Home advantage in Turkish professional soccer

Home advantage is known to play an important role in the outcome of professional soccer games and to vary considerably worldwide. In the Turkish Super League over the last 12 years, 61.5% of the total points gained have been won by the home team, a figure similar to the worldwide average and to the Premier League in England. It is lower (57.7%) for games played between teams from Istanbul and especially high for games involving teams from cities in the more remote and ethnically distinct parts of Turkey (Van and Diyarbakir). Match performance data show that although home teams in Turkey take 26% more shots at goal than away teams, the success rates for shots do not differ. For fouls and disciplinary cards, home and away teams do not differ significantly in Turkey, a finding that differs from games in England, perhaps due to less referee bias.     

Body Dissatisfaction in Adolescent Boys and Girls: Objectified Body Consciousness, Internalization of the Media Body Ideal and Perceived Pressure from Media

The aim of the present study was to examine a theoretical model describing the relationships between body shame and body surveillance (components of objectified body consciousness), internalization of the media body ideal, perceived pressure from media, body mass index and body dissatisfaction in Swiss adolescent boys and girls. A sample of 819 boys and 791 girls aged 14–16 years completed self-report measures of the mentioned concepts. As expected, girls had higher body shame and body surveillance than boys. Structural equation modelling supported the proposed model in both boys and girls. The findings suggest processes that may contribute to body dissatisfaction.     

The intensity of recent and distant life regrets: an integrated model and a large scale survey

The research considers three predictors of the intensity of life regrets: (a) whether the regretted behaviour is an action or a failure to act, (b) the severity of its consequences and (c) the extent to which the behaviour was justified. It is hypothesised that the intensity of recent and distant regrets will be predicted by different combinations of these predictors. Regression analyses on regrets reported by 957 French adults support this hypothesis. The intensity of recent regrets is predicted by the consequences of the behaviour, and especially so for actions. The intensity of distant regrets is predicted by the consequences of the behaviour and by its justification, the effect of justification being stronger for actions than for inactions. These results are discussed in relation to both laboratory and field studies of regret. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gender and education impact on brain aging: a general cognitive factor approach

In cognitive aging research, the study of a general cognitive factor has been shown to have a substantial explanatory power over the study of isolated tests. The authors aimed at differentiating the impact of gender and education on global cognitive change with age from their differential impact on 4 psychometric tests using a new latent process approach, which intermediates between a single-factor longitudinal model for sum scores and an item-response theory approach for longitudinal data. The analysis was conducted on a sample of 2,228 subjects from PAQUID, a population-based cohort of older adults followed for 13 years with repeated measures of cognition. Adjusted for vascular factors, the analysis confirmed that women performed better in tests involving verbal components, while men performed better in tests involving visuospatial skills. In addition, the model suggested that women had a slightly steeper global cognitive decline with oldest age than men, even after excluding incident dementia or death. Subjects with higher education exhibited a better mean score for the 4 tests, but this difference tended to attenuate with age for tests involving a speed component.     

Neonatal ventral hippocampus lesions disrupt extra-dimensional shift and alter dendritic spine density in the medial prefrontal cortex of juvenile rats

Recent data showed that neonatal ventral hippocampus (VH) lesions, an approach used to model schizophrenia symptoms in rodents, produce premature deficits of working memory believed to be associated with early medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) maldevelopment. This experiment expands the investigation of mPFC integrity in juvenile rats with neonatal VH lesions by assessing behavioral flexibility and dendritic spine density. Sixteen Sprague-Dawley male pups received bilateral microinjections of ibotenic acid in the VH or SHAM surgery on postnatal day (PND) 6. On PND 29 and 30, rats were subjected to a spatial shift task in a cross-maze; an attentional set-shifting task was then administered on two consecutive days, between PND 33 and PND 35. Rats were sacrificed at PND 36 and dendritic spine density in the mPFC was assessed using Golgi-Cox staining procedure. Results revealed impaired extra-dimensional shift in VH-lesioned rats and inconsistent reversal discrimination outcomes. Although lesioned animals displayed intact performance in the spatial shift, rates of perseverative responses were higher than normal in this task. Neonatal VH damage resulted in lower dendritic spine density in the mPFC than measured in control brains; however, no significant correlation was found between this outcome and behavioral data. Juvenile morphological and cognitive perturbations are consistent with the early emergence of mPFC anomalies following neonatal VH lesions. Results are discussed in relation with potential common mechanisms linking pre- and post-pubertal onsets of behavioral dysfunction.     

To Watch is to Work: a Review of NeuroImaging Data on Tool Use Observation Network

Neuropsychology Review - Since the discovery of mirror neurons in the 1990s, many neuroimaging studies have tackled the issue of action observation with the aim of unravelling a putative homolog...     

The diagnostic role of serum inflammatory and soluble proteins on dementia subtypes: correlation with cognitive and functional decline

In the past years, the possible involvement of inflammation in the pathogenesis of dementia has been the subject of several investigations. However there are restricted data about the profile of the inflammatory and soluble proteins in well evaluated Alzheimer's disease (AD), vascular dementia (VD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and healthy controls. There are also no reliable data regarding the relationship between the overlapping protein levels and cognitive or functional decline. We measured levels of IL-1beta, IL-2, IL-6, IL-18, TNF-alpha, beta-Amlyloid 1-40 and alpha1-antichymotrypsin levels in plasma in groups of total 82 subjects with AD, MCI, VD and controls using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) method. Our study samples showed high levels of proinflammatory cytokine levels (especially IL-18) in all patient groups but only high levels of alpha1-antichymotrypsine in VD patients compared to controls. There is no significant correlation between the laboratory and clinical variables except for a link between IL-1beta and NPI scores of AD. In conclusion, this study yielded evidence of some shared mechanisms underlying AD and VD and thus motivates further studies of inflammatory markers in various types of dementia and MCI.     

Links between parental psychological violence, other family disturbances, and children's adjustment

In a sample of 143 parent-child dyads from two-parent and separated families, this investigation documented the links between parental psychological violence and separation or divorce, severity of parental conflict, triangulation of the child in this conflict, and polarized parent-child alliances. The unique and combined contributions of all these variables to children's behavior problems were also assessed. Participants were parents, mostly mothers, and their 10-12-year-old child. They were recruited through schools, community organizations, and newspapers. Questionnaires were administered at home. Findings suggest that separated families undergo more relational disturbances than two-parent families (more severe conflicts, more triangulation, stronger parent-child alliances), but the amount of parental psychological violence was similar in both groups. Psychological violence was associated with the severity of parental conflict, especially in two-parent families. Triangulation of the child in parental conflict was another correlate of psychological violence. Once all variables were controlled for, psychological violence remained the only significant correlate of children's externalized behavior problems. These findings raise the importance of preventing psychological violence toward children, especially in families plagued with severe parental conflicts.     

Semantic interference on a phonological task in illiterate subjects

Previous research suggests that learning an alphabetic written language influences aspects of the auditory-verbal language system. In this study, we examined whether literacy influences the notion of words as phonological units independent of lexical semantics in literate and illiterate subjects. Subjects had to decide which item in a word- or pseudoword pair was phonologically longest. By manipulating the relationship between referent size and phonological length in three word conditions (congruent, neutral, and incongruent) we could examine to what extent subjects focused on form rather than meaning of the stimulus material. Moreover, the pseudoword condition allowed us to examine global phonological awareness independent of lexical semantics. The results showed that literate performed significantly better than illiterate subjects in the neutral and incongruent word conditions as well as in the pseudoword condition. The illiterate group performed least well in the incongruent condition and significantly better in the pseudoword condition compared to the neutral and incongruent word conditions and suggest that performance on phonological word length comparisons is dependent on literacy. In addition, the results show that the illiterate participants are able to perceive and process phonological length, albeit less well than the literate subjects, when no semantic interference is present. In conclusion, the present results confirm and extend the finding that illiterate subjects are biased towards semantic-conceptual-pragmatic types of cognitive processing.     

Contributions of the dorsal hippocampus and the dorsal subiculum to processing of idiothetic information and spatial memory

It is well established that the dorsal hippocampal formation is crucial for spatial memory in rats. However, little is known about the distinct functions of the dorsal hippocampus and the dorsal subiculum. To examine the role of the dorsal hippocampus and the dorsal subiculum, Long-Evans rats with excitotoxic lesions (NMDA) of the dorsal hippocampus (DH), the dorsal subiculum (DS), or both (DHDS), and controls were trained on a nonmatching-to-place task. Then, to identify the strategy used by each group, they were tested on the same task in the dark with the T-maze being rotated between the sample and the test runs. In the light, rats with combined lesions were impaired. In the dark, groups DH, DS, and controls performed near chance level except in trials without rotation, suggesting the use of a sense of direction. The same rats were trained on a radial-arm maze task. In the light, where proximal visual cues were accessible, combined lesions affected performance whereas in the dark, it was impaired by all lesions. This experiment demonstrated that the dorsal subiculum and the dorsal hippocampus play a crucial role in processing idiothetic information and/or in maintenance of this information in memory.