Discriminating between putative orbitofrontal and dorsolateral-prefrontal profiles using the Personality Assessment Inventory

OF DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Counseling Psychology In the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Northeastern University, August, 2009 OF vs. DLPF Profiles iii ABSTRACT The integration of cognitive neuroscience with neuropsychology has been advocated (Stuss & Levine, 2002). Lichter and Cummings’ (2001) description of “circuit specific behavioral syndromes” suggested that an “orbitofrontal (OF) syndrome” could be discriminated from a “dorsolateral-prefrontal (DLPF) syndrome,” based on a theoretical model of frontal-subcortical circuits. Using Morey’s (1991) Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI), a cluster variate of antisocial features, aggression, mania, and obsessive-compulsive behavior was selected to partition a diagnostically heterogeneous, archival sample of clinic-referred college students (N = 22) using cluster analysis. A two-group cluster solution emerged from the results of combined hierarchical-agglomerative and iterative partitioning procedures, potentially corresponding to the putative OF and DLPF classifications. The “OF profile group” obtained significantly higher scores on self-report measures of antisocial features, aggression, mania/hypomania, and obsessive-compulsive behavior than the “DLPF profile group. ” External validation of the cluster solution employing univariate logistic regression analyses suggested the DLPF profile group performed more poorlyThe integration of cognitive neuroscience with neuropsychology has been advocated (Stuss & Levine, 2002). Lichter and Cummings’ (2001) description of “circuit specific behavioral syndromes” suggested that an “orbitofrontal (OF) syndrome” could be discriminated from a “dorsolateral-prefrontal (DLPF) syndrome,” based on a theoretical model of frontal-subcortical circuits. Using Morey’s (1991) Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI), a cluster variate of antisocial features, aggression, mania, and obsessive-compulsive behavior was selected to partition a diagnostically heterogeneous, archival sample of clinic-referred college students (N = 22) using cluster analysis. A two-group cluster solution emerged from the results of combined hierarchical-agglomerative and iterative partitioning procedures, potentially corresponding to the putative OF and DLPF classifications. The “OF profile group” obtained significantly higher scores on self-report measures of antisocial features, aggression, mania/hypomania, and obsessive-compulsive behavior than the “DLPF profile group. ” External validation of the cluster solution employing univariate logistic regression analyses suggested the DLPF profile group performed more poorly than the OF profile group on measures of sustained attention and spatial working memory, and the OF profile group performed more poorly than the DLPF profile group on a measure of color naming. Utilizing the PAI in conjunction with neuropsychological tests to assist in identifying OF and DLPF neurobehavioral profiles is suggested. Implications for treatment and academic accommodations for clinic-referred college students are discussed. OF vs. DLPF Profiles iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter