Initial relaxation response: contrasts between clinical patients and normal volunteers

The effectiveness of EMG biofeedback, progressive muscle relaxation, autogenic training, and self-relaxation were compared using a within-subjects design. Thirteen clinical subjects and 48 normal volunteers participated in 4 counterbalanced relaxation sessions using one of the techniques. Frontalis EMG and surface skin temperature were monitored throughout the sessions. For reducing EMG, biofeedback was more effective than the other three techniques. A significant interaction of treatment X subjects was found for changes in skin temperature. Clinical subjects had the greatest increase in skin temperature with EMG biofeedback and analog subjects responded best to self-relaxation. There were no significant differences in initial measures of EMG or skin temperature for the two samples.     

Language representation in the human brain: evidence from cortical mapping

The manner in which the human brain processes grammatical-syntactic and lexical-semantic functions has been extensively debated in neurolinguistics. The discreteness and selectivity of the representation of syntactic-morphological properties in the dominant frontal cortex and the representation of the lexical-semantics in the temporo-parietal cortex have been questioned. Three right-handed adult male neurosurgical patients undergoing left craniotomy for intractable seizures were evaluated using various grammatical and semantic tasks during cortical mapping. The sampling of language tasks consisted of trials with stimulation (experimental) and without stimulation (control) from sites in the dominant fronto-temporo-parietal cortex The sampling of language implicated a larger cortical area devoted to language (syntactic-morphological and lexical-semantic) tasks. Further, a large part of the fronto-parieto-temporal cortex was involved with syntactic-morphological functions. However, only the parieto-temporal sites were implicated with the ordering of lexicon in sentence construction. These observations suggest that the representation of language in the human brain may be columnar or multilayered.     

Body Mass Index Is an Important Predictor for Suicide: Results from a Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis

Public health concerns for the independent management of obesity and suicidal behavior are rising. Emerging evidence suggests body weight plays an important role in quantifying the risk of suicide. In light of these findings, we aimed to clarify the association between body mass index (BMI) and suicidal behavior by systematically reviewing and evaluating the literature. Studies were identified by searching MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and CINAHL from inception to January 2015, supplemented by hand and grey literature searches. Study screening, data extraction, and risk of bias assessment were conducted in duplicate. We included 38 observational studies. Meta‐analyses supported an inverse association between BMI and completed suicide. Pooled summary estimates demonstrated that underweight was significantly associated with an increased risk of completed suicide (HR = 1.21, 95% CI 1.07 to 1.36, p = .002), and obesity (HR = 0.71, 95% CI 0.56 to 0.89, p = .003) and overweight (HR = 0.78, 95% CI 0.75 to 0.82, p < .0001) were significantly associated with a decreased risk of completed suicide relative to normal weight. A qualitative summary of the literature demonstrated conflicting evidence regarding the association between BMI and attempted suicide and revealed no association between BMI and suicidal ideation. BMI may be used to aid the assessment of suicide risk, especially that of completed suicide. However, unmeasured confounders and systematic biases of individual studies limit the quality of evidence.