Neuropattern: a new translational tool to detect and treat stress pathology I. Strategical consideration

Translational research is most prominently represented by the search for biomarkers and preclinical research. Aside from generating such new measures and methodologies, translational research additionally refers to translation of integrated knowledge. This strategy involves synthesis, exchange, and dissemination of available knowledge, with the goal of improving health services and health care systems. For stress-related disorders, such as depression and anxiety disorders, this strategy meets numerous challenges, as the great majority of these patients are treated by family physicians. Here, we introduce Neuropattern, a new diagnostic tool, which allows translation of psychobiological knowledge to this stress "bedside." Neuropatterns are conceptualized endophenotypes of the activity and reactivity status of neurobiological interfaces, which participate in the crosstalk between the brain and peripheral organs under stressful conditions. Neuropattern can easily be implemented in routine clinical work, and helps the physician to individualize those therapeutic interventions that are already available.     

Sketching while narrating as a tool to detect deceit

In none of the deception studies that used drawings to date, was the effect of sketching on both speech content and drawing content examined, making it unclear what the full potential is of the use of drawings as a lie detection tool. A total of 122 truth tellers and liars took part in the study who did or did not sketch while narrating their allegedly experienced event. We formulated hypotheses about the total amount of information and number of complications reported and about various features of the drawings. Participants in the Sketch-present condition provided more information than participants in the Sketch-absent condition, and truth tellers reported more details than liars, but only in the Sketch-present condition. In contrast to previous research, no Veracity differences occurred regarding the content of the drawings, perhaps because sketching was introduced as a tool that facilitated verbal recall and not as a stand-alone tool.     

The pathology of cellular anti-stress mechanisms: a new frontier

Exposure to stressors is an omnipresent variable for all living organisms, which have evolved anti-stress mechanisms to deal with the consequences of stress. The chaperoning systems are among these mechanisms, and their central components are the molecular chaperones that play important roles in protein biogenesis. Recent data suggest that failure of the chaperoning systems due to defective chaperones, for example, leads to pathology. Consequently, medical researchers and practitioners must now also consider the chaperoning systems, both as potentially major players in pathogenesis and as diagnostic-prognostic indicators.     

Lipid reactivity to stress: II. Biological and behavioral influences.

This study examined behavioral and physiological influences on lipid concentrations during acute and chronic stressors. One hundred men (n = 92) and women (n = 8) were tested during a chronic stressor and during 2 acute stressors. During chronic stress, diet, physical activity, exercise, and sleep were examined. During the acute stressors, catecholamines, cortisol, plasma volume, and cardiovascular responses were examined. None of the behavioral influences could explain the lipid response to chronic stress. Responses of the atherogenic lipids to acute stressors were not solely reflecting hemoconcentration of the plasma but were moderately correlated with cardiovascular, epinephrine, and cortisol reactivity. Diastolic blood pressure reactors to the acute stressors had larger lipid responses to the chronic stressor than did nonreactors. Elevations in blood lipids during stress are not artifacts and may be clinically significant.     

The family's conception of accountability and competence: a new approach to the conceptualization and assessment of family stress.

Clinicians and researchers have a strong interest in understanding how families respond to stress. Often, they begin their analyses by attempts to estimate the seriousness or magnitude of the stressful events impinging on the families they observe. Until now, they have relied on two strategies. First, they attempt to develop objective or external indicators of the magnitude of the stress of the events. The problem here is that the family's own perceptions and experiences are not properly weighted. The second strategy depends heavily or exclusively on the family's perceptions of the events. However, these perceptions are often a product of the family's efforts to cope with the stress since the organization and perception of meaning in events is a fundamental part of family coping. Thus, this approach cannot disentangle the stress inherent in the events from the family's efforts to cope with it. This article explores a third alternative. The social community in which the family lives often provides a coherent frame of meanings for most events. It not only defines the magnitude of the event but it also defines how accountable the family is for producing the event in the first place. A method for assessing these community frameworks is presented. Initial results suggest that there is not only a coherent community framework attributing magnitude and family accountability to a large number of stressful events impinging the family but, also, that these community attributions are embedded in a community concept of family development.     

The Dutch Identity: A new tool for the study of item response models

The Dutch Identity is a useful way to reexpress the basic equations of item response models that relate the manifest probabilities to the item response functions (IRFs) and the latent trait distribution. The identity may be exploited in several ways. For example: (a) to suggest how item response models behave for large numbers of items—they are approximate submodels of second-order loglinear models for 2 ^J tables; (b) to suggest new ways to assess the dimensionality of the latent trait—principle components analysis of matrices composed of second-order interactions from loglinear models; (c) to give insight into the structure of latent class models; and (d) to illuminate the problem of identifying the IRFs and the latent trait distribution from sample data.This research was supported in part by contract number N00014-87-K-0730 from the Cognitive Science Program of the Office of Naval Research. I realized the usefulness of the identity in Theorem 1 while lecturing in the Netherlands during October, 1986. Because this was in no small part due to the stimulating psychometric atmosphere there, I call the result the Dutch Identity.     

Adult's amae as a tool for adjustment to a new environment

Past research has found that people of East Asian backgrounds avoid seeking help out of relational concerns. Research on amae, however, suggests that Japanese may use amae to simultaneously obtain the needed help and enhance relationships. Study 1 showed that among Japanese entrepreneurs and managers, the propensity toward amae correlated with perceiving fewer costs of help‐seeking, seeking more help at work, greater engagement in new relationships and higher general trust. These associations suggest that the Japanese may be using amae to get the help they need and to build new relationships. Study 2 further showed that first‐year undergraduates who reported engaging in amae soon after entering college showed a significant increase in sense of purpose and satisfaction with college life in their first year. These findings suggest that, unlike dependency or passive love, amae can be highly adaptive for the Japanese.     

Fitness to drive following cerebral pathology: The Rookwood Driving Battery as a tool for predicting on‐road driving performance

The use of neuropsychological testing to determine fitness to drive in people with neuropathology is likely to be an increasingly attractive alternative to on‐road testing for many candidates for assessment. The Rookwood Driving Battery has been shown to have good predictive value for determining some who are likely to fail an on‐road test in early studies. This study replicated earlier research by examining the predictive value and theoretical validity of the battery on a larger sample of 391 participants, as well as extending earlier analysis by examining the effect of older age (over 70 years) and the interaction between age and pathology on battery and on‐road performance. The battery demonstrated good positive and negative predictive values for predicting on‐road performance. There were significant effects of older age on both the Rookwood Battery performance and the on‐road test, with older adults performing significantly poorer on both. There was no interaction between age and pathology on the Rookwood Battery but on‐road age interacted with some pathologies to produce significantly poorer performances. Furthermore, correlation and regression analysis indicate that the battery is a powerful instrument that encompasses tests of core neuropsychological functions needed for driving.     

Towards a new approach to detect sleepiness: Validation of the objective sleepiness scale under simulated driving conditions

The Objective Sleepiness Scale (OSS) was developed to detect and quantify sleepiness on the basis of two direct and reliable sleepiness indicators: EEG and EOG. The present study aims to test whether the OSS can be used to detect sleepiness episodes that impair performance on driving and vigilance tasks accurately and with a good time synchronization. Forty-three healthy volunteers performed monotonous driving sessions on a simulator and the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) in a normal sleep condition and after partial sleep deprivation. OSS reliability and time synchronization for sleepiness detection were tested on driving (standard deviation of vehicle lateral position and off-road duration) and PVT (reaction time and lapses). Inter-rater reliability of the scale was evaluated by two blinded scorers. Results show that the OSS score indicates higher sleepiness in sleep deprivation conditions (p < 0.001) and with time-on-task. Differences of performance between OSS score calculated with multiple pairwise comparisons, indicate OSS score increase when driving performance (SDLP and off-road duration) decreases (p < 0.001 for comparisons between OSS stages 0 vs 2, 0 vs 3, 1 vs 2 and p < 0.05 for 1 vs 3). Reaction time during PVT is also related to the OSS score (p < 0.05 for OSS values from 0 to 2, 0 to 3, 1 to 2 and 1 to 3). There is no proportional relation between OSS score and performance impairment, but a threshold effect between levels 1 and 2 of the scale is observed. Positive outcomes are also obtained for time synchronization of the OSS assessed on driving performance (p < 0.001 for both SDLP and off-road duration). Finally, inter-rater agreement is found to be considerable. The results allow us to consider using the Objective Sleepiness Scale as a tool for research on sleepiness.     

The contribution of loneliness and posttraumatic stress disorder to marital adjustment following war captivity: a longitudinal study

This prospective study examined the relative contribution of loneliness and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to marital adjustment among Israeli veterans of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Specifically, we examined the mediating role of loneliness as measured in 1991 in the association between PTSD as measured in 1991 and marital adjustment as measured in 2003. Our sample consisted of 225 participants divided into 2 groups: ex-prisoners of war (ex-POWs) (N = 122) and a comparison group comprised of veterans who fought in the same war but who had not experienced captivity (N = 103). The findings demonstrate that ex-POWs display lower levels of marital adjustment and higher levels of PTSD than controls. Loneliness was found to mediate the relationship between PTSD as measured in 1991 and marital adjustment as measured in 2003 for both ex-POWs and controls. Further, for ex-POWs, loneliness contributes to marital adjustment above and beyond the contribution of PTSD as measured in 2003. The theoretical implications of loneliness for the marital relationships of traumatized ex-POWs are discussed.     

心理与教育测验中异常反应侦查新技术：变点分析法

变点分析法(change point analysis, CPA)近些年才引入心理与教育测量学, 相较于传统方法, CPA不仅可以侦查异常作答被试, 还能自动精确地定位变点位置, 高效清洗作答数据。其原理在于：判断作答序列中是否存在可将该序列划分为具有不同统计学属性两部分的点(即变点), 并且需使用被试拟合统计量(person-fit statistic, PFS)来量化两个子序列之间的差异。未来可将单变点分析拓展至多变点, 结合反应时等信息, 构建非参数化指标以及将现有指标拓展至多级计分或多维测验, 以提高CPA的适用广度及效力。     

Prenatal maternal stress and prematurity: a prospective study of socioeconomically disadvantaged women.

Developed and tested a biopsychosocial model of birthweight and gestational age at delivery using structural equation modeling procedures. The model tested the effects of medical risk and prenatal stress on these indicators of prematurity after controlling for whether a woman had ever given birth (parity). Subjects were 130 women of low socioeconomic status interviewed throughout pregnancy in conjunction with prenatal care visits to a public clinic. The majority of women were Latino or African-American. Half were interviewed in Spanish. Lower birthweight was predicted by earlier delivery and by prenatal stress. Earlier delivery was predicted by medical risk and by prenatal stress. Parity was not related to time of delivery or to birthweight. Implications of results for the development of biopsychosocial research on pregnancy and on stress are discussed.     

The neuroendocrinology of posttraumatic stress disorder: new directions

Studies of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in persons with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have produced variable findings. This review focuses on the factors likely to have affected the outcome of these studies, including population characteristics and experimental design. Also discussed is a possible role for the adrenal neurosteroid dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) as a mediator of HPA axis adaptation to extreme stress and the psychiatric symptoms associated with PTSD. The antiglucocorticoid properties of DHEA may contribute to an upregulation of HPA axis responses as well as mitigate possible deleterious effects of high cortisol levels on the brain in some PTSD subpopulations. The neuromodulatory effects of DHEA and its metabolite DHEAS at gamma-aminobutyric acid and N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors in the brain may contribute to psychiatric symptoms associated with PTSD. The possible importance of other neurohormone systems in modulating HPA axis and symptom responses to traumatic stress is also discussed. Understanding the complex interactions of these stress-responsive neurosteroid and peptide systems may help explain the variability in patterns of HPA axis adaptation, brain changes, and psychiatric symptoms observed in PTSD and lead to better targeting of preventive and therapeutic interventions.