Behavioral pharmacology of the odor span task: Effects of flunitrazepam,ketamine, methamphetamine and methylphenidate

The Odor Span Task is an incrementing non‐matching‐to‐sample procedure that permits the study of behavior under the control of multiple stimuli. Rats are exposed to a series of odor stimuli and selection of new stimuli is reinforced. Successful performance thus requires remembering which stimuli have previously been presented during a given session. This procedure has been frequently used in neurobiological studies as a rodent model of working memory; however, only a few studies have examined the effects of drugs on performance in this task. The present experiments explored the behavioral pharmacology of a modified version of the Odor Span Task by determining the effects of stimulant drugs methylphenidate and methamphetamine, NMDA antagonist ketamine, and positive GABA_A modulator flunitrazepam. All four drugs produced dose‐dependent impairment of performances on the Odor Span Task, but for methylphenidate and methamphetamine, these occurred only at doses that had similar effects on performance of a simple odor discrimination. Generally, these disruptions were based on omission of responding at the effective doses. The effects of ketamine and flunitrazepam were more selective in some rats. That is, some rats tested under flunitrazepam and ketamine showed decreases in accuracy on the Odor Span Task at doses that did not affect simple discrimination performance. These selective effects indicate disruption of within‐session stimulus control. Overall, these findings support the potential of the Odor Span Task as a baseline for the behavioral pharmacological analysis of remembering.     

Understanding Co-Occurring ADHD and Anxiety Symptoms within a Developmental Framework: Risk and Protective Factors of Early Temperament and Peer Relations

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Symptoms of ADHD and anxiety often co-occur, yet we are limited in our understanding of which children with ADHD symptoms are more likely to...     

Choral Inclination: Coming Together as the World Falls Apart

Philosophia - What drives bodies together? What inclines them towards one another? What keeps these bodies inclined towards each other as the world around them continues to fall apart? In this...     

Effects of Parent Emotion Socialization on the Neurobiology Underlying Adolescent Emotion Processing: A Multimethod fMRI Study

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Parents’ emotion socialization (ES) practices impact socioemotional development throughout adolescence. Little is known, however, regarding...     

Social Norms and Engagement in Protective Health Behaviors Among Rural Health Providers

Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings - The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching effects for individuals and healthcare systems in the United States. Increasing and sustaining...     

Suicide, schizophrenia, and schizoid-type psychosis: role of life events and childhood factors

The first objective was to identify the provoking events of suicide in patients with schizophrenia or schizoid-type disorder, and to assess the humiliation component of these events. The second objective was to verify if quality of care during childhood is a vulnerability factor for suicide in patients with schizophrenia or schizoid-type psychosis. Thirty-three cases of suicide with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoid-type psychosis were compared with 34 living patients with a similar diagnosis. The psychological autopsy method was used. The assessments were made with the Structured Clinical Interview for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Axis I mental disorders, the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule, and the Child Experiences and Child Abuse Interview. The suicide group (SG) experienced more often a recent severe event, usually of a humiliation nature, than the control group (CG). It also experienced more severe events associated with aggressive behavior or with psychiatric impairment. Contrary to expectations, the CG had worse scores than the SG for quality of care during childhood. In conclusion, suicide in schizophrenia is related both to environmental stress and to psychiatric impairment.     

The impact of the nature of relationships on perceived burdensomeness and suicide ideation in a community sample of older adults

Older adults die by suicide at very high rates, and previous research indicates that perceived burdensomeness may contribute to deaths by suicide. In this study, the impact of the nature of relationships on perceived burdensomeness and suicide ideation was examined. Results indicated that older adults' perceptions of burden on younger generations were associated with greater overall perceived burdensomeness and suicide ideation when compared to the older adults' own or older generations. Thus, clinicians should examine general perceived burdensomeness as well as the types of relationships the older adult perceives himself or herself to be a burden on.     

Evidence that gendered wording in job advertisements exists and sustains gender inequality

Social dominance theory (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) contends that institutional-level mechanisms exist that reinforce and perpetuate existing group-based inequalities, but very few such mechanisms have been empirically demonstrated. We propose that gendered wording (i.e., masculine- and feminine-themed words, such as those associated with gender stereotypes) may be a heretofore unacknowledged, institutional-level mechanism of inequality maintenance. Employing both archival and experimental analyses, the present research demonstrates that gendered wording commonly employed in job recruitment materials can maintain gender inequality in traditionally male-dominated occupations. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated the existence of subtle but systematic wording differences within a randomly sampled set of job advertisements. Results indicated that job advertisements for male-dominated areas employed greater masculine wording (i.e., words associated with male stereotypes, such as leader, competitive, dominant) than advertisements within female-dominated areas. No difference in the presence of feminine wording (i.e., words associated with female stereotypes, such as support, understand, interpersonal) emerged across male- and female-dominated areas. Next, the consequences of highly masculine wording were tested across 3 experimental studies. When job advertisements were constructed to include more masculine than feminine wording, participants perceived more men within these occupations (Study 3), and importantly, women found these jobs less appealing (Studies 4 and 5). Results confirmed that perceptions of belongingness (but not perceived skills) mediated the effect of gendered wording on job appeal (Study 5). The function of gendered wording in maintaining traditional gender divisions, implications for gender parity, and theoretical models of inequality are discussed.