Avoidant coping in panic disorder: a yohimbine biological challenge study

Abstract

Few studies have addressed whether the use of avoidance-oriented coping strategies is related to the development of panic in patients with panic disorder(PD). Self-report, clinician-rated, and physiological data were collected from 42 individuals who participated in a yohimbine biological challenge study, performed under double-blind, placebo-controlled conditions. Participants included 20 healthy controls and 22 currently symptomatic patients who met DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for PD. Consistent with prediction, patients with PD who had higher perceived efficacy of avoidance-oriented strategies in reducing anxiety-related thoughts reported increased severity in panic symptoms during the yohimbine challenge condition as compared to the placebo. Further, patients with PD who had more fear of cognitive dyscontrol, cardiovascular symptoms, and publicly observable anxiety also reported increased severity in panic symptoms during the challenge. Healthy controls who had more fear of cardiovascular symptoms similarly reported increased severity in panic symptoms during the challenge. No effects were found for heart rate response to the challenge agent. These results provide support for the role of avoidance-oriented coping strategies and fear of anxiety-related symptoms as risk and maintenance factors in the development of panic symptoms, particularly within a biological challenge model.     

Different involvement of type 1, 2, and 3 ryanodine receptors in memory processes

The administration of the ryanodine receptor (RyR) agonist 4-Cmc (0.003-9 nmol per mouse intracerebroventricularly [i.c.v.]) ameliorated memory functions, whereas the RyR antagonist ryanodine (0.0001-1 nmol per mouse i.c.v.) induced amnesia in the mouse passive avoidance test. The role of the type 1, 2, and 3 RyR isoforms in memory processes was then evaluated by inhibiting the expression of the three RyR proteins in the mouse brain. A selective knockdown of the RyR isoforms was obtained by the i.c.v. administration of antisense oligonucleotides (aODNs) complementary to the sequence of RyR1, RyR2 and RyR3 proteins, as demonstrated by immunoblotting experiments. RyR1 (5-9 nmol per mouse i.c.v.) knockdown mice did not show any memory dysfunction. Conversely, RyR2 (1-7 nmol per mouse i.c.v.) and RyR3 (1-7 nmol per mouse i.c.v.) knockdown animals showed an impairment of memory processes. This detrimental effect was temporary and reversible, disappearing 7 d after the end of the aODN treatment. At the highest effective doses, none of the compounds used impaired motor coordination, as revealed by the rota rod test, nor modified spontaneous mobility and inspection activity, as revealed by the hole-board test. In conclusion, the lack of any involvement of cerebral RyR1 was demonstrated. These findings also showed the involvement of type 2 and type 3 RyR in the modulation of memory functions identifying these cerebral RyR isoforms as critical targets underlying memory processes.     

The cost of thinking about false beliefs: evidence from adults' performance on a non-inferential theory of mind task

Much of what we know about other people's beliefs comes non-inferentially from what people tell us. Developmental research suggests that 3-year-olds have difficulty processing such information: they suffer interference from their own knowledge of reality when told about someone's false belief (e.g., [Wellman, H. M., & Bartsch, K. (1988). Young children's reasoning about beliefs. Cognition, 30, 239-277.]). The current studies examined for the first time whether similar interference occurs in adult participants. In two experiments participants read sentences describing the real colour of an object and a man's false belief about the colour of the object, then judged the accuracy of a picture probe depicting either reality or the man's belief. Processing costs for picture probes depicting reality were consistently greater in this false belief condition than in a matched control condition in which the sentences described the real colour of one object and a man's unrelated belief about the colour of another object. A similar pattern was observed for picture probes depicting the man's belief in most cases. Processing costs were not sensitive to the time available for encoding the information presented in the sentences: costs were observed when participants read the sentences at their own pace (Experiment 1) or at a faster or a slower pace (Experiment 2). This suggests that adults' difficulty was not with encoding information about reality and a conflicting false belief, but with holding this information in mind and using it to inform a subsequent judgement.     

Reducing Disparities in Cancer Screening and Prevention through Community‐Based Participatory Research Partnerships with Local Libraries: A Comprehensive Dynamic Trial

Reduction of cancer‐related disparities requires strategies that link medically underserved communities to preventive care. In this community‐based participatory research project, a public library system brought together stakeholders to plan and undertake programs to address cancer screening and risk behavior. This study was implemented over 48 months in 20 large urban neighborhoods, selected to reach diverse communities disconnected from care. In each neighborhood, Cancer Action Councils were organized to conduct a comprehensive dynamic trial, an iterative process of program planning, implementation and evaluation. This process was phased into neighborhoods in random, stepped‐wedge sequence. Population‐level outcomes included self‐reported screening adherence and smoking cessation, based on street intercept interviews. Event‐history regressions (n = 9374) demonstrated that adherence outcomes were associated with program implementation, as were mediators such as awareness of screening programs and cancer information seeking. Findings varied by ethnicity, and were strongest among respondents born outside the U.S. or least engaged in care. This intervention impacted health behavior in diverse, underserved and vulnerable neighborhoods. It has been sustained as a routine library system program for several years after conclusion of grant support. In sum, participatory research with the public library system offers a flexible, scalable approach to reduce cancer health disparities.     

Parenting Assessed by Observation versus Parent-report: Moderation by Parent Distress and Family Socioeconomic Status

Assessment of parenting frequently relies on parent self-report despite well-documented discrepancies between this methodology and observational measures. In the current study, we investigated patterns of disagreement between self-reported and observational measures of positive parenting and negative parenting with 102 dyads of parents and 4–6 year-old children. Specifically, we tested whether differences in parent distress and family socioeconomic status (SES) moderated the association between self-reported and observed parenting. Results showed significant interactions with less agreement between self-report and observational measures among parents reporting higher levels of distress and among families from lower SES backgrounds. Effects were more pronounced in models of negative parenting than those of positive parenting. Findings suggest that two factors relevant to parenting quality, emotional distress and SES, predict meaningful differences in manner of parent-report relative to observational measures. We discuss implications for the extant literature and for future efforts regarding effective and efficient parenting measurement.     

The Multilevel Modality-Switch Effect: What Happens When We See the Bees Buzzing and Hear the Diamonds Glistening

Previous studies demonstrated that the sequential verification of different sensory modality properties for concepts (e.g., BLENDER-loud; BANANA-yellow) brings about a processing cost, known as the modality-switch effect. We report an experiment designed to assess the influence of the mode of presentation (i.e., visual, aural) of stimuli on the modality-switch effect in a property verification and lexical decision priming paradigm. Participants were required to perform a property verification or a lexical decision task on a target sentence (e.g., “a BEE buzzes”, “a DIAMOND glistens”) presented either visually or aurally after having been presented with a prime sentence (e.g., “the LIGHT is flickering”, “the SOUND is echoing”) that could either share both, one or none of the target’s mode of presentation and content modality. Results show that the mode of presentation of stimuli affects the conceptual modality-switch effect. Furthermore, the depth of processing required by the task modulates the complex interplay of perceptual and semantic information. We conclude that the MSE is a task-related, multilevel effect which can occur on two different levels of information processing (i.e., perceptual and semantic).     

Visual cues of motion that trigger animacy perception at birth: the case of self‐propulsion

Self‐propelled motion is a powerful cue that conveys information that an object is animate. In this case, animate refers to an entity's capacity to initiate motion without an applied external force. Sensitivity to this motion cue is present in infants that are a few months old, but whether this sensitivity is experience‐dependent or is already present at birth is unknown. Here, we tested newborns to examine whether predispositions to process self‐produced motion cues underlying animacy perception were present soon after birth. We systematically manipulated the onset of motion by self‐propulsion (Experiment 1) and the change in trajectory direction in the presence or absence of direct contact with an external object (Experiments 2 and 3) to investigate how these motion cues determine preference in newborns. Overall, data demonstrated that, at least at birth, the self‐propelled onset of motion is a crucial visual cue that allowed newborns to differentiate between self‐ and non‐self‐propelled objects (Experiment 1) because when this cue was removed, newborns did not manifest any visual preference (Experiment 2), even if they were able to discriminate between the stimuli (Experiment 3). To our knowledge, this is the first study aimed at identifying sensitivity in human newborns to the most basic and rudimentary motion cues that reliably trigger perceptions of animacy in adults. Our findings are compatible with the hypothesis of the existence of inborn predispositions to visual cues of motion that trigger animacy perception in adults.     

Working memory in healthy aging and in Parkinson’s disease: evidence of interference effects

Focusing on relevant information while suppressing the irrelevant one are critical abilities for different cognitive processes. However, their functioning has been scarcely investigated in the working memory (WM) domain, in both healthy and pathological conditions. The present research aimed to study these abilities in aging and Parkinson’s disease (PD), testing three groups of healthy participants (young, older and elderly) and one of PD patients, employing a new experimental paradigm. Results showed that the transient storing of irrelevant information in WM causes substantial interference effects, which were remarkable in elderly individuals on both response latency and accuracy. Interestingly, PD patients responded faster and were equally accurate compared to a matched control group. Taken together, findings confirm the existence of similar mechanisms for orienting attention inwards to WM contents or outwards to perceptual stimuli, and suggest the suitability of our task to assess WM functioning in both healthy aging and PD.