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Groups of Russian-speaking and native Israel citizens (adults and adolescents) were compared according to their behavioral attitudes by using the BASE test - a projective questionnaire for the estimation of behavioral attitudes (search activity, stereotyped activity, chaotic activity and renunciation of search). Native citizens, girls and adult women, displayed a lower level of stereotyped activity and a higher level of chaotic activity in comparison to their Russian-speaking peers. The ratio between search activity and stereotyped activity was higher in native citizens. Authors propose that the difference between groups is determined by the difference in the traditions of growing up in Israel and in former USSR: the conditions for growing up are more free and with less pressure and requirements towards children in Israel. It can decrease an attitude towards the stereotyped behavior and increase not only the tendency towards search activity but also toward chaotic activity thus increasing the longevity of maturation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Moravec's paradox contrary to traditional assumptions, high-level reasoning requires very little computation compared to low-level sensorimotor skills that require enormous computational resources. For example, it is possible to make computers exhibit adult level performance on intelligence tests or playing checkers, but extremely difficult or impossible to give them the skills like perception or mobility. Several findings suggest that explanation of Moravec's paradox is related to the different functions of the human left and right hemispheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this article is to discuss that the long allele of the serotonin transporter gene that was considered in some publications to be a gene of ?happiness? and ?well-being? is actually a gene that is responsible for the predisposition to the search activity that by itself contains positive emotional feelings. This statement is confirmed by the comparison of the results of different investigations and helps to solve many contradictions in psychobiology of emotional sensitivity, fear, depression, suicide attempts, of relationships between stressful conditions and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this article is to discuss the difference between the two highest forms of self-identification - Self-Concept and Self-Image and the relationships between both of these forms, their relations to consciousness and to social motivations as well as to the functions of left and right frontal lobe. I suggest that Self-Image being out of consciousness contains nevertheless conscious attitudes and represents Super-consciousness. However, I will start with the lower level of self-identification that represents a predisposition to the development of higher forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In comparison to the expected outcome of the long lasting suppression and persecution, Jews during centuries demonstrated the relative resistance to stress, learned helplessness and depression. This article suggests that this resistance may be related to the peculiarity of the traditional Jewish religious education that stimulates intellectual search activity as well as right-hemispheric polysemantic thinking in equilibrium with the left hemispheric verbal thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Search activity in the subsequent wakefulness is restored by the virtual activity in dreams based on the dominating DA brain system and this virtual activity is often chaotic. It is common for humans and animals. At the same time in wakefulness chaotic activity is not protective. It means that in dreams the activity by itself is more important than its belonging to the particular form. What is specific for humans is the polysemantic nature of human dreams based on the right hemisphere type of thinking that is solving the intra-psychic conflicts and overcomes repression as a particular human's type of renunciation of search. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Depression is characterized by functional insufficiency of the right hemisphere combined with its physiological overactivation. This paradox can be solved in the frame of the general concept of brain laterality. According to the present assumption, the left hemisphere organizes any information in an unambiguous monosemantic context, and this process requires an additional activation of the brain cortex in order to restrict natural relationships between objects and events. On the contrary, the right hemisphere organizes any information in the polysemantic context based on the simultaneous capture of the numerous natural relationships between elements of information. In healthy creative subjects this process does not require additional physiological activation of the cortex. In depression the physiological overactivation of the right hemisphere reflects the unsuccessful effort to overcome its functional insufficiency. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Introduction: REM sleep latency is a clinically significant sleep variable that is found to be decreased in several psychiatric disorders. However, it is not known whether alteration of REM sleep latency is similar across disorders. In order to test whether incorporation of wakefulness in the first sleep cycle has a different outcome on REM sleep latency in different clinical groups, the authors have investigated correlation between sleep variables in the first sleep cycle in 25 patients with major depression, 24 patients with chronic schizophrenia, and in 10 healthy subjects. Results: REM sleep latency correlates with the duration of wakefulness in the first cycle in patients suffering from chronic schizophrenia and in healthy subjects. This correlation does not hold true in patients suffering from major depression. Conclusion: Wakefulness incorporated in the first cycle influences REM sleep latency in healthy subjects and in patients suffering from chronic schizophrenia but not in patients suffering from major depression. This finding further supports the evidence that reduced REM sleep latency is a nonflexible marker of depression. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

There are no data of the relationships between the level of distress and the subject's behavioural attitudes. We have investigated these relationships on 201 subjects, 80 men and 121 women, after 5 years of emigration from the former USSR to Israel. The level of distress measured by using the Talbieh Brief Distress Inventory and behavioural attitudes estimated by using the test BASE were compared in subjects differing in their level of adaptation to the new society. Search Activity was higher in men than in women, in men it was almost twice as high as stereotyped behaviour, while in women both behavioural attitudes were almost equal. Subjects with different levels of distress do not differ significantly on behavioural attitudes. However, Search Activity in stressful conditions display a tendency to be more flexible in men than in women. Stereotyped behaviour under stressful conditions displays a general tendency to be low. In the absence of stress a tendency toward the stereotyped activity tends to dominate in women, while in the presence of stress they demonstrate a tendency toward the relative increase of panic and passive behaviour. The role of gender in behavioural attitudes in normal and stressful conditions is discussed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an integrative approach to human memory. Interrelationship between the right hemisphere and the limbic system; Discussion on memory in the context of the limbic system; Memory disturbance among older people.

Discusses the biological treatment of depression with the use of antidepressants. Modification of the monoamine hypothesis; Restoration of brain monoamines; Feedback system; Search activity concept; Mechanism of rapid sleep movement (REM) sleep deprivation in the treatment of depression.

Discusses psychoneuroimmunology in searching for the main deteriorating psychobehavioral factor. Branches of psychoneuroimmunology including functions in natural and experimental stressful conditions in humans and animals; Defining search activity; Functions of the immune system; Link between age and depression.

Examines the psychophysiological outcomes of adaptive versus maladaptive emotional tension with respect to opposite forms of behavior that have an opposite outcome on body resistance and performance. Theoretical approaches to different forms of emotional tension; Divergent forms of emotional tension in humans and animals.

This study compared the manifest dream content of 20 schizophrenic adolescent inpatients whose medications were stable for at least four weeks, 21 adolescent inpatients with other mental disorders (nonschizophrenic group) matched for age and gender, and 31 matched community controls. All participants were administered the standardized Formal Dream Content Rating Scale (FDCRS), which evaluates dream-related anxiety, cognitive disturbance, implausibility, involvement, primitivity, and recall, as well as two additional scales measuring emotional expression and duration of dream report. The Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS) was administered to the two inpatient groups. The community controls demonstrated more involvement and emotional expression than the schizophrenic patients; furthermore, they demonstrated more implausibility and had a greater duration of dream report compared with the nonschizophrenic group. In the schizophrenic patients only, elevated scores on the negative subscale of the PANSS were significantly correlated with lower scores on involvement, emotional expression, and dream recall. No relationship was found between the positive subscale of the PANSS and any of the FDCRS subscales. These results suggest that psychopathology per se, rather than the specific psychiatric disturbance, may be associated with impoverishment of dream content, and that negative, rather than positive, schizophrenic symptomatology may be influential in the dream content of schizophrenic youngsters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]