Stress And Emotion

Charles D. Spielberger, Irwin G. Sarason, Zsuszanna Kulcsar, Guus L. Van Heck, Charles D. Spielberger, Irwin G. Sarason, Zsuszanna Kulcsar, Guus L. Van Heck

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781560321873
• eBook ISBN: 9781317740445
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This volume, based on an international conference on current research in Stress And Emotion, Covers, In Four Sections, Theoretical Aspects, perception, cognition and emotion, the physiological and biological Concomitants Of Emotion And Type A Behaviour And Emotion.

III

PHYSIOLOGICAL
AND BIOCHEMICAL
CONCOMITANTS
OF STRESS
AND EMOTION

10

Decreased Impact of Stress: Biological and Developmental Factors in Psychopathy

Zsuzsanna Kulcsár

Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

Segment the reach of awareness, attend to only one facet of the situation at any one time, act upon that facet and then proceed to another. Too much too soon is upsetting. Segmentation reduces the demands upon awareness and thereby produces imperturbability. (Pribram & Melges, 1969, p. 316)

The advice cited as the motto of this chapter, attributed by Pribram and Melges to Marcus Aurelius, might be translated into a simple call to live for the moment.

To be genuinely present in the moment, to live for moment-to-moment interactions, to be in a state of detachment and dissociation from the past and the future; all these are commonly taken as an ideal situation to be strived for. The description of this state as a therapeutic program can be found in the modern literature of psychotherapy, for example, in the writings of Gestalt therapists (Enright, 1970, Perls, 1969) and in Rogers’s publications, to mention just two of the most fashionable trends. In Rogers’s (1959) terms, extensionality, taken from general semantics, means to see experience in limited, differentiated terms, to be aware of space-time anchorage of facts, to be dominated by facts, whereas intensionality means overgeneralization, a dominance of transsituational concepts instead of facts. He states that in a successful therapeutic process the client “becomes less intentional and more extensional in his perception” (Rogers, 1959, p. 216). A detachment from past and future is also taken as a starting point of and a precondition for altered states of consciousness (Henry, 1982), including transcendental meditation, another current psychotherapeutic tool.

Psychopaths seem to be experts in living for the moment. Perhaps this is the reason why their life-style as well as their personality sometimes seem so irresistibly attractive and charming (Cleckley, 1976). In Cleckley’s view, a defining characteristic of the psychopath is absence of nervousness or psychoneurotic manifestations together with an absence of suicidal tendencies or even deep sorrow. In the same vein, Rotenberg (1975) found that, in a prison population, psychopaths had fewer psychosomatic disorders than nonpsychopaths. Similarly, Hare and McPherson (1984) pointed out that “the psychopath is an individual whose … behavior is not readily understood in terms of psychosis, neurosis or mental deficiency” (p. 35).

It is reasonable to suppose that the ability of psychopaths to live for the moment defends them from the impact of psychological stress and from various kinds of neurotic and psychosomatic disorders. The price they pay for this ability is, first of all, their “failure to follow any life plan” (Cleckley, 1976). Their main characteristic of being “unreliable” is probably a consequence of this failure.

In this chapter the possible neurophysiological basis of these characteristics of psychopaths is outlined. In addition to a brief review of previous models, a new approach to the problem is suggested. This approach is based on a proposal concerning the relevance to the development of psychopathic behavior of the two premotor systems, the lateral and the medial, known to be involved in moment-to-moment interactions with the environment and longer term behavioral programs, respectively (Goldberg, 1985). In psychopaths, a relative deficiency in the function of the medial premotor system, the supplementary motor area (SMA), is hypothesized. Experimental paradigms to test this hypothesis and some preliminary results of our experiments, supporting the hypothesis, are presented. Finally, a tentative hypothesis is discussed concerning the main factors determining the development of the SMA in early ontogenesis. In this development, a crucial role is attributed to social interactions mediating neurochemical changes in the brain. Specifically, some recent data showing the role of social influence in opiate regulation of brain development are briefly reviewed.

PSYCHOPATHY AND THE FRONTAL LOBE FUNCTIONS

According to several authors (e.g., Elliott, 1978; Flor-Henry, 1976; Gorenstein, 1982; Schalling, 1978), the main behavioral characteristics of psychopaths, especially the aforementioned “failure to follow any life plans,” may be connected to a deficiency of frontal lobe functions. It might also be pointed out that even the lack of psychosomatic manifestations can be explained by a frontal deficiency. Some examples of a relationship between frontal areas and psychosomatic illness were cited more recently by Hurley-Gius and Neafsey (1986). For instance, Bucaille (1962) reported that electrolytic lesions of the ventromedial prefrontal area in humans attenuated gastric hemorrhage and lesion. More recently, Henke and Savoie (1982) found that restraint-induced ulcers in rats can be warded off by electrolytic lesions of the medial frontal cortical region.

The assumption of frontal dysfunction in psychopaths has been confirmed by means of frontal neuropsychological test batteries (Elliott, 1978; Flor-Henry, 1976; Gorenstein, 1982; Schalling, 1978; Yeudall, Fromm-Auch, & Davies, 1982). However, some contradictory results have also been reported. Hare (1984) could not find any difference in the performance of his low-, medium-, and high-psychopathy groups using the same frontal neuropsychological tests that were applied successfully by Gorenstein (1982).

The discrepant data concerning the performance of psychopaths on frontal lobe neuropsychological tests might be attributed to the fact that the tests applied in the investigations were not designed to assess different aspects of the divergent functions served by the subdivisions of the frontal lobes. A more specific approach that takes into account the diversity of frontal lobe functions might therefore be suggested in the study of the frontal lobe functions in psychopaths. Because, as we saw, one of the most striking characteristics of psychopaths is a deficiency of voluntary behavior programming, a neuropsychological study of motor programming or organization of voluntary action should be relevant for psychopathy research. It might be excepted that such an approach may provide a more comprehensive picture of the neurophysiological background of psychopathy. This picture, in addition to deficiencies, would include also the advantages of the psychopathic life-style, a neglected aspect of psychopathy research, the importance of which I have tried to delineate in the introduction to this chapter.

In motor programming, specific frontal sites are involved: the secondary motor, or premotor, systems. Recently, Goldberg (1985) presented a review and a hypothesis concerning the motor-programming frontal systems with a special emphasis on the SMA.

MOTOR-PROGRAMMING FRONTAL SYSTEMS

Premotor systems, as motor-programming centers, are the areas of the frontal lobes that have a substantial monosynaptical projection to the primary cortex in a topographically organized fashion. Two routes of access to the primary motor area have been identified in anatomic studies (Godschalk, Lemon, Kuypers, & Ronday, 1984): one from the SMA and the other from the “arcuate premotor area” (APA; Goldberg, 1985). The SMA is situated on the medial wall of the frontal lobe, anterior to the primary motor cortices, just above the anterior cingulate cortex. The APA is on the ventrolateral surface of the frontal lobes, posterior to the arcuate sulcus. In Goldberg’s (1985) system, these two sites are labeled the medial and lateral motor programming systems, respectively.

The functions of these two systems were revealed by lesion studies, regional cerebral blood flow studies, and, in humans, neuropsychological paradigms and event-related potential studies. In addition to their more general relevance for the study of the biological bases of individual differences, these studies seem to be relevant for psychopathy research as well. The main purpose of the present chapter is to provide evidence of this.

To facilitate a deeper understanding of the functional characteristics of the two motor-programming systems, without, however, any claim to a comprehensive review, I shall delineate the main features of the connectivity patterns of the SMA and the APA.

Neuroanatomical Connections of the Premotor Systems

Concerning the corticocortical connections, the two systems are distinguished by both their frontal and parietal connections. Whereas the SMA is related to the medial prefrontal area, the APA is connected to the ventrolateral and the orbital prefrontal cortex and, through these, to the inferotemporal area. As to the parietal connections, the APA is related to the secondary somatosensory area and to the inferior parietal lobule (Area 7; Godschalk et al., 1984; Petrides & Pandya, 1983). Through this latter route the APA obtains visual—in addition to somatic—inputs, which seem to be highly relevant to its function. The SMA, on the other hand, has a functional relationship to the superior parietal lobulus (Area 5), ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• I Theories of Stress and Emotions
• II Perception, Cognition, and Emotion
• III Physiological and Biochemical Concomitants of Stress and Emotion
• IV Stress, Emotion, Type a Behavior, and Heart Disease
• Appendix: Brief Reports
• Author Index
• Subject Index