mental functions and processes involved in diverse forms of psychotherapy exert a significant influence on brain activity. Neuroimaging investigations of the placebo effect in healthy individuals (placebo analgesia, psychostimulant expectation) and patients with Parkinson's disease or unipolar major depressive disorder are also reviewed. The results of these investigations demonstrate that beliefs and expectations can markedly modulate neurophysiological and neurochemical activity in brain regions involved in perception, movement, pain, and various aspects of emotion processing. Collectively, the findings of the neuroimaging studies reviewed here strongly support the view that the subjective nature and the intentional content (what they are "about" from a first-person perspective) of mental processes (e.g., thoughts, feelings, beliefs, volition) significantly influence the various levels of brain functioning (e.g., molecular, cellular, neural circuit) and brain plasticity. Furthermore, these findings indicate that mentalistic variables have to be seriously taken into account to reach a correct understanding of the neural bases of behavior in humans. An attempt is made to interpret the results of these neuroimaging studies with a new theoretical framework called the Psychoneural Translation Hypothesis.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.3143/geriatrics.44.122

Nihon Ronen Igakkai zasshi. Japanese journal of geriatrics

Nihon Ronen Igakkai Zasshi

[Case of rectal carcinoma discovered after extracting a single brain metastasis].

A 79-year-old woman had shown a decline of volition nine months before admission. Because she demonstrated a depressive state, she had been treated with an antidepressant for one month before admission. Thereafter, she became incontinent and showed a poor appetite since two days before admission. Plain computed tomography scan showed an extensive low density area in the right frontal lobe. Cerebral magnetic resonance imaging revealed a tumor with edema (3 cm in diameter), which showed heterogeneous enhancement. The solitary tumor was removed by craniotomy. Metastatic carcinoma was suspected on histological examination, but the primary cancer was not able to be detected by a whole body examination, except for colonoscopy, which was refused by her family. She demonstrated intestinal bleeding about five months after the craniotomy. Rectal cancer was discovered by colonoscopy and she underwent Hartman's procedure. Histological examination revealed poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma similar to resected brain tumor. The final solitary diagnosis was metastatic carcinoma from primary rectal cancer. Solitary brain metastasis from colon cancer is extremely rare, however, we should consider the possibility in cancers of the digestive tract.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2006.11.004

International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology

Int J Psychophysiol

Impaired updating of working memory in schizophrenia.

This study investigated working memory in schizophrenia, using an auditory target detection task specifically designed to separate out brain activity related to the updating of working memory with new information from activity related to target detection and response. Event related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during task performance, using 31 electrodes, from 25 subjects with schizophrenia and 25 matched controls. Subjects with schizophrenia had a reduction in parietal P3 and Late Slow Wave amplitude in the ERP waveforms recorded when the task required subjects to remember a new stimulus. This P3 amplitude attenuation correlated with symptom measures of preoccupation and poor volition. Previous findings of a reduction in P3 amplitude during target detection by subjects with schizophrenia were replicated. These results suggest that there is a specific impairment in the ability to update working memory in schizophrenia, and that this is associated with poverty of engagement with the environment.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1159/000097967

Psychotherapy and psychosomatics

Psychother Psychosom

Improving volitional competence is crucial for the efficacy of psychosomatic therapy: a controlled clinical trial.

Although skills of will (volitional competences), such as self-motivation or emotion regulation, are particularly necessary for patients with psychiatric and psychosomatic disorders, it is unknown whether volitional deficits can be reduced and thereby the efficacy of psychotherapy increased. We investigated the effect of a group therapy for improving volitional competence in an inpatient rehabilitation program. In a controlled clinical trial, patients from a rehabilitation clinic participated either in the volition group therapy in addition to the standard cognitive behavioral therapy (volition group, VG) or in the standard cognitive behavioral therapy (standard group, SG). Patients were tested for volitional competence, depressive symptoms, total psychiatric symptomatology, and physical complaints prior to, at the end of inpatient therapy and after 6 months of follow-up (n = 242). At the end of inpatient therapy, better improvement in volitional competence was observed in the VG than in the SG [e.g. self-motivation: effect size (ES) 0.96 vs. 0.39; ANCOVA: F(1, 209) = 16.58; p < 0.001]. Patients with greater volitional improvements had a better rehabilitation outcome. In the VG, depressive symptoms as well as total psychiatric symptomatology decreased significantly more than in the SG [ES: 1.18 vs. 0.87, F(1, 207) = 4.68, p < 0.05, and ES 1.12 vs. 0.73, F(1, 205) = 4.68, p < 0.05, respectively], but not physical complaints [ES: 0.62 vs. 0.48, F(1, 207) = 1.08, n.s.]. Effect size increased in patients with initially low volitional competence and high motivation to participate in a volitional training. These results might lead to a more systematic assessment and training of volitional competence.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1310/tsr1304-26

Topics in stroke rehabilitation

Top Stroke Rehabil

The cognitive, emotional, and social sequelae of stroke: psychological and ethical concerns in post-stroke adaptation.

In the clinical domain, ethical analyses involve examination of complex individual responses, psychological processes, and social context. Psychological aspects of stroke adaptation include the risk for depression and anxiety, changes in identity and personality processes, and potential for social isolation. Depression and anxiety are heterogeneous constructs and can affect individuals' emotional functioning and cognitive abilities. Executive function, self-agency, and volition may be affected. Alterations in identity and personality may also result from the interaction of fluctuating emotional, cognitive, and physical abilities as well as from changes in social context and family dynamics. Social isolation, or lack of access to social contact or resources, can be a consequence of difficulties in cognitive and emotional function that influence interpersonal relationships, changes in social roles, communication difficulties, and challenges in transportation and employment. Social stigma and marginalization also contribute to isolation. The authors describe these psychological phenomena in the context of brain damage and recovery and raise ethical concerns including impact on decision-making capacity, pre- and postinjury selves and interests, and the social milieu in which strokes are experienced.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1007/s00213-006-0576-z

Psychopharmacology

Psychopharmacology (Berl)

The effects of fluoxetine on the subjective and physiological effects of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) in humans.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of serotonin (5-HT) in the effects of oral 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) in humans. The subjective and physiological effects of 1.5 mg/kg MDMA were evaluated after 20 mg fluoxetine in eight recreational MDMA users in a double-blind, placebo-controlled study. During phase 1, participants were maintained on placebo for at least 5 days and tested with MDMA and placebo on separate sessions. In phase 2, the procedure was the same except fluoxetine was administered daily for at least 5 days. During sessions, placebo or fluoxetine was given 1 h before the session drug and effects were measured over the next 7 h. MDMA increased positive-like subjective effects on all the Addiction Research Center Inventory scales; Arousal, Elation, Positive Mood, and Vigor on the Profile of Mood States; Drug Liking, Friendly, Good Drug Effect, High, Stimulated, and Talkative on the Visual Analog Scale; and End-of-Session Liking and Crossover Point on the Multiple Choice Procedure. MDMA also increased measures of anxiety. On the Hallucinogenic Rating Scale, all scales except Volition were increased. MDMA also increased blood pressure and heart rate. Fluoxetine treatment attenuated most of the positive-like subjective effects including the Affect and Soma scales of the Hallucinogen Rating Scale. In addition, heart rate but not blood pressure increases were reduced. These results suggest that blockade of 5-HT reuptake by fluoxetine can dampen the effects of MDMA and further supports the role of 5-HT in its behavioral effects in humans.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1207/s15324796abm3202_10

Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine

Ann Behav Med

An implementation intentions intervention to increase uptake of mammography.

This study tested an implementation intentions intervention to increase uptake in the United Kingdom's National Health Service Breast Screening Programme. The intervention asked women to plan how they would overcome up to 3 previously identified barriers to attending. In a randomized controlled trial, 2,082 participants were allocated to an intervention condition, an assessment-only condition, or a nonassessment control condition. The intervention condition was designed to help women plan how to change their appointment, how to arrange transport, and how to negotiate time off work. The assessment-only condition controlled for the possibility that completing a questionnaire about mammography might in itself influence attendance, and the nonassessment condition was a control against any effect on attendance that mere contact with the research team might have. Mean age of respondents was 56.1 years, and 99.4% were White British. In the full intention-to-treat analysis, which included all participants, attendance was found to be almost identical across the 3 conditions, around 80%. Some of the women in the intervention condition, however, failed to write their plans on the questionnaire (10.6% for changing the appointment, 2.1% for travel arrangements, and 21.1% for taking time off work) or said that planning was irrelevant to them (2.4% for changing the appointment, 1.7% for travel arrangements, and 32.4% for taking time off work). A second analysis, of planning time off work, therefore, examined the 620 respondents in the intervention condition more closely and found that those who planned were significantly more likely to attend than those who did not. A 3rd analysis, excluding the 209 respondents for whom planning time off work was irrelevant, revealed that the most likely to plan were those whose initial intentions to attend were strong but whose perceptions of control over making the necessary arrangements to attend were weak. Two main implications of the findings are discussed: the importance of planning in implementation intentions interventions and the validity of the theoretical distinction between motivation and volition.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1097/01.wnn.0000209875.56060.06

Cognitive and behavioral neurology : official journal of the Society for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology

Cogn Behav Neurol

Volition and imagery in neurorehabilitation.

New interventional approaches have been proposed in the last few years to treat the motor deficits resulting from brain lesions. Training protocols represent the gold-standard of these approaches. However, the degree of motor recovery experienced by most patients remains incomplete. It would be important to improve our understanding of the mechanisms underlying functional recovery. This chapter examines the role of two possible mechanisms that could operate to improve motor function in this setting: volition and motor imagery. It is argued that both represent possible strategies to enhance training effects.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1093/her/cyl084

Health education research

Health Educ Res

Stage-specific effects of an action control intervention on dental flossing.

Health behavior interventions may have different effects when targeting individuals at different stages of change. A 'motivation' stage, during which intentions are formed, has been distinguished from a 'volition' stage, implying that the latter requires self-regulatory effort in implementing and maintaining behavior. To test this stage assumption, an action control intervention (self-monitoring tool for dental flossing) matched to the volition stage and mismatched to the motivation stage was provided to 151 university students, with follow-up measures of action control and flossing after 2 and 6 weeks. Separate regression analyses for motivational and volitional participants indicated that only volitional participants benefited from the volitional intervention. This supports the usefulness of stage assumptions and the advantage of tailoring interventions to participants who reside either in the motivational or in the volitional stage.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/j.concog.2006.05.005

Consciousness and cognition

Conscious Cogn

Volition and the idle cortex: beta oscillatory activity preceding planned and spontaneous movement.

Prior to the initiation of spontaneous movement, evoked potentials can be seen to precede awareness of the impending movement by several hundreds of milliseconds, meaning that this recorded neural activity is the result of unconscious processing. This study investigates the neural representations of impending movement with and without awareness. Specifically, the relationship between awareness and 'idling' cortical oscillations in the beta range (18-24Hz) was assessed. It was found that, in situations where there was awareness of the impending movement, pre-movement evoked potentials were associated with a decrease in beta range oscillations. In contrast, when awareness of the impending movement was not present, the onset of the pre-movement potential was associated with tonic levels of beta range oscillations. A model is considered where by distributed neural activity remains outside of conscious awareness through the persistence of tonic slow wave cortical oscillations.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/j.pnpbp.2006.04.009

Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry

Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry

The effect of perospirone on auditory P300 in schizophrenia: a preliminary study.

The present study was performed to determine the effect of perospirone, a novel antipsychotic drug with D(2)/5-HT(2A) antagonist and partial 5-HT(1A) agonist properties, on auditory P300 in eight patients with chronic schizophrenia. Switching to an equivalent dose of perospirone from prior antipsychotic medication was associated with a significant improvement in the negative symptoms of the positive and negative syndrome scale (PANSS). The change in P300 amplitude following a switch to perospirone correlated significantly with the improvement of general psychopathology symptoms, as well as with the change in scores on items of delusions, hallucinatory behavior, emotional withdrawal, depression, poor attention, and disturbance of volition. These results suggest that clinical improvement in response to perospirone in some patients may, at least in part, be mediated through cognitive change indexed by P300 in chronic schizophrenia.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1080/13546800344000165

Cognitive neuropsychiatry

Cogn Neuropsychiatry

Auditory hallucinations: Insights and questions from neuroimaging.

The human brain has the capacity to hallucinate but rarely, except in severe neuropsychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia, do they naturally predominate. The neural basis of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) has been investigated using structural and functional neuroimaging techniques. So far, no studies have defined a model that explains why auditory hallucinations are perceived in the absence of an external stimulus. A selective literature review was undertaken specifically to focus on: (1) clinical phenomenology; (2) putative brain systems involved in the pathogenesis of auditory hallucinations as suggested by neuroimaging studies; (3) contributions and weaknesses of the neuroimaging findings in potentially bridging the gap between the neuroscience and phenomenology. Throughout, an attempt was made to ask questions as much as to answer them. Functional domains implicated in the genesis of auditory verbal hallucinations include: (1) hearing and language; (2) "sense of reality", including externality of voices; (3) attention and salience; (4) emotional response; (5) memory; (6) volition and self-monitoring; (7) impulse control. Each of these domains can be mapped onto neural "systems" that comprise components that overlap with brain regions known to activate during the experience of auditory hallucinations. In the next phase of neuroimaging research into the pathogenesis of auditory hallucinations we need to examine component processes that lead to the patient's perception of them as real.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.4103/0973-1229.27604

Mens sana monographs

Mens Sana Monogr

What psychology means to me.

What the title of this article means to me after decades on a university faculty is very broad. It would include topics of my research and writing, of my graduate and undergraduate teaching, and of what I read in the area, including papers that have been submitted to me as editor of the American Journal of Psychology. What I can write here focuses on my research and writing and related metatheoretical views, including what I have considered the deeper and more significant questions formulated in philosophy of mind and submitted to empirical investigation in psychology. Of most active concern today, and over the years, are those asking about the roles of consciousness, symbolic representation, and volition in mental activity and action. Is symbolic representation carried out consciously or unconsciously, or both? This paper recognizes the 19(th) century attempt to establish a science of consciousness, a behavioristic movement that rejected consciousness as being the soul of theology, a cognitive metatheory giving some place to consciousness but emphasizing non-conscious symbolic representation. This summarizes our experimental examinations of my theories of the source of intentional action, of causal reasoning, and of explicit and implicit learning. It also summarizes the overarching mentalistic metatheory I have described.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/S0074-7742(05)67003-1

International review of neurobiology

Int Rev Neurobiol

Prefrontal and anterior cingulate contributions to volition in depression.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1055/s-2005-866946

Psychotherapie, Psychosomatik, medizinische Psychologie

Psychother Psychosom Med Psychol

[work motivation -- assessment instruments and their relevance for medical care].

The relevance of work motivation for medical research and healthcare, in particular rehabilitation, is described. Four diagnostic instruments in the German language are introduced which can assess work motivation using a scale system: AVEM, JDS, LMI and FBTM. Their possible application and potential usage for the clinical area are discussed. Apart from the FBTM, none of these instruments can be directly used as a general instrument in a normal medical clinical setting. Finally, a current model for work motivation (compensatory model of work motivation and volition) is presented that contains basis concepts, which are judged as important for future research questions concerning the development of motivation diagnostic instruments.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1093/brain/awh647

Brain : a journal of neurology

Brain

Rhinal-hippocampal connectivity determines memory formation during sleep.

Compared with waking state attention, volition and semantic processing play a minor role during sleep. Thus, investigating declarative memory formation during sleep may allow us to isolate mnemonic core processes. The most feasible approach to memory formation during sleep is the analysis of dream memories. Lesion and imaging studies have demonstrated that encoding of declarative memories, i.e. consciously accessible events and facts, depends on operations within the rhinal cortex and the hippocampus, two substructures of the medial temporal lobe. Successful memory formation is accompanied by a transient rhinal-hippocampal interaction. Consequently, the ability to memorize dreams may be related to mediotemporal connectivity. Therefore, we recorded EEG during sleep from rhinal and hippocampal depth electrodes implanted in 12 epilepsy patients (eight women, mean age 41.1 +/- 6.4 years). They were awakened during rapid eye movement sleep (REM) and asked to recall their dream. Via coherence analyses we show that rhinal-hippocampal connectivity values are approximately twice as large for patients with good dream recall versus those patients with poor recall. This suggests that rhinal-hippocampal connectivity is a key factor in determining declarative memory formation.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1017/s0317167100004157

The Canadian journal of neurological sciences. Le journal canadien des sciences neurologiques

Can J Neurol Sci

Canadian Association of Neuroscience Review: Respiratory control and behavior in humans: lessons from imaging and experiments of nature.

The purpose of this review is to demonstrate that respiration is a complex behavior comprising both brainstem autonomic control and supramedullary influences, including volition. Whereas some fundamental mechanisms had to be established using animal models, this review focuses on clinical cases and physiological studies in humans to illustrate normal and abnormal respiratory behavior. To summarize, central respiratory drive is generated in the rostroventrolateral medulla, and transmitted to both the upper airway and to the main and accessory respiratory muscles. Afferent feedback is provided from lung and muscle mechnoreceptors, peripheral carotid and aortic chemoreceptors, and multiple central chemoreceptors. Supramedullary regions, including cortex and subcortex, modulate or initiate breathing with volition, emotion and at the onset of exercise. Autonomic breathing control can be perturbed by brainstem pathology including space occupying lesions, compression, congenital central hypoventilation syndrome and sudden infant death syndrome. Sleep-wake states are important in regulating breathing. Thus, respiratory control abnormalities are most often evident during sleep, or during transition from sleep to wakefulness. Previously undiagnosed structural brainstem pathology may be revealed by abnormal breathing during sleep. Ondine's curse and 'the locked-in syndrome' serve to distinguish brainstem from supramedullary regulatory mechanisms in humans: The former comprises loss of autonomic respiratory control and requires volitional breathing for survival, and the latter entails loss of corticospinal or corticobulbar tracts required for volitional breathing, but preserves autonomic respiratory control.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1016/j.bbr.2005.08.007

Behavioural brain research

Behav Brain Res

Neglect of memory after dopaminergic lesions in monkeys.

Crossed unilateral dopaminergic lesions of the nigrostriatal bundle and unilateral inferotemporal cortex ablations (DA x IT lesions) in marmoset monkeys produced impaired retention of object discriminations first learnt before, or after, the DA lesion but no impairment on new learning of the same type of task. Retention testing of a pre-operatively learned task was given after new learning of a different task so impairment cannot be attributed to improvement with practice or spontaneous recovery. We argue that the DA lesion produces a form of intentional neglect, a defect of volition, which is the mnemonic counterpart of the volitional neglect of directional hypokinesia, which animals with this lesion also exhibit. The DA lesion was unilateral (for welfare reasons) so the information to be retrieved had to be confined to that hemisphere by the use of an IT ablation in the other hemisphere. Unilateral DA lesion compromises the competence of ipsilateral fronto-striatal interactions and our results parallel those found in monkeys with crossed IT x frontal lesions that are impaired on complex tasks requiring effortful implementation of a cognitive strategy but are not impaired on discrimination learning. Parkinsonian patients with sub-total but bilateral DA loss may lack 'top-down' conative mechanisms as well as 'top-down' movement initiation mechanisms. They may fail to initiate retrieval strategies, although they may not exhibit retrograde amnesia under test conditions that provoke retrieval. Failure to self-initiate retrieval of relevant knowledge may contribute to the paucity of cognitive style and loss of executive skills exhibited by some patients with Parkinson's disease.

CognitiveConstruct

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10.1192/bjp.187.3.289-a

The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science

Br J Psychiatry

Free will and volition.

CognitiveConstruct

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10.1016/S0079-6123(05)50012-8

Progress in brain research

Prog Brain Res

Genes and experience shape brain networks of conscious control.

One aspect of consciousness involves voluntary control over thoughts and feelings, often called will. Progress in neuroimaging and in sequencing the human genome makes it possible to think about voluntary control in terms of a specific neural network that includes midline and lateral frontal areas. A number of cognitive tasks involving conflict as well as the control of emotions have been shown to activate these brain areas. Studies have traced the development of this network in the ability to regulate cognition and emotion from about 2.5 to 7 years of age. Individual differences in this network have been related to parental reports of the ability of children to regulate their behavior, to delay reward and to develop a conscience. In adolescents these individual differences predict the propensity for antisocial behavior. Differences in specific genes are related to individual efficiency in performance of the network, and by neuroimaging, to the strength of its activation of this network. Future animal studies may make it possible to learn in detail how genes influence the common pattern of development of self-regulation made possible by this network. Moreover, a number of neurological and psychiatric pathologies involving difficulties in awareness and volition show deficits in parts of this network. We are now studying whether specific training experiences can influence the development of this network in 4-year-old children and if so, for whom it is most effective. Voluntary control is also important for the regulation of conscious input from the sensory environment. It seems likely that the same network involved in self-regulation is also crucial for focal attention to the sensory world.

CognitiveConstruct

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10.1093/schbul/sbi013

Schizophrenia bulletin

Schizophr Bull

Cognitive strategies versus self-management skills as adjunct to vocational rehabilitation.

Cognitive dysfunctions and negative symptoms are "rate-limiting factors" for community outcome and response to psychosocial intervention in people with schizophrenia. Therefore, two cognitive-behavioral group therapies were developed-computer-assisted cognitive strategy training (CAST) and training of self-management skills for negative symptoms (TSSN)-to target these barriers to rehabilitation readiness. One hundred thirty-eight DSM-IV schizophrenia inpatients on a rehabilitation ward were randomly assigned to CAST plus vocational rehabilitation, TSSN plus vocational rehabilitation, or vocational rehabilitation alone. CAST included computer-based training in coping strategies focusing on deficits in attention, verbal memory, and planning. TSSN focused on social withdrawal/social anhedonia, lack of drive/volition, and affect flattening using techniques such as time scheduling, mastery, and pleasure techniques. Treatment outcome was assessed at intake and at discharge after 8 weeks. Analyses of covariance controlling for basis-level functioning demonstrated that patients receiving CAST plus vocational rehabilitation showed greater improvement on attention and verbal memory but not on planning ability. Patients receiving TSSN plus vocational rehabilitation failed to demonstrate improvement in negative symptoms. CAST plus vocational rehabilitation was found to be associated with a higher rate of successful job placement at the 12-month followup interval. Hierarchical logistic regression analyses demonstrated that improvement in short- and long-term verbal memory predicted a higher proportion of variance of successful job placement in the followup than pretreatment history of employment alone. Cognitive training as an adjunct to inpatient vocational rehabilitation demonstrated cognitive improvement, which was found to be associated with successful job placement in the followup. TSSN's efficacy was less clear; reasons for this uncertainty are provided.

CognitiveConstruct

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10.1007/s00221-005-2270-5

Experimental brain research

Exp Brain Res

Cortico-motoneuronal output to intrinsic hand muscles is differentially influenced by static changes in shoulder positions.

We investigated whether shoulder position influenced the recruitment properties of the abductor digiti minimi muscle (ADM) and first dorsal interosseous muscle (FDI). ADM and FDI motor evoked potentials (MEPs) in response to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) were obtained in seven healthy volunteers at two different static positions of the shoulder joint (30 degrees adduction vs 30 degrees abduction) while the arm was passively supported at shoulder level (90 degrees in the horizontal plane) and the elbow joint was fixed at 90 degrees . ADM and FDI voluntary activity was also examined during (1) externally paced finger abductions at 2 Hz in the two different shoulder positions (EMG(ADM) and EMG(FDI) was back-averaged time-locked to the end of finger abduction) and (2) maximal voluntary abduction of the little finger and the index finger. Maximal EMG power and force were analysed in the two shoulder positions. H-reflexes from ADM and FDI were also obtained in two subjects. The ADM stimulus-response curve to TMS showed that the slope and plateau level were significantly reduced with the shoulder at 30 degrees abduction. In contrast, the FDI stimulus-response curve to TMS was not influenced by shoulder position. The back-averaged EMG(ADM) showed a significant decrease in peak amplitude and area with the shoulder at 30 degrees abduction, while no change in EMG(FDI) was observed under the same condition. Similarly, maximal EMG(ADM) and force exertion by the little finger were significantly reduced with the shoulder at 30 degrees abduction, while no such effect was observed for FDI. ADM H-reflex, but not FDI, was also decreased with shoulder abduction. These results indicate that the corticospinal pathway to ADM is less accessible to TMS and to voluntary command when the shoulder is placed at 30 degrees abduction. In contrast, activation of FDI, whether by TMS or by volition, is not influenced by shoulder position. This finding suggests that there are differences in the corticospinal innervation to ADM and FDI, possibly due to the different role of these muscles in hand function.

CognitiveConstruct

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10.1016/j.biopsych.2004.12.017

Biological psychiatry

Biol Psychiatry

Cortical and subcortical brain effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)-induced movement: an interleaved TMS/functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

To date, interleaved transcranial magnetic stimulation and functional magnetic resonance imaging (TMS/fMRI) studies of motor activation have not recorded whole brain patterns. We hypothesized that TMS would activate known motor circuitry with some additional regions plus some areas dropping out. We used interleaved TMS/fMRI (11 subjects, three scans each) to elucidate whole brain activation patterns from 1-Hz TMS over left primary motor cortex. Both TMS (110% motor threshold) and volitional movement of the same muscles excited by TMS caused blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) patterns encompassing known motor circuitry. Additional activation was observed bilaterally in superior temporal auditory areas. Decreases in BOLD signal with unexpected post-task "rebounds" were observed for both tasks in the right motor area, right superior parietal lobe, and in occipital regions. Paired t test of parametric contrast maps failed to detect significant differences between TMS- and volition-induced effects. Differences were detectable, however, in primary data time-intensity profiles. Using this interleaved TMS/fMRI technique, TMS over primary motor cortex produces a whole brain pattern of BOLD activation similar to known motor circuitry, without detectable differences from mimicked volitional movement. Some differences may exist between time courses of BOLD intensity during TMS circuit activation and volitional circuit activation.

CognitiveConstruct

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10.1111/j.1467-8519.2005.00423.x

Bioethics

Bioethics

A Thomistic understanding of human death.

I investigate Thomas Aquinas's metaphysical account of human death, which is defined in terms of a rational soul separating from its material body. The question at hand concerns what criterion best determines when this separation occurs. Aquinas argues that a body has a rational soul only insofar as it is properly organised to support the soul's vegetative, sensitive, and rational capacities. According the 'higher-brain' concept of death, when a body can no longer provide the biological foundation necessary for the operation of conscious rational thought and volition, a substantial change occurs in which the rational soul departs and the body left behind is a 'humanoid animal' or a mere 'vegetable.' I argue that the separation of soul and body does not occur until the body ceases to function as a unified, integrated organism. A rational soul is not only the seat of a human being's rational capacities; it is also the principle of the body's sensitive and vegetative capacities. Since Aquinas defines a human being as a composite of soul and body, and not with merely the exercise of rational capacities, the determination of death requires incontrovertible evidence that the body has ceased all the operations that correspond to the soul's proper capacities. The evidence of this is the body's loss of its integrative organic unity and the criterion for determining when this loss occurs is the irreversible cessation of whole-brain functioning.

CognitiveConstruct

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10.1192/bjp.186.4.273

The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science

Br J Psychiatry

The neglect of volition.

CognitiveConstruct

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10.3143/geriatrics.42.83

Nihon Ronen Igakkai zasshi. Japanese journal of geriatrics

Nihon Ronen Igakkai Zasshi

[A prospective comparison of day care and freely chosen occupational therapy for elderly patients with dementia].

Since the introduction of long-term care insurance, day care services have become popular throughout Japan and many kinds of behavioral approaches have been used. Although there have been many reports on the non-pharmacological effects on cognitive function, case control studies to evaluate the effect of day care services are insufficient Furthermore, no study has compared the advantages of different behavioral therapies for elderly subjects with loss of cognitive function. To clarify these issues, we compared the changes in activities of daily living, cognitive function and vitality/depression among 78 subjects receiving different day care services. Community dwelling subjects using day care (day care group: n = 29, 80+/-7.3 years old) showed an improvement in abnormal behavior (DBD scale; before 8.5+/-2.1, after 3.2+/-1.3, p<0.05). Vitality and volition measured by the Vitality Index were significantly preserved in the day care group compared with community dwelling subjects without day care services (n = 11, 78.6+/-9.4 y.o.). Comparing the effect of three different behavioral therapies (physical fitness, cooking and gardening), there was no difference in changes in cognitive function or in other comprehensive measurements among the groups. On the other hand, different responses to various therapies were observed among subjects. To determine the advantage of various non-pharmacological therapies for dementia, geriatricians need to perform prospective case-control studies with a large number of subjects, using comprehensive geriatric assessment as the art of a geriatrician.

CognitiveConstruct

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10.1136/jnnp.2004.048280

Journal of neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry

J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry

Functional symptoms in neurology: questions and answers.

Between 10 and 30% of patients seen by neurologists have symptoms for which there is no current pathophysiological explanation. The objective of this review is to answer questions many neurologists have about disorders characterised by unexplained symptoms (functional disorders) by conducting a multidisciplinary review based on published reports and clinical experience. Current concepts explain functional symptoms as resulting from auto-suggestion, innate coping styles, disorders of volition or attention. Predisposing, precipitating, and perpetuating aetiological factors can be identified and contribute to a therapeutic formulation. The sympathetic communication of the diagnosis by the neurologist is important and all patients should be screened for psychiatric or psychological symptoms because up to two thirds have symptomatic psychiatric comorbidity. Treatment programmes are likely to be most successful if there is close collaboration between neurologists, (liaison) psychiatrists, psychologists, and general practitioners. Long term, symptoms persist in over 50% of patients and many patients remain dependent on financial help from the government. Neurologists can acquire the skills needed to engage patients in psychological treatment but would benefit from closer working relationships with liaison psychiatry or psychology.

CognitiveConstruct

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Seishin shinkeigaku zasshi = Psychiatria et neurologia Japonica

Seishin Shinkeigaku Zasshi

[Is it possible to improve social functioning of schizophrenia with cognitive rehabilitation?].

Social dysfunction of schizophrenia is observed in many domains including social skills, ability to conduct tasks, attention/durability, volition/motivation, stability of social life, and insight of dysfunction. These dysfunctions have been found to relate to non-social cognitive functioning to some extent. Social skills may have a strong relationship with social cognition. The intervention technique of cognitive functioning of schizophrenia, known as cognitive rehabilitation or cognitive remediation, has its main target as non-social cognition. Cognitive behavior therapy focuses on the contents of the cognitive process, while cognitive rehabilitation focuses on the cognitive process (information process) or thinking skills. Which cognitive functioning should be targeted was revealed as were theoretical models of cognitive rehabilitation, and various intervention techniques and their usefulness. It has been found that some elements of cognitive functioning, such as executive functioning, could be improved in experimental settings in efficacy studies. However, comprehensive rehabilitation including cognitive rehabilitation should be used in order to relieve social dysfunctioning or psychiatric symptoms. Some experts insisted that an individualized program with several steps, along with cognitive abilities, is required to enhance usefulness and effectiveness. Other experts said more complex cognitive functioning profoundly associated with social life should be targeted, rather than elementary cognitive functioning. The conclusions of meta-analyses of randomized controlled trails were not consistent until now, because inclusion criteria of meta-analysis was different. Finally, it was discussed how the theory and techniques of cognitive rehabilitation should be implemented in traditional rehabilitation.

CognitiveConstruct

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10.1016/j.cub.2005.01.006

Current biology : CB

Curr Biol

Volition and conflict in human medial frontal cortex.

Controversy surrounds the role of human medial frontal cortex in controlling actions. Although damage to this area leads to severe difficulties in spontaneously initiating actions, the precise mechanisms underlying such "volitional" deficits remain to be established. Previous studies have implicated the medial frontal cortex in conflict monitoring and the control of voluntary action, suggesting that these key processes are functionally related or share neural substrates. Here, we combine a novel behavioral paradigm with functional imaging of the oculomotor system to reveal, for the first time, a functional subdivision of the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) into anatomically distinct areas that respond exclusively to either volition or conflict. We also demonstrate that activity in the supplementary eye field (SEF) distinguishes between success and failure in changing voluntary action plans during conflict, suggesting a role for the SEF in implementing the resolution of conflicting actions. We propose a functional architecture of human medial frontal cortex that incorporates the generation of action plans and the resolution of conflict.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

10.1097/01.wnn.0000117864.42205.6d

Cognitive and behavioral neurology : official journal of the Society for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology

Cogn Behav Neurol

A high resolution assessment of the repeatability of relative location and intensity of transcranial magnetic stimulation-induced and volitionally induced blood oxygen level-dependent response in the motor cortex.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we assessed variation in location and intensity of blood oxygen level-dependent contrast associated with movements induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation or volition. Anatomic location and within-subject repeatability of blood oxygen level-dependent responses induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation comprise critical information to the use of interleaved transcranial magnetic stimulation/functional magnetic resonance imaging as a neuroscience tool. Eleven healthy adults were scanned 3 times each at 1.5 T. Interleaved with functional magnetic resonance imaging, 1-Hz transcranial magnetic stimulation was applied over motor cortex. VOL was alternated with transcranial magnetic stimulation over the scans. Intra-subject standard deviations in blood oxygen level-dependent locations ranged between 3 and 6 millimeters, allowing localization to subregions of the motor strip. Coil placement relative to blood oxygen level-dependent location varied more than blood oxygen level-dependent location (sdx = 9.5mm, sdy = 8.7 mm, sdz = 9.0mm) with consistent anterior displacement (dy = 21.8 mm, P = <0.025). Analysis of variance did not detect significant differences between transcranial magnetic stimulation and VOL blood oxygen level-dependent locations or intensities, in contrast to significant intensity differences detected in auditory blood oxygen level dependence. The high repeatability of location of transcranial magnetic stimulation-induced blood oxygen level-dependent activation suggests that transcranial magnetic stimulation/functional magnetic resonance imaging stimulation can be used as a precise tool in investigation of cortical mechanisms. The similarity between VOL and transcranial magnetic stimulation suggests that transcranial magnetic stimulation may act through natural brain movement circuits.

CognitiveConstruct

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10.1037/0022-3514.87.5.615

Journal of personality and social psychology

J Pers Soc Psychol

Inferences about the authentic self: when do actions say more than mental states?

Three studies involving 478 undergraduates examined the perceived importance of observable actions versus mental states in revealing the "true self"-the authentic and fundamental nature of a target person. Results suggest that when people have only limited information about a target, they believe that an action is more diagnostic of the individual's true self than the accompanying mental state. When participants have knowledge concerning chronic dispositional tendencies of the target, however, they judge that a chronic mental state is more diagnostic of the true self than a chronic action tendency. Considered together, the findings suggest that people conceptualize the true self as a relatively private entity but nevertheless believe that an action of a little-known person may be particularly informative about that individual. Perceived diagnosticity of the true self was partially mediated by inferences concerning the relative stability of actions versus states but not by inferences of volition.

CognitiveConstruct

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10.1038/nn1339

Nature neuroscience

Nat Neurosci

Interactions between decision making and performance monitoring within prefrontal cortex.

Our ability to judge the consequences of our actions is central to rational decision making. A large body of evidence implicates primate prefrontal regions in the regulation of this ability. It has proven extremely difficult, however, to separate functional areas in the frontal lobes. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we demonstrate complementary and reciprocal roles for the human orbitofrontal (OFC) and dorsal anterior cingulate cortices (ACd) in monitoring the outcome of behavior. Activation levels in these regions were negatively correlated, with activation increasing in the ACd and decreasing in the OFC when the selected response was the result of the participant's own decision. The pattern was reversed when the selected response was guided by the experimenter rather than the participant. These results indicate that the neural mechanisms underlying the way we assess the consequences of choices differ depending on whether we are told what to do or are able to exercise our volition.

CognitiveConstruct

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10.1016/j.jecp.2004.05.003

Journal of experimental child psychology

J Exp Child Psychol

Five-year-old children's difficulty with false belief when the sought entity is a person.

A total of 153 children (excluding those who erred on control questions), mainly 5 and 7 years of age, participated in two experiments that involved tests of false belief. In the task, the sought entity was first at Location 1 and then, unknown to the searching protagonist, it moved to Location 2. In Experiment 1, performance was well below ceiling in 5-year-olds when the sought entity was a person, and this contrasted with a task in which the sought entity was a physical object. Performance was especially inaccurate when the sought person moved of his or her own volition rather than when the sought person was requested to move by a third party. Interestingly, 5-year-olds were more likely to nominate Location 1 when asked where the searching protagonist would look first than when asked what he or she would do next. In Experiment 2, however, 5-year-olds also tended to nominate Location 1 following a question that included the word "first" even in a test of true belief--a patently incorrect response. Altogether, the results suggest that 5-year-old children have considerable difficulty with a test of false belief when the sought entity is a person acting under his or her own volition. This suggests that 5-year-olds' handle on states of belief is surprisingly fragile in this kind of task.

CognitiveConstruct

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10.1016/j.ijlp.2004.06.007

International journal of law and psychiatry

Int J Law Psychiatry

Automatism and dissociation: disturbances of consciousness and volition from a psychological perspective.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

Neurologia (Barcelona, Spain)

Neurologia

[Psychogenic disorders: concepts, terminology and classification].

The neurological interest on functional or psychogenic disorders (mental or physical disturbances with no organic basis, generally unleashed by stressful situations) has been receiving increasingly more interest over the last few years. In this article we review concepts, terms and classifications of these disorders, very different over time and among different authors. Psychogenic disorders are divided into: a) dissociation (with memory, consciousness and self-identity impairment), and b) disturbances with somatizations, divided into somatoform (unconscious), factitious (voluntary search for patient's role) and malingering (searching for material gain). Special emphasis is placed on conversion or hysteria, included in somatoform disorders. New findings in functional neuroimaging are analyzed. These new data suggest an important role of unconscious and involuntary inhibition in loss of volition (similar to hypnosis and different from malingering). Normal activity in certain brain areas (motor or sensory cortex) is blocked by other areas related to emotional integration (anterior cingular and orbitofrontal cortex). The neurologist's role is important to achieve an early diagnosis of psychogenic disturbances, particularly conversive ones. This means the use of fewer economic resources and better prognosis for the patient.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition

Archives italiennes de biologie

Arch Ital Biol

Meta level concept versus classic reflex concept for the control of posture and movement.

Postural reflexes are replaced soon after birth by automatic reactions that allow for volition and cognition. It is still an enigma how this change in postural control is achieved. We suggest that the change involves the formation of a sensory processing level (meta level) that becomes interleaved in between the tight sensor-actuator coupling of the classic reflexes. We assume that the brain applies at this level intersensory interactions to reconstruct the physical stimuli which are causing the physiological stimuli and sensory signals. The thus derived estimates of the physical stimuli are then used as feedback signals in the posture control system. We present this concept on the background of the classic reflex concept and earlier attempts in the literature to overcome it. The earlier attempts were often motivated by the question how the brain prevents voluntary movements from being hampered by reflexive stabilisation of posture (so-called posture-movement problem). We compare our new concept with the classic reflex concept in a theoretical approach, by implementing both concepts into simple postural control models. In simulations of the two models we superimpose external perturbations (the physical stimuli) and a voluntary body lean movement. We show that it is possible to achieve successful stimulus compensation and unperturbed lean movement with both, the model derived from the new concept and the one of the classic reflex concept. With both approaches, the posture-movement problem does not arise. Based on preliminary considerations that include experimental findings from the literature, however, we conclude that the new concept provides more explanatory power than the classic reflex concept.

CognitiveConstruct

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10.1152/japplphysiol.00359.2004

Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985)

J Appl Physiol (1985)

fMRI signal changes in response to forced expiratory loading in congenital central hypoventilation syndrome.

Congenital central hypoventilation syndrome (CCHS) patients show impaired ventilatory responses to CO2 and hypoxia and reduced drive to breathe during sleep but retain appropriate breathing patterns in response to volition or increased exercise. Breath-by-breath influences on heart rate are also deficient. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging techniques, we examined responses over the brain to voluntary forced expiratory loading, a task that CCHS patients can perform but that results in impaired rapid heart rate variation patterns normally associated with the loading challenge. Increased signals emerged in control (n = 14) over CCHS (n = 13; ventilator dependent during sleep but not waking) subjects in the cingulate and right parietal cortex, cerebellar cortex and fastigial nucleus, and basal ganglia, whereas anterior cerebellar cortical sites and deep nuclei, dorsal midbrain, and dorsal pons showed increased signals in the patient group. The dorsal and ventral medulla showed delayed responses in CCHS patients. Primary motor and sensory areas bordering the central sulcus showed comparable responses in both groups. The delayed responses in medullary sensory and output regions and the aberrant reactions in cerebellar and pontine sensorimotor coordination areas suggest that rapid cardiorespiratory integration deficits in CCHS may stem from defects in these sites. Additional autonomic and perceptual motor deficits may derive from cingulate and parietal cortex aberrations.

CognitiveConstruct

Volition