Behavioral versus Behavioral and Pharmacological Treatment in ADHD Children Attending a Summer Treatment Program

As part of the behavioral treatment in the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA), children participated in an intensive summer treatment program (STP). This study examined the differences between 57 children in the combined treatment (Comb) group, who were medicated, and 60 children in the behavioral treatment (Beh) group, who were unmedicated throughout the STP. Comb children were significantly better than Beh on 5 measures: rule following, good sportsmanship, peer negative nominations, and STP teacher posttreatment ratings of inattention/overactivity. Groups did not differ on any of the other 30 measures, and responded similarly to the STP over time. Comparisons to normative data revealed that Comb children were more likely to fall within the normative range on 6 measures. The differences between these results and the main MTA results, in which Comb was always superior to Beh, are discussed in terms of the relative intensity of combined treatments. The implications for future studies of pharmacological and behavioral treatment for ADHD are discussed.     

Efficacy of Pharmacological Interventions in Targeting Decision-Making Impairments across Substance and Behavioral Addictions

Neuropsychology Review - Decision-making impairments reflect tendencies towards risky or unwise choices as manifested by presence of psychiatric symptoms or cognitive impairment (e.g....     

A Dose-Ranging Study of Behavioral and Pharmacological Treatment in Social Settings for Children with ADHD

Placebo and three doses of methylphenidate (MPH) were crossed with 3 levels of behavioral modification (no behavioral modification, NBM; low-intensity behavioral modification, LBM; and high-intensity behavior modification, HBM) in the context of a summer treatment program (STP). Participants were 48 children with ADHD, aged 5–12. Behavior was examined in a variety of social settings (sports activities, art class, lunch) that are typical of elementary school, neighborhood, and after-school settings. Children received each behavioral condition for 3 weeks, order counterbalanced across groups. Children concurrently received in random order placebo, 0.15 mg/kg/dose, 0.3 mg/kg/dose, or 0.6 mg/kg/dose MPH, 3 times daily with dose manipulated on a daily basis in random order for each child. Both behavioral and medication treatments produced highly significant and positive effects on children’s behavior. The treatment modalities also interacted significantly. Whereas there was a linear dose–response curve for medication in NBM, the dose–response curves flattened considerably in LBM and HBM. Behavior modification produced effects as large as moderate doses, and on some measures, high doses of medication. These results replicate and extend to social-recreational settings previously reported results in a classroom setting from the same sample (Fabiano et al., School Psychology Review, 36, 195–216, 2007). Results illustrate the importance of taking dosage/intensity into account when evaluating combined treatments; there were no benefits of combined treatments when the dosage of either treatment was high but combination of the low-dose treatments produced substantial incremental improvement over unimodal treatment.     

Behavioral deficits and subregion-specific suppression of LTP in mice expressing a population of mutant NMDA receptors throughout the hippocampus

The NMDA receptor (NMDAR) subunit GluN1 is an obligatory component of NMDARs without a known functional homolog and is expressed in almost every neuronal cell type. The NMDAR system is a coincidence detector with critical roles in spatial learning and synaptic plasticity. Its coincidence detection property is crucial for the induction of hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP). We have generated a mutant mouse model expressing a hypomorph of the Grin1^N598R allele, which leads to a minority (about 10%) of coincidence detection-impaired NMDARs. Surprisingly, these animals revealed specific functional changes in the dentate gyrus (DG) of the hippocampal formation. Early LTP was expressed normally in area CA1 in vivo, but was completely suppressed at perforant path-granule cell synapses in the DG. In addition, there was a pronounced reduction in the amplitude of the evoked population spike in the DG. These specific changes were accompanied by behavioral impairments in spatial recognition, spatial learning, reversal learning, and retention. Our data show that minor changes in GluN1-dependent NMDAR physiology can cause dramatic consequences in synaptic signaling in a subregion-specific fashion despite the nonredundant nature of the GluN1 gene and its global expression.According to Hebb''s postulate, neurons require a molecular mechanism to detect synchronous activity in order to change the strength of synaptic connectivity (Hebb 1949). NMDA receptors (NMDARs) are molecular coincidence detectors, and selective NMDAR antagonists block the induction of long-term potentiation (LTP) in both the dentate gyrus (DG) and CA1 regions of the hippocampus (Bliss and Collingridge 1993; Martin et al. 2000). NMDARs have been long known for their role in spatial learning, but more recently have been implicated in other forms of cognitive function and dysfunction (Gruart et al. 2006; Whitlock et al. 2006; Castner and Williams 2007; Kristiansen et al. 2007; Wilson and Linster 2008).Neuronal NMDARs are hetero-tetrameric ligand-gated ion channels typically comprised of two types of subunits. Two copies of the mandatory GluN1 subunit (or NR1 subunit [Collingridge et al. 2009] encoded by Grin1) are associated with two copies from the GluN2 family, GluN2A–D (or NR2A–D). The GluN1 subunit is expressed ubiquitously both spatially and temporally throughout the developing and adult brain. Global knockout mice models of the GluN1 subunit are postnatally lethal within hours after birth (Forrest et al. 1994; Li et al. 1994), and cell-specific GluN1 mice knockouts (Tsien et al. 1996; Nakazawa et al. 2002; McHugh et al. 2007; Niewoehner et al. 2007) have provided insights on how specific synapses and regional neuronal networks are dependent on NMDAR function.The early postnatal lethality of the global GluN1 knockout is in contrast to the null mutants of the four AMPA receptor genes and other major synaptic proteins, such as αCaMKII (Silva et al. 1992a,b; Jia et al. 1996; Zamanillo et al. 1999; Meng et al. 2003). This can be at least partially explained by the absence of any close GluN1 homologs, which could functionally compensate for the absence of the GluN1 subunit. Recombinant expression studies defined the GluN1 subunit as a mandatory component of NMDARs. This constellation provides a specific opportunity to test whether different local neuronal subnetworks are affected differentially by mutant Grin1 alleles associated with subtle alterations of the functional properties of NMDARs.GluN1 subunits with the N598R point mutation (GluN1^R) yield functional NMDARs that are Mg²⁺ insensitive and Ca²⁺ impermeable (Burnashev et al. 1992; Mori et al. 1992). The Grin1^N598R allele that codes for GluN1^R subunits is a gain-of-function mutation that is dominant lethal, even in heterozygous and hemizygous lines (Single et al. 2000; Rudhard et al. 2003). NMDARs with GluN1^R subunits do not act as coincidence detectors and, interestingly, mice expressing exclusively the GluN1^R allele lack whisker-related pattern formation in the neonate brainstem (Rudhard et al. 2003).To investigate the functional importance of GluN1 subunits with the N598R point mutation, we took advantage of the generation of a variant mutant line of mice (GluN1^Rneo/+) expressing a minority (around 10%) of these mutant NMDARs. Even though the majority of the NMDARs are normal, all neurons expressing NMDARs will contain a subset of receptors carrying this mutation.Therefore, this mouse model is an ideal candidate to study the impact of subtle alterations of NMDAR function on different neuronal networks, such as those comprising the hippocampal formation.Studies examining region-specific targeted disruption of GluN1 expression in subregions of the hippocampus have revealed subtle yet important contributions of this NMDAR subunit in synaptic plasticity and spatial learning and memory. CA1-restricted knockout of GluN1 expression in the hippocampus caused impaired spatial learning and memory as well as reduced CA1-LTP (Tsien et al. 1996). In the case of the disruption of GluN1 expression in the DG region of the hippocampus, more subtle behavioral impairments were apparent, including the inability to discriminate between two similar contexts (pattern separation) and deficits in spatial working memory despite normal LTP in the CA1 region (McHugh et al. 2007; Niewoehner et al. 2007).Our GluN1^Rneo/+ mice differ from the region-specific GluN1 mutant mice in that they express the mutant hypomorph at the same level in different subregions of the hippocampus. Interestingly, we found that this allele leads to substantial differences in short- and long-term plasticity between area CA1 and the DG of the hippocampus. The specific impairment in the DG was accompanied by impaired spatial recognition, spatial learning, reversal learning, and retention. Our data establish the possibility of a circuit-specific phenotype caused by a mutant variant of a globally expressed major nonredundant synaptic protein.     

The Justification of Paternalistic Actions in Psychotherapy

This article defines the nature of paternalistic interventions in psychotherapy and discusses reasons why the client's right to consent to treatment is important. We describe a reasoning process developed by Culver and Gert (1982) that can be used to determine when paternalistic actions are and are not ethically justifiable in mental health practice. We demonstrate how this procedure may be applied to psychotherapy by using a number of case illustrations.     

The Importance of Culture in Cognitive and Behavioral Practice

The contributions of this special series highlight the importance of culture in cognitive-behavioral therapies. People who grow up in different cultures not only think about different things, but also seem to think differently. In other words, culture seems to shape and determine a person’s way of perceiving and reasoning. Therefore, cognitive-behavioral therapies need to be adapted to the client's cultural background and beliefs. This maximizes the likelihood that treatment strategies that have been found to be effective in one culture are also effective in another culture.     

The Role of Context on Strategic Actions in Mastermind

When inexperienced solvers play consecutive Mastermind games, they begin to use a strategy in which specific hypothetical types are offered in response to specific feedback types, a strategy known as the modal hypothesis strategy. When participants who had learned that strategy were shifted onto Mastermind games whose code format was different from, and easier than, that they had experienced, their use of the strategy was degraded despite their familiarity and experience in dealing with the specific feedback types occurring in the new code. The results suggest that the use of a domain-specific strategy is at least somewhat influenced by the match between the context in which the strategy has been acquired and the context in which it is being put to use.     

行为决策中承诺升级的作用机制

承诺升级是指面对负反馈信息时,人们仍然坚持之前的错误行为。除了主观期望效用理论、自我辩解理论、前景理论和心理账户理论等早期理论外,最新又提出了查询理论和基于叙述的决策理论,值得注意的是,同影响因素一样,它们都是从评估和目标(动力)两个角度对行为产生影响。未来研究应注意理论、方法多元化发展,从评估和目标角度入手研究承诺升级的干预机制,也应重视制度因素对承诺升级的影响等。     

The Attribution of Positive and Negative Qualities to Social Actions

This research reports on the manner in which extrinsic qualities are attributed to different forms of social action. Particular concern was given to the question of how such attribution of properties might be related to a person's desire to be involved in the action. Two findings seemed to be relatively clear. First, quite arbitrary qualities are attributed to various social actions with a high degree of consistency. Because these qualities cannot be considered intrinsic to the action, the consistent attribution of such qualities must come from some source other than the actions themselves. Second, of the several qualities examined, the most powerful attributed quality for purposes of social motivation appeared to be the general concept of display. Actions perceived as having a high degree of display potential for an actor were also actions that respondents were willing to commit themselves to or become involved in to a profound degree.     

The Limits of Reciprocity in Behavioral Marriage Therapy

This reexamination of the values underlying Behavioral Marriage Therapy (BMT) focuses on the central theoretical concept of reciprocity. It is suggested that BMT's emphasis on individuality and instrumental exchange may not be suitable for all couples. An alternative perspective, emphasizing a developmental progression in marriage reciprocity defined by mutual understanding, is seen to be more sensitive to the differing value systems of couples in therapy.     

Individual differences in the Behavioral Inhibition System are associated with orbitofrontal cortex and precuneus gray matter volume

The Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) is described in Gray's Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory as a hypothetical construct that mediates anxiety in animals and humans. The neuroanatomical correlates of this system are not fully clear, although they are known to involve the amygdala, the septohippocampal system, and the prefrontal cortex. Previous neuroimaging research has related individual differences in BIS with regional volume and functional variations in the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampal formation. The aim of the present work was to study BIS-related individual differences and their relationship with brain regional volume. BIS sensitivity was assessed through the BIS/BAS questionnaire in a sample of male participants (N = 114), and the scores were correlated with brain regional volume in a voxel-based morphometry analysis. The results show a negative correlation between the BIS and the volume of the right and medial orbitofrontal cortices and the precuneus. Our results and previous findings suggest that individual differences in anxiety-related personality traits and their related psychopathology may be associated with reduced brain volume in certain structures relating to emotional control (i.e., the orbitofrontal cortex) and self-consciousness (i.e., the precuneus), as shown by our results.     

The Influence of Approach and Avoidance Motor Actions on Creative Cognition

This study tested whether internal nonaffective processing cues independently influence two major varieties of creative cognition: insight problem solving and creative generation. In Experiments 1 and 2, bodily cues associated with positive or negative hedonic states were manipulated by means of arm flexor or extensor contraction, respectively, and the effects of these internal cues on creative insight and generation were observed. In line with our cognitive tuning approach, it was predicted that the “riskier,” more explorative processing style elicited by arm flexion, relative to the more risk-averse, perseverant processing style elicited by arm extension, would facilitate performance on both tasks. These predictions were strongly supported. In addition, Experiments 3 and 4 provided the first direct evidence that the effects of these internal processing cues on creativity are mediated by a memory search-based mechanism. Reported effects were independent of mood, task enjoyment, and the effortfulness of the motor actions.     

神经心理学手段及其在行为遗传学研究中的应用

神经心理学的检测手段包括神经心理学测验和仪器检查。行为遗传学是一门在多学科基础上发展形成的的交叉学科。近年来,应用神经心理学手段进行行为遗传学研究,已经取得了一些可喜的进展。     

The Effect of Interactivity on Learning Physical Actions in Virtual Reality

Virtual reality (VR) offers new possibilities for learning, specifically for training individuals to perform physical movements such as physical therapy and exercise. The current article examines two aspects of VR that uniquely contribute to media interactivity: the ability to capture and review physical behavior and the ability to see one's avatar rendered in real time from third person points of view. In two studies, we utilized a state-of-the-art, image-based tele-immersive system, capable of tracking and rendering many degrees of freedom of human motion in real time. In Experiment 1, participants learned better in VR than in a video learning condition according to self-report measures, and the cause of the advantage was seeing one's avatar stereoscopically in the third person. In Experiment 2, we added a virtual mirror in the learning environment to further leverage the ability to see oneself from novel angles in real time. Participants learned better in VR than in video according to objective performance measures. Implications for learning via interactive digital media are discussed.     

攻击型受欺儿童的社会行为与心理调节

本文通过对488名上海市小学四五六年级学生,采用同伴提名、教师评定、自我评定以及假设情境测验等方法,确定了攻击型受欺者,并考察了性别差异、社会行为特点、心理调节等方面。研究发现,在中国的文化背景下可以通过同伴提名的方法来确定攻击型受欺者,在性别上同样存在明显差异;攻击型受欺儿童明显具有同伴拒绝、缺乏自信心、有孤独感等社会行为特征;攻击型受欺者在社会认知上存在心理失调,表现在社会归因和应对风格上;同伴友谊是影响同伴受欺状况的重要因素。     

The Early Neuropsychological and Behavioral Characteristics of Frontotemporal Dementia

Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) represent a constellation of disorders that may be overlooked or misdiagnosed, despite being fairly common presenile neurodegenerative diseases. Although the cognitive disorder can be difficult to document, particularly early in the dementia course, neuropsychological evaluation can assist in the diagnosis. Neuropsychologists are in an excellent position to draw from related disciplines like personality theory and social psychology to better assess the types of changes that characterize the prodromal and early phases of the disease. This review summarizes the current state of the field in the diagnosis of FTLD and discusses the emerging role of neuropsychology in elucidating the brain organization of complex processes including empathy, behavioral control and inhibition, reward systems, appetitive behaviors, emotional regulation, and goal-orientation. As this review underscores, frontotemporal dementia remains a powerful model for studying brain–behavior relationships.