Do Feelings of Loneliness Mediate the Relationship between Sociocognitive Understanding and Depressive Symptoms During Late Childhood and Early Adolescence?

An interesting association between sociocognitive understanding and depression has been documented in clinical populations, with high levels of depression apparently related to theory-of-mind deficits. Yet no research has so far investigated this relationship among typically developing preadolescents. Therefore, the authors' main aim was to extend previous findings to the general population and to a younger age group. A secondary aim was to explore the role of feelings of loneliness referring to the previous link. A sociocognitive understanding task followed by self-report questionnaires on depressive symptoms and perceived loneliness were administered to a sample of 326 students attending primary and middle schools. Mediation analyses revealed that feelings of loneliness mediated the effect of sociocognitive understanding on depressive symptoms, but only among girls. In boys, depressive symptoms were directly linked to sociocognitive skills. In girls, on the contrary, the relationship between sociocognitive skills and depressive symptoms was significantly mediated by feelings of loneliness. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Drug addicts in therapy—changes in life space in the course of one year

In a residential community treatment setting, moods and emotional states of drug addicts were explored over a 1‐year period. The specific form of treatment of heroin addiction employed in the communities is based on the importance of interpersonal relationships for psychosocial transition. Twenty‐nine participants reported current mood, emotions, attributions, and motive activation using a time‐sampling diary for 2 weeks at the beginning of the treatment, and 6 and 12 months later. Results show an increase in positive emotions, and in subjective strength and freedom. Furthermore, participants report higher self‐esteem and use less fatalistic attributions. This is interpreted as indicating successful transition processes in terms of higher autonomy, a more extended life space and increased levels of realism. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Phonological sensitivity and memory in children with a foreign language learning difficulty

The phonological processing and memory skills of 12- and 13-year-old Italian children with difficulty in learning English as a foreign language (foreign language learning difficulty, FLLD) were examined and compared with those of a control group matched for age and nonverbal intelligence. Three experiments were conducted. A dissociation between verbal and visuo-spatial working memory was observed when compared to the control group; children with FLLD showed a poorer performance in a phonological working memory task but performed to a comparable level in a visuo-spatial working memory task (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2 the word length and the response modality of an auditory word span task were manipulated in order to examine the efficiency of the phonological loop and the relevance of the spoken output. The FLLD group did not show sensitivity to the word length effect and showed no advantage in the picture pointing recall condition. In Experiment 3 children with FLLD were shown to be sensitive to phonological similarity but again they showed neither a word length effect nor a slower articulation speed. Furthermore, in all three experiments children with FLLD were shown to be less efficient in phonological sensitivity tasks and this deficit appeared to be independent of the phonological memory problem. All three experiments consistently showed that children with FLLD have an impairment in phonological memory and phonological processing, which appear to be independent from one other but both contribute to the children's difficulty in learning a second language.     

Measuring men's response to an imagined negative body image

To investigate response to an imagined negative body image, a sample of 29 men from an undergraduate university were given the Body Image Affect Scale of Campbell and Chow. Analysis showed more men, if they are experiencing a poor appearance, would try to cover up physical flaws and avoid approaching an individual in whom they were interested.     

Induction of implicit evaluation biases by approach–avoidance training: A commentary on Vandenbosch and De Houwer (this issue)

Vandenbosch and De Houwer (this issue) reported a series of failures to induce an implicit evaluation bias by means of an approach–avoidance training paradigm. In this commentary, we point out issues raised by Vandenbosch and De Houwer that we interpret differently or that we would like to emphasise more thoroughly. In addition, we report recent results from a replication study from our lab in which we found the effects in question. Finally, we provide an overview of potential future studies needed to replicate and validate the approach–avoidance training effects.     

When working memory updating requires updating: Analysis of serial position in a running memory task

This study aimed to investigate updating in working memory (WM), analyzing the effects of task demand and memory resources on serial position curve (SPC), in a running memory task with slow pace presentation and a probed recognition procedure. These task conditions were supposed to produce an easier WM updating task, which may allow evidencing whether the task is performed through an active or a passive updating.     

Diary reports on emotional experiences in the onset of a psychosocial transition: becoming drug‐free

The process of becoming drug free is viewed as a psychosocial transition in the life of drug addicts. A specific form of treatment of heroin addiction within residential communities is based on the importance of interpersonal relationships for change. Well‐being of 65 drug addicts during the first 2 weeks in a residential community is explored using a time‐sampling diary which was completed four times a day. The influence of subjects' history, situational context, and motive activation on well‐being and emotions is investigated. Results show that well‐being and emotions differ mainly according to subjects' history, but not — at least at the beginning of treatment within the community — according to situations. This is interpreted as a ‘state of shock’ in the new environment and highlights the necessity for special individual care for subjects with a long drug career. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

ON THE ISSUE OF RESISTANCE IN ANOREXIA

This paper considers the pervasive resistance to ‘take in’ both physical and emotional or psychic sustenance that is demonstrated by the anorexic patient. It goes on to explore the relationship between these resistances and impeded psychological growth and development. It is suggested that such resistances to ‘taking in’ serve a defensive function, in that the patient manages to maintain psychic equilibrium by limiting, modifying or even avoiding any stimuli that is perceived to be threatening. This notion is considered further in specific relation to the depressive anxieties and conflicts associated with Oedipal issues and clinical material is used to illustrate this.     

Octopaminergic neurons have multiple targets in Drosophila larval mushroom body calyx and can modulate behavioral odor discrimination

Discrimination of sensory signals is essential for an organism to form and retrieve memories of relevance in a given behavioral context. Sensory representations are modified dynamically by changes in behavioral state, facilitating context-dependent selection of behavior, through signals carried by noradrenergic input in mammals, or octopamine (OA) in insects. To understand the circuit mechanisms of this signaling, we characterized the function of two OA neurons, sVUM1 neurons, that originate in the subesophageal zone (SEZ) and target the input region of the memory center, the mushroom body (MB) calyx, in larval Drosophila. We found that sVUM1 neurons target multiple neurons, including olfactory projection neurons (PNs), the inhibitory neuron APL, and a pair of extrinsic output neurons, but relatively few mushroom body intrinsic neurons, Kenyon cells. PN terminals carried the OA receptor Oamb, a Drosophila α1-adrenergic receptor ortholog. Using an odor discrimination learning paradigm, we showed that optogenetic activation of OA neurons compromised discrimination of similar odors but not learning ability. Our results suggest that sVUM1 neurons modify odor representations via multiple extrinsic inputs at the sensory input area to the MB olfactory learning circuit.

Behavioral choices depend on discrimination among “sensory objects,” which are neural representations of multiple coincident sensory inputs, across a range of sensory modalities. For example, “odor objects” (Gottfried 2009; Wilson and Sullivan 2011; Gire et al. 2013) are represented in sparse ensembles of neurons, that are coincidence detectors of multiple parallel inputs from odor quality channels. This principle is used widely in animals, including in mushroom bodies (MBs), the insect center for associative memory (Masuda-Nakagawa et al. 2005; Honegger et al. 2011), and in the piriform cortex (PCx) of mammals (Stettler and Axel 2009; Davison and Ehlers 2011).The selectivity of sensory representations can be modulated dynamically by changes in behavioral state, allowing an animal to learn and respond according to perceptual task. In mammals, the noradrenergic system originating in the locus coeruleus (LC) is implicated in signaling behavioral states such as attention, arousal and expectation (Aston-Jones and Cohen 2005; Sara and Bouret 2012).In insects, octopamine (OA), structurally and functionally similar to noradrenalin (NA) in mammals (Roeder 2005), can mediate changes in behavioral state that often promote activity; for example, sensitization of reflex actions in locusts (Sombati and Hoyle 1984), aggressive state in crickets (Stevenson et al. 2005), initiation and maintenance of flight state (Brembs et al. 2007; Suver et al. 2012), and enhanced excitability of Drosophila motion detection neurons during flight (Strother et al. 2018). Another role of OA is as a reward signal: A single OA neuron, VUMmx1, mediates the reinforcing function of unconditioned stimulus in the honeybee proboscis extension reflex (Hammer 1993; Hammer and Menzel 1998; Menzel 2012). In Drosophila, acquisition of appetitive memory is impaired in TβH mutants, unable to synthesize OA (Schwaerzel et al. 2003), and activation of OA neurons can substitute reinforcing stimulus in appetitive learning (Schroll et al. 2006). Moreover, OA receptors are necessary for reward learning in Drosophila (Burke et al. 2012) and crickets (Matsumoto et al. 2015).To understand the neural mechanisms of OA in higher order sensory discrimination, we used the simple sensory “cortex” of larval Drosophila, the calyx, which is the sensory input region of the mushroom bodies (MBs), the insect memory center. Here, each MB neuron (Kenyon cell [KC]) typically arborizes in several glomeruli, most of which are organized around the terminus of an olfactory projection neuron (PN); KCs thus combinatorially integrate multiple sensory input channels (Masuda-Nakagawa et al. 2005) and are coincidence detectors of multiple inputs. The APL provides inhibitory feedback (Lin et al. 2014; Masuda-Nakagawa et al. 2014) and helps to maintain KC sparse responses and odor selectivity (Honegger et al. 2011), analogous to inhibition in the mammalian PCx (Poo and Isaacson 2009; Stettler and Axel 2009; Gire et al. 2013). Thus, odors are represented as a sparse ensemble of KCs that are highly odor selective, a property beneficial for memory (Olshausen and Field 2004).In addition, the larval MB calyx is innervated by two OA neurons, sVUMmd1 and sVUMmx1, ventral unpaired medial neurons with dendritic fields originating in the mandibular and maxillary neuromeres, respectively, of the SEZ in the third instar larva (Selcho et al. 2014). sVUMmd1 and sVUMmx1 are named as OANa-1 and OANa-2, respectively, in the EM connectomic analysis of a 6-h first instar larva (Eichler et al. 2017; Supplemental Fig. 3 of Saumweber et al. 2018). These sVUM1 neurons also innervate the first olfactory neuropile of the antennal lobe (AL). This pattern of innervation is conserved in other insects, for example, the dorsal unpaired median (DUM) neurons in locusts (for review, see Bräunig and Pflüger 2001), the VUMmx1 neuron in honeybees (Hammer 1993; Schröter et al. 2007), and OA-VUMa2 neurons in adult Drosophila (Busch et al. 2009). In adult Drosophila, OA-VUMa2 neurons also show a dense innervation of the lateral horn, implicated in innate behaviors (Busch et al. 2009). The widespread innervation of the insect olfactory neuropiles also resembles the widespread NA innervation of mammalian olfactory processing areas, such as the olfactory bulb, and piriform cortex, by LC neurons originating in the brainstem.We characterized the innervation pattern and synaptic targets of sVUM1 neurons in the calyx, with MB intrinsic and also extrinsic neurons, the localization of the OA receptor Oamb in the calyx circuit, and the impact of sVUM1 neuron activation on behavioral odor discrimination. For this we used an appetitive conditioning paradigm, and tested the ability of larvae to discriminate between similar odors, as opposed to dissimilar odors. Since the larval connectome is based on a single brain, at first instar stage before octopaminergic connections have become as extensive as at third instar, and to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the synaptic targets of sVUM1s in the third-instar larval calyx, we extended our analysis to previously unanalyzed connectivity of VUM1s, to APL and PNs. Further, we combined light microscopy of third-instar larvae with the connectome described by Eichler et al. (2017).We find that sVUM1 neurons in third-instar larvae contact all the major classes of calyx neuron to some degree, consistent with EM synaptic analysis of the 6-h larva (Eichler et al. 2017). A GFP fusion of the OA receptor Oamb is localized in the terminals of PNs, and activating a subset of five SEZ neurons, including sVUM1 neurons, can affect discrimination of similar odors, without affecting underlying olfactory learning and memory ability. We suggest a broad modulatory effect of sVUM1 neurons in the calyx, including a potential role in modulating PN input at the second synapse in the olfactory pathway.