Cytokine-Purine Interactions in Behavioral Depression in Rats

This paper reviews recent findings from our laboratories concerning metabolic and immune mediators of behavioral depression in rats. Specifically, a single injection of 6 mg/kg of reserpine substantially increases behavioral depression, as evidenced by an increase in the amount of time spent floating by independent groups of rats tested for swim performance at various times during the next week. The behavioral impairment consists of two components. An early component emerges one hour after reserpine treatment and persists for about 24 hours. The deficit is not reversed by intracranial ventricular infusion of the receptor antagonist for interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta). A second, late-component deficit appears approximately 48 hours after reserpine treatment and recovers within a week. Late-component depression is reversed by central infusion of the IL-1beta receptor antagonist, and is mimicked by central infusion of the proinflammatory cytokine. Importantly, both early and late components of reserpine-induced depression and IL-1beta induced depression are reversed by a systemic injection of the highly selective A2A adenosine receptor antagonist 8-(3-Chlorostyryl) caffeine. These data are discussed in terms of the overlap in the conservation-withdrawal reaction during sickness, traumatic stress, and major depression and the regional contribution of purines and cytokines to the organization of this reaction in the brain.     

Cytokine-purine interactions in behavioral depression in rats

This paper reviews recent findings from our laboratories concerning metabolic and immune mediators of behavioral depression in rats. Specifically, a single injection of 6 mg/kg of reserpine substantially increases behavioral depression, as evidenced by an increase in the amount of time spent floating by independent groups of rats tested for swim performance at various times during the next week. The behavioral impairment consists of two components. An early component emerges one hour after reserpine treatment and persists for about 24 hours. The deficit is not reversed by intracranial ventricular infusion of the receptor antagonist for interleukin-1β (IL-1β). A second, late-component deficit appears approximately 48 hours after reserpine treatment and recovers within a week. Late-component depression is reversed by central infusion of the IL-1β receptor antagonist, and is mimicked by central infusion of the proinflammatory cytokine. Importantly, both early and late components of reserpine-induced depression and IL-1β induced depression are reversed by a systemic injection of the highly selective A_2A adenosine receptor antagonist 8-(3-Chlorostyryl) caffeine. These data are discussed in terms of the overlap in the conservation-withdrawal reaction during sickness, traumatic stress, and major depression and the regional contribution of purines and cytokines to the organization of this reaction in the brain.     

Deficits in early-stage face perception in excessive internet users

Excessive Internet use is associated with a limited ability to communicate effectively socially, which depends largely on the capacity for perception of the human face. We used a passive visual detection paradigm to compare the early stages of the processing of face-related information in young excessive Internet users (EIUs) and healthy normal subjects by analyzing event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by faces and by nonface stimuli (tables), each presented in the upright and inverted position. The P1 and N170 components of the spectrum of ERPs elicited at occipital-temporal sites by the viewing of faces were larger and peaked sooner than the same ERP components elicited by tables, and inverted faces significantly enhanced and delayed the N170 component. EIUs had a generally smaller P1 component than did normal subjects, whether elicited by faces or by tables, and the N170 effect, or difference in amplitude of the N170 component for faces versus tables, was significantly smaller in the EIUs than in normal subjects. However, the N170 inversion effect, or difference in amplitude of the N170 component elicited by upright versus inverted faces, was similar in the EIUs and normal subjects. These data indicate that EIUs have deficits in the early stage of face-perception processing but may have intact holistic/configural processing of faces. Whether some deeper processes of face perception, such as face memory and face identification, are affected in EIUs needs to be investigated further with more specific procedures.     

The role of position in object selection in vision

Summary Within contemporary visual-information-processing psychology, two classes of selective-attention theories can be distinguished: position-not-special theories and position-special theories. The position-not-special theories postulate that attentional selection by colour, by form, and by position are equivalent selective operations. The position-special theories assume that selection by position is more basic or direct than selection by colour or by form. Examples of both types of theory are briefly described, and irrelevant and relevant evidence is critically discussed. It is concluded that the relevant evidence is directly compatible with the position-special views and that the position-not-special theories require additional extraneous assumptions. The position-special model presented in Van der Heijden (1992) is elaborated in further detail. It is shown that this model is compatible with two important and often substantiated assumptions of the position-not-special theories: the assumption that pre-attentive analysers organize the visual scene in objects against a background, and the assumption that visual-selective attention can be directed at objects isolated in this way. This position-special theory is a parsimonious theory because it can identify the mentalistic conceptselective attention with the materialistic conceptspatial position.     

Reference in single sentences and in texts

This study investigated the comprehension and production of reference terms in both sentences (Experiments 1 and 2) and texts (Experiments 3 and 4) using a sentence completion task. In Experiments 1 and 2, the use of a sentence-level strategy (subject assignment) was investigated. In Experiments 3 and 4, the use of a text-level strategy (topic assignment) was also investigated. There was a clear preference for continuing the sentences by referring to the subjects of the sentences regardless of the availability of gender cues, in both single sentences and in texts. There was also an influence of the topic of each text on both the choice of referent and the type of reference term used. However, the choice of reference term was affected by the number of potential antecedents in the preceding text. Overall, the results suggest that the sentence subject is a salient item in working memory. This salience is increased if the sentence subject is also the textual topic. In addition, it appears that the presence of a pronoun in a text triggers a specific strategy to assign the pronoun to the (salient) sentence subject.This work is based on a doctoral dissertation submitted by R. A. Crawley to the University of Durham and supported by the Medical Research Council of Great Britain.     

Delusion and dreams in "Death in Venice". Thomas Mann's consequential reading of Freud in 1911

The author shows by means of literary comparisons that in "Death in Venice" and The Magic Mountain, Mann was strongly influenced by Freud's psychoanalysis, in particular by the latter's work "Delusion and dreams in W. Jensen's 'Gradiva'."     

Persistence in seminary and in ministry

A follow-up study of 672 seminary students from 14 seminaries who took the Theological School Inventory in 1962 and 574 from 10 seminaries who took it in 1973 investigated factors involved in persistence in seminary and in ministry. Among those found were definiteness of decision, interest in parish ministry, a supportive spouse, unambivalent resolution of the authority problem, good role models in father and ministers. Motivations included redemptive outreach, pastoral care, Christian insight and scholarship, the encouragement of other people and a sense of effectiveness in ministry.Dr. Cardwell is Assistant Professor of Psychology and Counseling at Christian Theological Seminary, 1000 W. 42nd St., Indianapolis, Indiana 46208. This study was the basis for her Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, June, 1978. TSI data for the 1973 subjects were made available by Richard A. Hunt, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, and Director of Ministry Inventories, P.O. Box 8265, Dallas, Texas 75205. TSI data for the 1962 subjects were coded and made available by Edgar W. Mills. Ph.D., presently visiting Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Texas, San Antonio, formerly Director, Ministry Studies Board. Special credit is due the 16 seminaries who cooperated by furnishing follow-up data.     

Conflicts of interest in science in Armenia

The author describes problems facing Armenia in reorganization of the structure of science in the post-socialist era with the aim of utilizing limited state resources more efficiently by reducing the number of separate scientific institutes, concentrating on essential core subjects required by the nation and encouraging all other projects to compete in the international arena for grant sponsorship. An earlier version of this paper was presented at an International Conference on “Conflict of Interest and its Significance in Science and Medicine” held in Warsaw, Poland on 5–6 April, 2002.     

Relation of career adaptability to meaning in life and connectedness among adolescents in Hong Kong

This study examined relationships among career adaptability, meaning in life, and connectedness in Hong Kong with Chinese male and female Grade 9 students (n = 543). The results indicated that presence of meaning in life positively predicted connectedness; and in the males career concern was predicted by presence of meaning in life. Also in males, career control was predicted both by presence and search for meaning in life, while career curiosity was predicted by connectedness to school, and by presence and search for meaning in life. Career confidence was predicted by connectedness to school, and presence and search of meaning in life. In the females, career concern was predicted by presence of meaning in life and connectedness to school, but negatively by connectedness to peers. Career control and career curiosity were predicted by presence and search for meaning in life. Career confidence was predicted by presence of meaning in life. Limitations of the study are identified; and implications for future research and guidance with Chinese adolescents in schools are discussed.     

Mirrors in the head: cultural variation in objective self-awareness

In a society where there are pronounced concerns for "face," people come to be especially focused on how they are being evaluated by others. We reasoned that Japanese should conceive of themselves in terms of how they think they are considered by others. This hypothesis was tested by contrasting Japanese and North American participants who were in front of a mirror with those who were not. In two studies, replicating past research, North Americans who were in front of a mirror were more self-critical and were less likely to cheat than were those who were not in front of a mirror. In contrast, Japanese participants were unaffected by the presence of the mirror.     

Deficits in set-shifting ability in nonclinical compulsive checkers

Recent studies suggest deficits in set-shifting ability in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) as measured by tasks such as the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST; Berg, 1948). The present study examined the extent to which these deficits were demonstrated by nonclinical subjects selected on the basis of their checking scores on the Maudsley Obsessional-Compulsive Inventory. A multivariate analysis revealed that frequent checkers performed significantly worse on the WCST than noncheckers, making more total errors and more perseverative errors and requiring more time to complete the test. A follow-up analysis on a subset of the original sample found similar performance deficits in checkers. While the poorer performance of checkers could be statistically accounted for by anxiety during the first administration of the WCST, anxiety could not explain the relationship between checking status and WCST performance at follow-up. Therefore, there does appear to be some relationship between checking status and WCST performance beyond what can be explained by affective variables.     

Sharing food with infants in Hadza communities in Tanzania

By analyzing mealtime interactions of Tanzanian Hadza infants with their interactional partners, we explored how two foundational schemas, namely giving/sharing and autonomy are realized and fostered in infants. We focused on three aspects of the mealtime interactions, namely how the infants’ share was protected, whether independent eating was fostered by the infants’ interactional partners, and how infants were encouraged to share food. To answer these questions, we also considered the settings that were created for infant eating, persons involved, and characteristics of the foods. Hadza infants (N = 24) between the ages of approximately 6 and 27 months were video recorded in mealtime situations. The videos were analyzed qualitatively and revealed the following patterns: First, infants’ shares were protected by eating meals in secluded places or providing infants with separate dishes. Second, independent eating was situational. It can be limited according to the child’s interest in the food or by the interactional partner. Some caregivers subtly enhanced independence by appearing unaware of infants’ signals. Third, sharing was encouraged and supported when it occurred spontaneously. Infants were also asked to share and occasionally tricked into sharing. Tolerated scrounging seemed to be generally accepted by both infants and caregivers. However, we also observed conflicts in competitive situations and somewhat overwhelmed infants. These results are discussed in light of hunter-gatherers’ foundational schemas and livelihood changes observed in the Hadza.     

Dissociation in self-narrative

We review different analytic approaches to narratives by those with psychopathological conditions, and we suggest that the interpretation of such narratives are complicated by a variety of phenomenological and hermeneutical considerations. We summarize an empirical study of narrative distance in narratives by non-pathological subjects, and discuss how the results can be interpreted in two different ways with regard to the issue of dissociation.     

Studies in social influence IV: Minority influence in a context of original judgments

This research was devoted to the studv of minoritv influence in a context of originality of judgments. It was stimulated by a consideration of the role pla-ved by the normative context in influence processes. In most research, this implicitlv underlies the phenomena studied. Thus, studies of social control have naturally appealed to the objectivity context. Innovation, in the social milieu in which it is involved, frequentlv implies an originality context. We hoped to study experimentally its effects on the process of social change. To this end, five experimental conditions were created, in which the originality norm was introduced in different ways – by experimental instructions, by influencing the perception of his own creativity by each individual and by using the time factor to encourage the fuller acceptance of this norm. In each condition, a consistent minority defended a deviant response in a colour perception task (the experimental paradigm used in our previous research using an objectivity context). The originality context affected the development of minority influence. Judgment based on perceptual evidence was abandoned to a significant degree, and new influence behaviours appeared. Individuals followed the minority or avoided the conflict by apparently original compromise responses. They were able to adopt several modes of response in the destructured way during the experiment, as they could oppose the minority by adopting a counter-norm. Although these reactions depended on the way in which the originality norm was introduced, theprimary role in this process was nevertheless played by the minority, which provided the pole of attraction and persuasion in the group.     

Categorization in infancy

Human infants display complex categoriztion abilities. Results from studies of visual preference, object examination, conditioned leg-kicking, sequential touching, and generalized imitation reveal different patterns of category formation, with different levels of exclusivity in the category representations formed by infants at different ages. We suggest that differences in levels of exclusivity reflect the degree to which the various tasks specify the relevant category distinction to be drawn by the infant. Performance in any given task might reflect prior learning or within-task learning, or both. The extent to which either form of learning is deployed could be determined by task context.     

Stress associated changes in Pavlovian-instrumental transfer in humans

Predictive learning is known to influence instrumental responding for reward. Cues associated with an instrumental outcome can influence performance in two ways: (a) by selectively promoting actions associated with the outcome predicted by the cue (specific transfer), and (b) by increasing motivation and the vigour of instrumental responding (general transfer). To examine these two distinct processes in humans we developed a novel behavioural task in which participants were able to liberate junk-food snacks from a virtual vending machine. Additionally, the relationship between stress and cue-driven reward seeking was examined using participant scores on the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS). Reward-paired cues were found to separately bias action selection and influence the rate of responding for rewards. Furthermore, the effects of reward-paired cues on the rate of responding for reward was influenced by increased stress and anxiety. Increased levels of stress and anxiety were associated particularly with changes in cue-driven response vigour; whereas high levels of stress and anxiety were associated with elevated responding above baseline in the presence of a cue associated with a non-rewarding outcome, participants with low levels of anxiety and stress showed appropriate suppression of responding during this cue. These differences in performance between high and low anxiety and stress participants provides initial evidence that, as has been demonstrated in rodents, stress affects the influence of cue-driven response vigour in humans.     

Ritual in Western Medicine and Its Role in Placebo Healing

Ritual has long been thought to play an important role in the healing processes used by ancient and non-Western healers. In this paper, I suggest that practitioners of Western medicine also interact with patients in a highly ritualized manner. Medical rituals, like religious rituals, serve to alter the meaning of an experience by naming and circumscribing unknown elements of that experience and by enabling patients' belief in a treatment and their expectancy of healing from that treatment. These are all critical elements necessary to mobilize the potent placebo effects reported elsewhere to result from doctor-patient interactions.     

An experiment in social engineering in serving the families of predelinquents

One hundred and two predelinquent adolescents were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: an experimental condition in which behavioral contracting services were offered both at home and in school or a control condition in which clients were told that they could not be accommodated by project therapists and were informed about the possibility of their receiving treatment in other programs in the community. Most of those who were assigned to the control condition did not avail themselves of services in these other programs. Results indicate that, relative to the controls, the behaviorally treated youth scored small but statistically significant improvement relative to the controls on five measures: ratings of school behavior by the person who originally referred them for service, by their teachers, by their mothers, and by their fathers, and ratings of their parent—child interactions as measured by their mothers. Gains were also reported in mothers' ratings of their children's behavior at home. The failure of significant gains to be made in two measures of school performance grades and attendance is explained by the failure o f the treatment techniques to over-come an age-related deterioration in these areas found among most children in the participating schools. The failure of fathers to find significant improvement in their relationships with the referred adolescents is viewed as a consequence of unanticipated changes in the intrafamilial balance of power resulting from contracting services. Finally, a subsidiary analysis showed that the contracting service appeared to offer the greatest gain to the demographically defined sub-groups of youths who are among the population-at-risk in many juvenile courts.This study was supported by Grant R01-MH21452 from the Center for Studies of Crime and Delinquency, National Institute of Mental Health. The authors wish to thank L. Nilles, who served as general administrator of this project, and C. Faller, S. Iman, P. Ippel, L. Lott, J. Marsh, C. Stephenson, J. Tanter, D. Virtue, and R. Welter, who served as therapists.     

Symmetry in haptic and in visual shape perception

Four experiments tested the hypothesis that bilateral symmetry is an incidental encoding property in vision, but can also be elicited as an incidental effect in touch, provided that sufficient spatial reference information is available initially for haptic inputs to be organized spatially. Experiment 1 showed that symmetry facilitated processing in vision, even though the task required judgments of stimulus closure rather than the detection of symmetry. The same task and stimuli failed to show symmetry effects in tactual scanning by one finger (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 found facilitating effects for vertically symmetric open stimuli, although not for closed patterns, in two-forefinger exploration when the fore-fingers had previously been aligned to the body midaxis to provide body-centered spatial reference. The one-finger exploration condition again failed to show symmetry effects. Experiment 4 replicated the facilitating effects of symmetry for open symmetric shapes in tactual exploration by the two (previously aligned) forefingers. Closed shapes again showed no effect. Spatial-reference information, finger movements, and stimulus factors in shape perception by touch are discussed.     

Variations in unconditioned stimulus processing in unblocking

Three experiments examined the mechanisms by which downward shifts in reinforcer value influence learning in appetitive unblocking procedures. The downward shift was accomplished by omitting the 2nd of a 2-reinforcer sequence (food-food or food-sucrose). Performance of normal rats was compared with that of rats with lesions of the central nucleus of the amygdala, which are thought to interfere with surprise-induced enhancements of event processing. The results suggested that, in normal rats, omission of the 2nd reinforcer enhanced processing of the 1st reinforcer rather than processing of the conditioned stimuli and that lesions of the central nucleus eliminated this enhancement. The roles of reinforcement error signals in conditioning are discussed.