Rehabilitation of executive deficits in closed head injury and anterior communicating artery aneurysm patients

This paper reports a study that was aimed to rehabilitate executive functions in closed head injury (CHI) and anterior communicating artery (ACoA) aneurysm patients. The groups tested comprised 10 CHI patients, 9 ACoA aneurysm patients and 19 controls. We employed a dual-task paradigm that is known to tap the ability to co-ordinate two actions. The treatment consisted of five experimental sessions, in which the dual-task paradigm was used. In the CHI study, the dual-task cost was measured before the treatment (assessment), immediately after the treatment (retest), and 3 months after the treatment (follow-up). In the ACoA aneurysm study, the dual-task cost was also assessed 12 months after the treatment. A significant reduction of the dual-task cost from assessment to retest was found. This reduction remained stable in the follow-up sessions. The results are discussed with reference to the absence of spontaneous recovery of this specific executive function and to the possibility that the beneficial effect of the treatment generalises to other executive functions and/or daily living activities. Received: 31 March 1999 / Accepted: 23 July 1999     

Social communication about unpalatable foods in tamarins (Saguinus oedipus)

Many monkeys show social facilitation in sampling novel, palatable foods but not in avoiding unpalatable foods. Cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) socially learned to avoid a preferred food when it was made unpalatable but showed no aversion toward a food not made unpalatable. Only 33% sampled unpalatable tuna, and few sampled it again. In 3 of 8 groups, the socially induced aversion was long lasting, at least 15 weeks after food was made palatable again. Potential cues include facial reactions of disgust, alarm-call vocalizations, and reduction in food-associated calls. Behavioral coordination in cooperative infant care, communication about food, and well-established social relationships may explain social avoidance of unpalatable foods in tamarins and the absence of social avoidance in less cooperative species.     

A test of the effect of reverse speech on priming

J. R. Vokey and J. D. Read (1985) indicated that listeners cannot consciously recognize backward messages but that some information can be obtained from reversed speech. If reverse speech has a powerful influence on language processing, as D. J. Oates (1991) has claimed, then one should be able to measure a reliable priming effect from reversed messages. Sixty undergraduate students listened to short messages presented either backward or forward. Immediately after listening to each message, they responded in a lexical decision task to a visually presented word that had either been present or had not been present in the preceding message. No priming effect was found for backward messages, although there was significant priming for forward messages. The results are not consistent with an effect of reverse speech on word processing.     

Testosterone as a social inhibitor: two case studies of the effect of testosterone treatment on language

This study aimed to correlate testosterone levels with natural written language in 2 people undergoing testosterone therapy. Two participants, a man receiving treatment for loss of upper-body strength and a female-to-male transgendered individual, supplied records of injections over 1-2 years along with e-mails or journal entries as writing samples. Results showed that higher testosterone levels correlated with reduced use of words related to social connections. Language relating to anger, sexuality, and achievement was unrelated to testosterone levels. It appears that testosterone steers attention away from social connections but not necessarily toward concerns with aggression or sexual activity.     

Connecting the Dots through a Case Report: A Child’s Unmet Needs,Neuropsychological Impairment and Entrance into the Juvenile Justice System

ABSTRACT

Adolescent involvement in the criminal and juvenile justice systems has received widespread attention at national, state, and local levels. Developmental neuroscience has shaped our understanding of adolescence as a distinct period during which young people are at increased risk for a host of problems, especially entrance into the criminal and juvenile justice systems. Overrepresentation of Black and Latino youth, particularly those with disabilities, remains of significant concern. This case study explores the case of a 13-year-old boy, Trey (a fictional name), and his path into the school-to-prison pipeline. The roles of neighborhood, family poverty, parental health, trauma, chronic stress, and attendance to underserved schools are outlined. These factors are connected to Trey’s special needs like trauma, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and learning difficulties/disabilities going undiagnosed and untreated within the context of the neurobiological immaturity of adolescence. The extent to which these factors converged to result in neuropsychological impairment is explored. This case analysis focuses attention on implications for research, policy and practice in preventing youth in underserved communities from entering the criminal and juvenile justice systems.     

Kantian Constructivism and the Moral Problem

According to the standard objection, Kantian constructivism implicitly commits to value realism or fails to warrant objective validity of normative propositions. This paper argues that this objection gains some force from the special case of moral obligations. The case largely rests on the assumption that the moral domain is an eminent domain of special objects. But for constructivism there is no moral domain of objects prior to and independently of reasoning. The argument attempts to make some progress in the debate by defending a robust conception of construction, which names a distinctive view of practical reasoning as transformative.     

Distress Tolerance and Social Support in Adolescence: Predicting Risk for Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms Following a Natural Disaster

The purpose of the multi-measure, multi-wave, longitudinal study was to examine the interactive relation between behavioral distress tolerance (DT) and perceived social support (PSS) in 352 tornado-exposed adolescents aged 12–17 years (M = 14.44; SD = 1.74). At baseline, adolescents completed a computer-based task for DT, and self-report measures of PSS, depressed mood, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance use, and interpersonal conflict. Symptoms also were assessed 4 and 12 months after baseline. Findings showed that lower levels of DT together with lower levels of PSS conferred risk for elevated symptoms of prospective depression (t(262) = ?2.04, p = .04; r_{effect size} = 0.13) and PTSD (t(195) = ?2.08, p = .04; r_{effect size} = 0.15) following a tornado. However, only PSS was significant in substance use t(139) = 2.20, p = .03; r_{effect size=}0.18) and conflict (t(138) = ?4.05, p < .0001; r_{effect size=}0.33) in our sample. Implications regarding adolescent DT, the transdiagnostic nature of PSS, and the clinical applications of our findings in the aftermath of a natural disaster are discussed.     

Distinct neuronal patterns of positive and negative moral processing in psychopathy

Psychopathy is a disorder characterized by severe and frequent moral violations in multiple domains of life. Numerous studies have shown psychopathy-related limbic brain abnormalities during moral processing; however, these studies only examined negatively valenced moral stimuli. Here, we aimed to replicate prior psychopathy research on negative moral judgments and to extend this work by examining psychopathy-related abnormalities in the processing of controversial moral stimuli and positive moral processing. Incarcerated adult males (N = 245) completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging protocol on a mobile imaging system stationed at the prison. Psychopathy was assessed using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R). Participants were then shown words describing three types of moral stimuli: wrong (e.g., stealing), not wrong (e.g., charity), and controversial (e.g., euthanasia). Participants rated each stimulus as either wrong or not wrong. PCL-R total scores were correlated with not wrong behavioral responses to wrong moral stimuli, and were inversely related to hemodynamic activity in the anterior cingulate cortex in the contrast of wrong > not wrong. In the controversial > noncontroversial comparison, psychopathy was inversely associated with activity in the temporal parietal junction and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. These results indicate that psychopathy-related abnormalities are observed during the processing of complex, negative, and positive moral stimuli.