Post-training administration of corticosterone enhances consolidation of contextual fear memory and hippocampal long-term potentiation in rats

This study was designed to examine the effect of corticosterone on consolidation of contextual fear memory and hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP) in rats. In Experiment 1, dose–response effects of corticosterone on consolidation of contextual fear memory were determined. Immediately after training in contextual fear conditioning task, rats received different doses of corticosterone. Testing 24 h later, it revealed that corticosterone enhanced memory consolidation in an inverted U shape as evidenced in increased freezing behavior of corticosterone-treated animals. The most effective dose was 3 mg/kg. In Experiment 2, LTP was examined in rats whose memory consolidation has been enhanced with corticosterone. The rats were trained as the above and received corticosterone (3 mg/kg) immediately after training. Immediately or up to one day after retention test, rats were anesthetized with urethane for LTP experiments. For LTP induction, three episodes of high frequency stimuli, 30 s apart, were delivered to the perforant path, each consisting of 10 stimuli at 250 Hz. LTP was assessed by measuring the increase in the initial slope of the population excitatory post-synaptic potentials and the amplitude of the population spikes. Data indicated that animals whose memory has been enhanced by corticosterone, also displayed enhanced hippocampal LTP. The above findings suggest that glucocorticoids may enhance contextual fear memory consolidation via enhancing hippocampal LTP.     

How Scientific Is Scientific Essentialism?

Scientific essentialism holds that: (1) each scientific kind is associated with the same set of properties in every possible world; and (2) every individual member of a scientific kind belongs to that kind in every possible world in which it exists. Recently, Ellis (Scientific essentialism, 2001; The philosophy of nature 2002) has provided the most sustained defense of scientific essentialism, though he does not clearly distinguish these two claims. In this paper, I argue that both claims face a number of formidable difficulties. The necessities of scientific essentialism are not adequately distinguished from semantic necessities, they have not been shown to be necessities in the strictest sense, they must be relativized to context, and they must either be confined to a subset of scientific properties without warrant or their connection to causal powers must be revoked. Moreover, upon closer examination (1) turns out to be a trivial thesis that can be satisfied by non-kinds, and (2) is inapplicable to some of the most fundamental kinds in the basic sciences.     

Empathy deficits and trait emotional intelligence in psychopathy and Machiavellianism

This study investigated the relationships between psychopathy (primary and secondary), Machiavellianism, trait emotional intelligence and empathy, using an image task that required an appropriate empathic response to the emotional displays of others (happy, sad and neutral). Results indicated that primary psychopathy and Machiavellianism were positively associated with the experience of positive affect from sad stimuli, while secondary psychopathy and Machiavellianism were positively associated with the experience of negative affect in response to neutral stimuli, and the opposite pattern was found for trait emotional intelligence. Regressional analyses demonstrated that secondary psychopathy, Machiavellianism, trait emotional intelligence and state anxiety are important predictors when stimuli are ambiguous.     

Religion,Ethnicity, Culture,Way of Life: Jews,Muslims, and Multicultural Counseling

Jews and Muslims represent 2 unique cultural groups that have been relatively under‐examined by multicultural counseling scholars. In this article, the authors review the recent literature on Jews and Muslims, synthesize and discuss the commonalities across these 2 groups, provide some recommendations for counseling members of these populations, and offer suggestions for future research.     

Trust and trustworthiness in a sequential bargaining game

We use a two‐person extensive form bargaining game to explore individuals' trusting and reciprocal behavior and how those relate to their scores on a trust survey. In keeping with prior research, we find that the ‘self‐interested’ outcome is rejected by a majority of individuals. People who score high on the trust survey are both trusting and are also trustworthy, in that they reciprocate others' trust. But people with low‐trust scores often exhibit trust but are not trustworthy. These ‘inconsistent trusters’ seem to be interested in exploiting the trust and trustworthiness of others in increasing their own payoff. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Drivers' knowledge, attitudes, and behavior: a cross-sectional study

A cross-sectional survey was conducted by random duster sampling in the city of Tehran. Knowledge of the drivers was assessed with 6 questions about national traffic laws. Attitude was assessed on a 7-item scale of drivers' perceptions. Behavior was observed by a police officer on 13 areas of assessment. Correlations were low among these three scores. Drivers with advanced education had higher scores on behavior. Knowledge, attitude, and behavior of these drivers did not seem associated.     

Activation and integration of motor components in a short-term priming paradigm

The aim of the present research was to study the processes involved in knowledge emergence. In a short-term priming paradigm, participants had to categorize pictures of objects as either "kitchen objects" or "do-it-yourself tools". The primes and targets represented objects belonging to either the same semantic category or different categories (object category similarity), and their use involved gestures that were either similar or very different (gesture similarity). The condition with a SOA of 100ms revealed additive effects of motor similarity and object category similarity, whereas another condition with a SOA of 300ms showed an interaction between motor and category similarity. These results were interpreted in terms of the activation and integration processes involved in the emergence of mental representations.     

A note on monotone likelihood ratio of the total score variable in unidimensional item response theory

This note provides a direct, elementary proof of the fundamental result on monotone likelihood ratio of the total score variable in unidimensional item response theory (IRT). This result is very important for practical measurement in IRT, because it justifies the use of the total score variable to order participants on the latent trait. The proof relies on a basic inequality for elementary symmetric functions which is proved by means of few purely algebraic, straightforward transformations. In particular, flaws in a proof of this result by Huynh [(1994) . A new proof for monotone likelihood ratio for the sum of independent Bernoulli random variables. Psychometrika, 59, 77–79] are pointed out and corrected, and a natural generalization of the fundamental result to non‐linear (quasi‐ordered) latent trait spaces is presented. This may be useful for multidimensional IRT or knowledge space theory, in which the latent ‘ability’ spaces are partially ordered with respect to, for instance, coordinate‐wise vector‐ordering or set‐inclusion, respectively.     

A qualitative investigation of Muslim and Christian women's views of religion and feminism in their lives

This qualitative investigation explored a relatively understudied aspect of cultural diversity: feminism and religion in the lives of religiously diverse women. More specifically, structured interviews were used to investigate views of religion, women's issues, gender roles, culture, and feminism for a small group of Muslim and Christian women living in the United States. The data were analyzed using consensual qualitative research methods (Hill, Thompson, & Williams, 1997). Findings indicated a complex relationship between feminism, gender roles, culture, and religion for these women with the majority of the Muslim women reporting that their religion supports feminist principles and identifying themselves as feminist. Christian women were less willing to endorse the feminist label. Implications for multicultural feminist practice are discussed.     

The use of behavioral skills training to improve staff performance of discrete trial training

Well‐trained staff are a prerequisite for successful implementation of treatment plans when working in human service contexts. The high rate of turnover makes the use of efficient and effective staff training all the more important. Previous research has used behavioral skills training to train teachers in correct implementation of discrete trial training of children with autism. They showed that a brief 10‐min procedure could effectively train staff and result in improved performance. The current study elaborated on previous work by using participants without prior exposure to the method, including treatment integrity data and testing for maintenance 1 month after training ended. The mean percentage of correct teaching responses for the three participants increased from 70%, 58%, and 66% during baseline to 97%, 96%, and 99%, respectively, following training. Results indicated that the training package was effective and the results were maintained 30 days later.