CATECHIZING THE HEAD AND THE HEART: AN INTEGRATED MODEL FOR CONFIRMATION MINISTRY

In catechesis for adolescents seeking confirmation in the Roman Catholic Church, a dualistic bias unconsciously dichotomizes objective doctrine and subjective psychology. This is problematic because if a catechist does not communicate mind‐independent truth, no seed of Catholic faith will have been planted in a student. At the same time, if a catechist does not affirm a student's subjectivity, the seed cannot find receptive soil. I believe the key to integrating these intellectual and affective elements – the head and the heart – lies in the link between what Bernard Lonergan calls authentic subjectivity and objectivity. Catechists can appeal to this link by embracing the moral responsibility to ‘know our knowing,’ becoming aware of our dualistic bias and judging our faith experiences according to objective standards of knowledge.     

Convergence of scores on the interview and questionnaire versions of the Eating Disorder Examination: a meta-analytic review

Significant discrepancies have been found between interview- and questionnaire-based assessments of psychopathology; however, these studies have typically compared instruments with unmatched item content. The Eating Disorder Examination (EDE), a structured interview, and the questionnaire version of the EDE (EDE-Q) are considered the preeminent assessments of eating disorder symptoms and provide a unique opportunity to examine the concordance of interview- and questionnaire-based instruments with matched item content. The convergence of EDE and EDE-Q scores has been examined previously; however, past studies have been limited by small sample sizes and have not compared the convergence of scores across diagnostic groups. A meta-analysis of 16 studies was conducted to compare the convergence of EDE and EDE-Q scores across studies and diagnostic groups. With regard to the EDE and EDE-Q subscale scores, the overall correlation coefficient effect sizes ranged from .68 to .76. The overall Cohen's d effect sizes ranged from .31 to .62, with participants consistently scoring higher on the questionnaire. For the items measuring behavior frequency, the overall correlation coefficient effect sizes ranged from .37 to .55 for binge eating and .90 to .92 for compensatory behaviors. The overall Cohen's d effect sizes ranged from -0.16 to -0.22, with participants reporting more binge eating on the interview than in the questionnaire in 70% of the studies. These results suggest the interview and questionnaire assess similar constructs but should not be used interchangeably. Additional research is needed to examine the inconsistencies between binge frequency scores on the 2 instruments.     

Primary Trauma of Female Partners in a Military Sample: Individual Symptoms and Relationship Satisfaction

Research traditionally has focused on the development of symptoms in those who experienced war trauma directly but overlooked the impact of trauma in the partners of soldiers. The current study reports data from 45 couples where the male partners were Army soldiers who recently returned from deployments to Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom) or Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom). Results from this study indicated that female partner primary trauma, particularly trauma related to PTSD re-experiencing and arousal symptoms, has an influence on levels of relationship satisfaction, both for female partners and soldiers.     

A single optimum degree of hemispheric specialisation in two tasks, in two UK national birth cohorts

How differences between the two sides of the brain (or 'laterality') relate to level of function are important components of theories of the origin and purpose of hemispheric asymmetry, although different measures show different relationships, and this heterogeneity makes discerning any underlying relationships a difficult task. There are some exceptions, for example it has been concluded that increasing lateralization (eg of hand skill or planum temporale area) occurs at the expense of the non-dominant hemisphere. However, we have previously demonstrated this latter relationship to be an artefact: a consequence of plotting two variables against each other, that are not independent of each other [Leask, S. J., & Crow, T. J. (1997) How far does the brain lateralize? An unbiased method for determining the optimum degree of hemispheric specialisation. Neuropsychologia, 36, 1275-1282; Mazoyer, B. M., & Tzourio-Mazoyer, N. G. (2004). Title Planum temporale asymmetry and models of dominance for language: a reappraisal. Neuroreport, 15, 1057-1059]. Two approaches to discerning any underlying relationships are presented in data from over 20,000 10- and 11-year olds from the 1958 and 1970 UK national cohort studies. These demonstrate that maximal performance, both cognitive and hand function, is found in association with one particular degree of functional lateralization.     

A role for hemispheric asymmetry in human behavioral variability

A model is presented in which functional lateral specialization and selective hemisphere priming combine to provide a mechanism for behavioral variability. The model is tested and supported by two experiments in which lateral attentional priming produces significant reductions in between-subject and within-subject variability. These findings help us to understand the source of behavioral variability, broaden our knowledge of the gross structures and functions of the brain, provide information about the manipulation of perceived control, and offer a technique for increasing statistical power in a wide variety of research settings.     

Intracerebroventricular Administration of Mineralocorticoid Receptor Antisense Oligonucleotides Attenuates Salt Appetite in the Rat

The anterior ventral third ventricle (AV3V) region of the brain contains high concentrations of mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) and glucocorticoid receptors (GR) that are important in the maintenance of body fluid and electrolyte balance as well as other physiological processes. Daily intracerebroventricular pulse injections of MR antisense oligonucleotides significantly suppressed deoxycorticosterone acetate (DOCA) induced salt appetite in a dose-related manner. Similar administration of GR antisense or scrambled/sense oligonucleotide into the third ventricle failed to inhibit salt appetite. Salt appetite aroused after adrenalectomy was not suppressed by MR antisense oligonucleotide treatments but was suppressed by an antisense oligonucleotide directed against the angiotensin II AT1 receptor subtype. Receptor binding analysis demonstrated that MR and GR oligonucleotide treatments each reduced their respective receptor subtypes. Finally, although GR antisense oligonucleotide treatment was ineffective in suppressing DOCA-induced salt appetite, this treatment did increase stress induced corticosterone release as well as delayed the recovery of corticosterone to basal levels after stress.