Corrigendum to "COVID-19 vaccination and the behavioral immune system: The newcomer and the old friend get along in preventing infection" [Brain Behav. Immun. Health. 2023].

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.bbih.

"Are You Sick? No, I am Neurodivergent!" The Perilous Navigation Between Medicalization and Diagnostic Nihilism.

When advocating to fight stigma and promote acceptance of neurodivergent individuals, the current debate on neurodiversity does not present a major challenge to psychiatric theory and research. The controversy arises when neurodiversity is taken to its extreme, denying the existence of neurodevelopmental disorders. Evolutionary psychiatry has recently contributed to the neurodiversity debate by providing adaptive explanations.

Drug development in psychopharmacology: Insights from evolutionary psychiatry.

In the last decade, no other branch of clinical pharmacology has been subject to as much criticism of failed innovation and unsatisfactory effectiveness as psychopharmacology. Evolutionary psychiatry can offer original insights on the problems that complicate pharmacological research. Considering that invalid phenotyping is a major obstacle to drug development, an evolutionary perspective suggests targeting clinical phenotypes related to evolved behavior systems because they are more likely to map onto the underlying biology than constructs based on predetermined diagnostic criteria.

An evolutionary analysis of the applicability and utility of the clinico-pathological method in psychiatry.

Unlike other medical specialties, psychiatry has not been involved in the theoretical shift that replaced the syndromal approach with the clinico-pathological method, which consists in explaining clinical manifestations by reference to morbid anatomical and physiological changes. Past and present discussions on the applicability of the clinico-pathological method in psychiatry are based on a pre-Darwinian concept of biology as the study of proximate causation. Distinguishing between mediating mechanisms and evolved functions, an evolutionary perspective offers an original contribution to the debate by overcoming the opposite views of dualism (i.

I Got it. Perceived Infectability and Germ Aversion after Covid-19 Infection.

Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic has offered a unique opportunity to test evolutionary hypotheses on the functionality of the behavioral immune system. The aim of the present study was to ascertain if a previous infection with COVID-19 was associated with increased levels of perceived infectability and germ aversion. Based on the calibration hypothesis, we predicted that the activation of the behavioral immune system was greater in those participants who had been infected compared to those who reported no previous COVID-19 infection.

COVID-19 vaccination and the behavioral immune system: The newcomer and the old friend get along in preventing infection.

Despite its old evolutionary history and emotional relevance, the behavioral immune system is one of the less studied individual predictors of vaccine uptake. To fill the gap, we conducted a large online study (2072 participants) during the spring 2022 when the great majority of the Italian population had already received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Hierarchical binary logistic regression showed that, after controlling for the confounding effects of demographic and personality factors, there was a significant and positive association between pathogen disgust sensitivity and COVID-19 vaccine uptake (OR, 1.

The long-term impact of early adverse experience on adaptive functioning: a pilot study integrating measures of mental status, nonverbal communication, and heart rate variability.

Childhood maltreatment (CM) can disrupt the development of behavioural and physiological systems, increasing the risk of physical and psychological adverse outcomes across the lifespan. CM may cause interpersonal dysfunctions that impair social communication and lead to dysfunctional activation of the autonomic nervous system. The present exploratory study analyzed the long-term impact of CM from an integrated perspective through the simultaneous assessment of psychological symptoms, social and behavioural communication, and physiological regulation.

Mental Health Challenges during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health has unveiled the complexity of the relationship between psychiatry and the rest of medicine, as clearly shown by the collection of studies published in this Special Issue entitled "Mental Health Challenges during the COVID-19 Pandemic" [...

Biological Psychiatry is Dead, Long Live Biological Psychiatry!

The failure of biological psychiatry to deliver on its promises of enlightening the origin of psychiatric disorders and optimizing their treatment is due to invalid theoretical postulates that derive from an outdated conceptualization of human biology. The crisis of biological psychiatry depends on its identification with functional biology. A major contribution of evolutionary biology (the other current of biological thought) is to integrate the study of environmental variables (developmental, interpersonal, and ecological) with those mechanisms that are the field of study of functional biology (genetics, anatomy, and physiology).

Exploring the Link between ADHD and Obesity: A Focus on Temperament.

Multiple studies support the relationship between ADHD and overweight/obesity in youth. Different mechanisms may be involved, such as temperamental and psychopathological factors. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that specific temperamental and psychopathological dimensions could mediate the relationship between ADHD and obesity.

Genetics of adult attachment and the endogenous opioid system.

Since the pioneering work by Panksepp , the neurobiological bases of attachment behavior have been closely linked with opioid neurotransmission. Candidate gene studies of adult individuals have shown that variation in the mu-opioid receptor gene () influences attachment behavior. Early maternal care and the A/A genotype of the A118G polymorphism interact in modulating levels of fearful attachment.

Women amid the COVID-19 pandemic: Self-protection through the behavioral immune system.

Studies of the activation of the behavioral immune system triggered by the coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic have demonstrated that evolutionary explanations of individual differences in self-protection should not be based only on parental investment and sexual selection theory. An evolutionary model must also incorporate individual differences that arise within each sex as a result of life history strategies and attachment patterns.

Non-verbal social communication in individuals with eating disorders: an ethological analysis in experimental setting.

Purpose: Evidence that social difficulties promote the development and the maintenance of eating disorders (EDs) derive from self-reported data and only partially from experimental tasks. This study objectively assessed non-verbal behaviors of individuals with EDs in a psycho-social stress scenario.

Methods: Thirty-one women suffering from EDs (13 with anorexia nervosa and 18 with bulimia nervosa) and 15 healthy women underwent the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), the paradigm of psycho-social stress, and were videotaped.

Etiology of Psychiatric Disorders: Lay Beliefs and the Role of Gender, Field of Study and Personality Traits.

In the present study, we recruited a large sample (N = 595) of highly educated participants to assess which causal variables they considered as more important in the etiology of two diagnostically unlabeled cases of psychiatric disorders. The first clinical case described a patient with early schizophrenia whereas the second clinical case described a patient with conversion disorder. We aimed at ascertaining if participants' gender, field of study (scientific vs.

The behavioral immune system in action: Psychological correlates of pathogen disgust sensitivity in healthcare professionals working in a COVID-19 hospital.

The behavioral immune system includes a set of proactive mechanisms that inhibit contact with pathogens in the first place. These mechanisms offer a sort of psychological and behavioral prophylaxis against infection. The aim of this study was to assess the functionality of the behavioral immune system under conditions of strong ecological validity.

Quo Vadis Psychiatry? Why It Is Time to Endorse Evolutionary Theory.

In recent decades, psychiatry and the neurosciences have made little progress in terms of preventing, diagnosing, classifying, or treating mental disorders. Here we argue that the dilemma of psychiatry and the neurosciences is, in part, based on fundamental misconceptions about the human mind, including misdirected nature-nurture debates, the lack of definitional concepts of "normalcy," distinguishing defense from defect, disregarding life history theory, evolutionarily uninformed genetic and epigenetic research, the "disconnection" of the brain from the rest of the body, and lack of attention to actual behavior in real-world interactions. All these conceptual difficulties could potentially benefit from an approach that uses evolutionary theory to improve the understanding of causal mechanisms, gene-environment interaction, individual differences in behavioral ecology, interaction between the gut (and other organs) and the brain, as well as cross-cultural and across-species comparison.

Emergence of bariatric psychiatry as a new subspecialty.

Bariatric surgery is the branch of surgery aimed at helping a person with obesity lose weight. The implementation of surgical treatment of obesity is growing at an impressive rate. As expected, the expanding implementation of bariatric procedures has progressively revealed critical issues that were not evident when the number of obese patients treated with surgery was relatively small.

Fear of COVID-19 among Healthcare Workers: The Role of Neuroticism and Fearful Attachment.

Fear of becoming infected is an important factor of the complex suite of emotional reactions triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Among healthcare workers (HWs), fear of infection can put at risk their psychological well-being and occupational efficiency. The aim of this study was to analyze the role of personality (i.

Exposure to different early-life stress experiences results in differentially altered DNA methylation in the brain and immune system.

The existence of a proportional relationship between the number of early-life stress (ELS) events experienced and the impoverishment of child mental health has been hypothesized. However, different types of ELS experiences may be associated with different neuro-psycho-biological impacts, due to differences in the intrinsic nature of the stress. DNA methylation is one of the molecular mechanisms that have been implicated in the "translation" of ELS exposure into neurobiological and behavioral abnormalities during adulthood.

Dissecting major depression: The role of blood biomarkers and adverse childhood experiences in distinguishing clinical subgroups.

Background: The syndromic diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with individual differences in prognosis, course, treatment response, and outcome. There is evidence that patients with a history to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) may belong to a distinct clinical subgroup. The combination of data on ACEs and blood biomarkers could allow the identification of diagnostic MDD subgroups.

Depressive symptoms and insecure attachment predict disability and quality of life in psoriasis independently from disease severity.

Psoriasis is a multisystemic inflammatory disease with a significant burden in terms of disability and reduced quality of life. The interrelations between disease severity, psychological well-being, and disability and/or health-related quality of life (HRQOL) of psoriatic patients are not fully understood. The aim of the study was to assess the relative role of disease severity, depressive symptoms, and insecure attachment in predicting disability and HRQOL in 105 patients with psoriasis.

Social stress and psychiatric disorders: Evolutionary reflections on debated questions.

The literature on social stress and psychiatric disorders is biased toward proximate explanations. While it is important to know how the mechanisms implicated in social stress operate, we also need to learn why selection has retained those mechanisms. This review analyzes debated questions from the perspective of Darwinian psychiatry: What is a stressful event? Why are certain types of stressful events particularly potent? Why don't stressful events fall randomly from the sky? Why does life stage modulate the impact of stressful events? Why are some people more resilient or vulnerable to stressful events? Why are there sex differences in stress sensitivity? Are specific stressful events linked to specific disorders? An evolutionary perspective can increase and broaden our understanding of why exposure to different types of social stress triggers the onset of psychiatric disorders.

Fear of Covid-19: Insights from Evolutionary Behavioral Science.

Fear of infectious disease is substantially different from that evoked by other medical conditions. Such a difference depends on psychological and behavioral adaptations shaped by natural selection throughout the evolutionary history of . Selective pressures have favored the evolution of a behavioral immune system that is separate from, and complementary to, the physiological immune system.