Communication of Information about Genetic Risks: Putting Families at the Center

Genetic information is a family affair. With the expansion of genomic technologies, many new causal genes and variants have been established and the potential for molecular diagnoses increased, with implications not only for patients but also their relatives. The need for genetic counseling and intrafamilial circulation of information on genetic risks grew accordingly. Also, the amount and, particularly, the complexity of the information to convey multiplied. Sharing information about genetic risks with family members, however, has never been an easy matter and often becomes a source of personal and familial conflicts and distress. Ethical requisites generally prevent healthcare professionals from directly contacting their consultands' relatives (affected or still at risk), who often feel unsupported throughout that process. We discuss here the communication of genetic risks to family members. We first consider genomic testing as a basis for family‐centered health care, as opposed to a predominant focus on the individual. We reviewed the literature on sharing genetic risk information with family members, and the associated ethical issues for professionals. Some clinical cases are presented and discussed, and key issues for meeting the needs of individuals and families are addressed. We argue that genetic information is inextricably linked to the family and that communicating about genetic risks is a process grounded within the broader milieu of family relationships and functioning. We conclude for the need for a more family‐centered approach and interventions that can promote sensitive attitudes to the provision of genetic information to and within the family, as well as its inclusion in educational and training programmes for genetic healthcare professionals.     

Dissociating controlled from automatic processing in temporal preparation

The aim of the present study was to investigate the controlled versus the automatic nature of temporal preparation. If temporal preparation involves controlled rather than automatic processing, it should be reduced by the addition of a concurrent demanding task. This hypothesis was tested by comparing participants' performance in a temporal preparation task that measured two main effects of temporal preparation (temporal orienting and sequential effects) between a single-task and a dual-task condition. In the single-task condition, participants responded to a visual target presented after symbolic cues that were highly predictive of the moment of target onset. In the dual-task condition, the temporal preparation task was performed concurrently with a working memory task. The results showed that sequential effects survived to dual-task interference, while temporal orienting was reduced as a function of the competition for executive resources required by both working memory and temporal preparation tasks. These findings provide direct behavioural evidence that temporal orienting and sequential effects involve dissociable cognitive processes.     

Effect of auditory isolation on activity-based anorexia

The objective was to study male and female rats exposed to Activity-Based Anorexia (ABA; simultaneous exposition to food restriction and free access to an activity wheel) under two conditions of sound attenuation, by means of different arrangements of wheels (standard versus isolation) in the laboratory room. Regardless of the sound attenuation condition, all but one male and one female with access to wheels had to be removed from the experiment, but extended ABA endurance was found in rats in the sound attenuation condition. Furthermore, significantly lower levels of running were observed in both males and females under the sound attenuation arrangement in the isolation condition. The results suggest that external stimulation plays a role in the activity displayed by rats exposed to ABA, and that the reduction of external stimulation diminishes running but does not protect rats from developing ABA.     

Spanish adaptation of a perceived Social Support Scale in sportspeople

Social support is a variable that has a great influence in the sport context. In fact, this variable not only affects the athlete's performance but it has also shown to be related to psychological disorders such as Burnout Syndrome. The aim of this paper was to illustrate the Spanish adaptation of a social support scale in the sport context. The normative group who took part in the final version of the research was composed of 397 athletes aged between 13 and 64 years old (mean= 19.23 and standard deviation= 6.67). The scale shows: adequate factorial and construct validity, acceptable fit indexes (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin= 0.785, Root Mean Square Residual= 0.078; Kelly's criterion= 0.075), a negative correlation with the dimensions of burnout and no relationship with respect to self-esteem. In addition, it also shows high reliability (a= 0.88). Furthermore, statistically significant differences have been found in relation to genders - where women require greater social support. In contrast, males tend to display a lower level of social support with team players and international athletes. Moreover, differential item functioning (DIF) was carried out to explore sex bias, however, none of the items exhibit DIF problems.     

Temperament and negative semantic priming in children 7 to 12 years old

The present research assessed whether children with high and low scores on temperament traits differed in their ability to inhibit irrelevant task information in a lexical decision task. Children from 7 to 12 years old were classified based on temperament dimensions measured using a version of the Temperament in Middle Childhood Questionnaire. The participants were instructed to either attend to (and remember) or to ignore a masked prime word followed by a central probe target on which they made a lexical decision. The results revealed several notable outcomes. First of all, recognition memory was better for attended than ignored words, providing further evidence that attention instructions influenced the processing of the primes.

Secondly, although no negative priming effect was obtained in the “ignore” condition, 43% of children showed this effect. Thirdly, children scoring high on Inhibitory Control and Impulsivity showed ignored negative priming, whereas children scoring high on Inhibitory Control and low on Impulsivity ignored facilitation. Data are discussed within the framework of negative priming as a complex phenomenon that involves the interaction of different factors such as age, type of task, and certain temperament traits.     

The real relationship between short-term memory and working memory

Storage-oriented memory span tasks with no explicit concurrent processing are usually referred as short-term memory (STM) tasks, whereas tasks involving storage plus concurrent processing requirements are designated as working memory (WM) tasks. The present study explores a question that remains unsolved: Do STM and WM tasks clearly tap distinguishable theoretical constructs? For that purpose, a large sample of 403 participants was tested through 12 diverse memory span tasks. Half of those tasks are widely accepted as measures of STM, whereas the other half measure WM. The results show that STM and WM share largely overlapping underlying capacity limitations, suggesting that all memory span tasks tap essentially the same construct. Some implications are discussed.     

Bodily Thought and the Corpse Problem

Abstract: A key consideration in favour of animalism—the thesis that persons like you and me are identical to the animals we walk around with—is that it avoids a too many thinkers problem that arises for non‐animalist positions. The problem is that it seems that any person‐constituting animal would itself be able to think, but if wherever there is a thinking person there is a thinking animal distinct from it then there are at least two thinkers wherever there is a thinking person. Most find this result unacceptable, and some think it provides an excellent reason for accepting animalism. It has been argued, however, that animalists face an analogous problem of too many thinkers, the so‐called corpse problem, as they must accept both 1) that we are distinct from our bodies, as our bodies can and we cannot persist through death as corpses and 2) that our bodies can think. I argue that the best reasons animalists have for accepting the two claims that generate the distinctness part of the problem double up as reasons to reject the claim that our bodies can think, and vice versa. I argue further that Lockeans cannot similarly get around their problem of too many thinkers.     

A meta‐mood model of rumination and depression: Preliminary test in a non‐clinical population

Depressive rumination and trait meta‐mood (emotional attention, emotional clarity and emotional repair) have been suggested as vulnerability factors leading to depression, but less is known about the associations among them. In this study, we examined the relationships between trait meta‐mood, rumination and depressive symptomatology. Using structural equation analysis in a large sample of a non‐clinical population we found a preliminary test of the role of trait meta‐mood dimensions in rumination and depressive symptomatology. Results indicated that attention to feelings has two pathways in its relation with rumination and depressive mood. On the one hand, emotional attention was associated with emotional clarity, and emotional clarity with emotional repair, which was related to lower depressive symptomatology, in part, by reducing rumination. On the other hand, emotional attention was directly associated with ruminative thoughts which, in turn, were related to higher depressive mood. Findings are discussed in terms of the implications of beliefs about emotions in the treatment of depression.     

Der verborgene Gott in der Theologie Werner Elerts

The re-formulation of conflicts, it has been claimed, is an important step towards reaching reconciliation in countries torn by conflicts. In this article I shall discuss reconciliation on the basis of my analysis of the nationalist theology of Sr. Pinochet and the alternative theological canons of people living in poverty in post-dictatorial Chile.1 1. Lene Sj?rup, Pinochets gud – og de fattiges teologiske modstand (K?benhavn: Museum Tusculanum, 2008); Lene Sj?rup, “Pinochets stedfortrædende lidelse og forsoning,” in Vendepunkter: Religion mellem konflikt og forsoning (ed. Lene Sj?rup; Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2007); Lene Sj?rup, ”Pinochet as protector of and martyr for Christianity in Chile,” Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 19/2 (2006), 43-55. Reconciliation in the classical theological sense, my analysis indicates, is in itself part of these canons and therefore also of national conflicts. Religion does, however, play a major global, national, local and individual role in conflict resolution. This, I argue, indicates that there is more to conflict resolution than different canons of reconciliation. Conflicts are perceived as not only rupturing horizontal relationships between humans, but also vertical relationships with the divine. Conflict resolution, therefore, also involves the reparation of this relation. This paper discusses, using Chile as an example, the theological importance of memory work, the redefinition of space, and ritual as a means of repairing horizontal, as well as vertical, relations.