Evaluation of Generalization Paradigm Patterns Among Different Psychiatric Disorders

Overview

Learning includes the ability to generalize to new situations and respond to similar, yet not identical stimuli. In previous work, focused on stimulus generalization in healthy volunteers, tones that were negatively reinforced induce wider generalization curves than tones that were positively reinforced, and these in turn induce wider curves than neutral memory (Schechtman et al, 2010). The current study aimed to evaluate those patterns in different clinical disorders (including Schizophrenia, Bipolar disorder, MDD, Anxiety disorders (Panic and GAD) and PTSD, and healthy subjects that would be used as a control), with consideration whether those patterns are unique to any specific disorder or state. The generalization patterns evaluation would conduct twice though enable to compare the stability of those patterns during the course of the illness (i.e during remission compared to acute state). The basic paradigm based on conditioning of a tone (sound) with unpleasant noise, and extinction of that conditioning afterword. During the 60 minutes of evaluation, the capability to discriminate between the original tone and similar but not identical tones, and the tendency to categorize similar tones as identical to the original tone. A neutral tone without conditioning will be used as reference. The clinical diagnosis will conduct by a senior psychiatrist, and the state would be evaluated using standard questionnaires

Conditions