Errorless learning is a promising rehabilitation principle for learning tasks in patients with amnesia, including patients with Korsakoff's syndrome. Errorless learning might possibly also contribute to decreases in behavioral and psychiatric problems, as patients in long-term care facilities become more independent after training. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of errorless learning on potential changes in psychotic and affective symptoms, aggression and apathy, in contrast with a control group who received care as usual.

The current study is a quasi-experimental study on errorless learning and psychotic and affective symptoms, aggression, and apathy in patients with Korsakoff's syndrome, living in long-term care facilities for patients with Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) in the Netherlands. The GIP-28, HoNOS−ABI, and NVCL−20 were administered to a group of patients with KS who received errorless learning training (n = 51) and a patient control group who received care as usual (n = 31). Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Tests were performed to examine psychotic and affective symptoms, aggression, and apathy at baseline and at follow-up in the errorless learning group and the control group.

Errorless learning training effectively reduced psychotic symptoms (including provoked confabulations), affective symptoms, and agitation/aggression. There were no significant changes (increases nor decreases) in the control group. Levels of apathy were stable over time in both groups.

Results with respect to psychotic and affective symptoms, aggression, and apathy are discussed in depth. Patients with KS can become more autonomous in a cared for setting using errorless learning principles. This might also result in decreases in behavioral and psychiatric problems in patients.

Psychometric research in the field of alcohol dependence has concentrated on identifying certain (personality) characteristics (i.e. typologies). This paper is aimed to identify such typologies and studies the relation of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) and Cloninger’s temperament-character inventory (TCI).

To find MMPI-2 scales associated with maximization of group differences between 222 DSM-IV alcohol dependent inpatients and a control group of 222 normal subjects, discriminant analysis was used. In addition, a cluster analysis was performed with these scales, and the MMPI-2 mean scale values of the resulting patient clusters were examined for their TCI-correlates.

The discriminant analyses showed several MMPI-2 scales that could clearly distinguish between alcohol-dependent patients and the normal controls. Cluster analysis resulted in semantically different MMPI-2 profiles implying qualitatively different groups of patients. When related to TCI scales, these differences revealed harm avoidance, self-directedness, and persistence, amongst others, as important elements in the description of the clusters.

Evidence for the validity of MMPI-2 constructs as well as those of the TCI in the assessment of alcohol-dependent patients was provided.

This article describes an exploratory study of MMPI-2 administration to 20 patients with Korsakoff's disease, all admitted to the Korsakoff unit of a major psychiatric hospital in the Netherlands.

We compared their MMPI-2 basic profiles with those of an inpatient alcohol-dependent non-Korsakoff group. Attention was also given to content scales and some selected supplementary scales. Furthermore, we explored the differences between MMPI-2 profiles of Korsakoff patients with and without insight into oneself and one's disease.

Compared with both the Dutch norms and the scale means of the non-Korsakoff alcoholics, Korsakoff patients showed an extraordinary flat profile. Illness insight appeared to be related to the levels of the various scales.

The results show the potential usefulness of the MMPI-2 in the differential diagnosis of chronic alcoholism and Korsakoff's disease.

Objective: Alexithymia refers to an ineffective regulation and expression of emotions. It constitutes a major risk factor for a range of medical and psychiatric problems, including chronic pain, somatisation, anxiety and depression. Alexithymia is a multi-faceted concept, described in terms of cognitive and affective aspects. From a neuropsychological perspective, alexithymia can be defined as a disturbance in affective information processing and social cognition. As the growing literature on brain structures involved in alexithymia is fragmented and sometimes even contradictory, the aim of this article was to review findings on neural substrates with regard to their convergence.

Methods: A narrative review was performed, including both early neuropsychological and more recent imaging studies, in order to achieve a better understanding of the aetiology of alexithymia.

Results: Corpus callosum, cingulate cortex and insula are clearly involved in alexithymia. The amygdala and the orbitofrontal part of the cortex appear to be implicated as mediators, because of their broader involvement in emotional processing and executive control.

Conclusion: Notwithstanding the diffuse neural representation, the alexithymia construct can be usefully applied in the clinical and empirical studies of social cognition, particularly when adopting a dimensional neuropsychological approach.

El Inventario de Personalidad Multifásico de Minnessota (MMPI-2) apoya a menudo la toma de decisiones clínicas en problemas diagnósticos complejos, como diferenciar la neurosis de la psicosis y la psicosis del trastorno bipolar. Se ha considerado que el índice de Goldberg del MMPI, una combinación aritmética de cinco escalas clínicas, proporciona una buena estimación para discriminar entre los perfiles neurótic y psicótico. Del mismo modo, se ha encontrado que las escalas de las cinco dimensiones de personalidad psicopatológicas (PSY-5) del MMPI-2 son útiles al diferenciar las categorías diagnósticas.

Este estudio evalúa esos hallazgos en una muestra de pacientes psiquiátricos diagnosticados con trastorno depresivo, psicótico o bipolar utilizando ANOVA y análisis discriminate.

Los resultados corroboran la validez del índice de Goldberg y encuentran que la escala Disconstraint de los PSY 5 del MMPI-2 diferencia significativamente entre el trastorno psicótico y el trastorno bipolar I.

Las diferencias en Autocrítica del DEQ entre anoréxicas y bulímicas no se podían explicar por la depresión, ya que las pacientes bulímicas no mostraron niveles más altos en el BDI comparado con las anoréxicas, y no se encontró que los síntomas depresivos medidos con el BDI fueran predictores significativos del agrupamiento diagnóstico en una regresión múltiple logística.

El índice de Goldberg del MMPI-2 y las escalas de las PSY-5 pueden ofrecer una contribución útil al diagnóstic diferencial de los trastornos depresivo, psicótico y bipolar.