Comorbid anxiety and mood disorders among persons with social anxiety disorder.

Axis I comorbidity is associated with greater severity of social anxiety disorder. However, the differential effects of comorbid mood and anxiety disorders on symptom severity or treatment outcome have not been investigated. We evaluated 69 persons with uncomplicated social anxiety disorder, 39 persons with an additional anxiety disorder, and 33 persons with an additional mood disorder (with or without additional anxiety disorders). Those with comorbid mood disorders reported greater duration of social anxiety than those with uncomplicated social anxiety disorder. They were also judged, before and after 12 weeks of cognitive-behavioral group treatment and at follow-up, to be more severely impaired than those with no comorbid diagnosis. In contrast, persons with comorbid anxiety disorders were rated as more impaired than those with no comorbid diagnosis on only a single measure. Type of comorbid diagnosis did not result in differential rates of improvement of social anxiety disorder.     

Motor learning-dependent synaptogenesis is localized to functionally reorganized motor cortex.

The regional specificity and functional significance of learning-dependent synaptogenesis within physiologically defined regions of the adult motor cortex are described. In comparison to rats in a motor activity control group, rats trained on a skilled reaching task exhibited an areal expansion of wrist and digit movement representations within the motor cortex. No expansion of hindlimb representations was seen. This functional reorganization was restricted to the caudal forelimb area, as no differences in the topography of movement representations were observed within the rostral forelimb area. Paralleling the physiological changes, trained animals also had significantly more synapses per neuron than controls within layer V of the caudal forelimb area. No differences in the number of synapses per neuron were found in either the rostral forelimb or hindlimb areas. This is the first demonstration of the co-occurrence of functional and structural plasticity within the same cortical regions and provides strong evidence that synapse formation may play a role in supporting learning-dependent changes in cortical function.     

INTRINSIC FINKS

Dispositions can be finkish, prone to disappear in circumstances that would commonly trigger their characteristic manifestations. Can a disposition be finkish because of something intrinsic to the object possessing that disposition? Sungho Choi has argued that this is not possible, and many agree. Here it is argued that no good case has been made for ruling out the possibility of intrinsic finks; on the contrary, there is good reason to accept it.     

Diagnostic and Assessment Findings: A Bridge to Academic Planning for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Increasing numbers of children diagnosed and treated for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) has impacted both neuropsychologists and educators. Though both play key evaluative and treatment roles, there is no available method or process in place enabling the translation of the neuropsychological report recommendations into a format educational teams can easily use, leading to a gap between neuropsychological recommendations and educational planning. In the following, we review the areas evaluated by a neuropsychologist when assessing a child with an ASD, discuss the domains targeted by educational teams when designing an educational plan, and then present a process that has met with some success creating a "bridge" between the diagnostic/assessment process and the subsequent academic planning. Though presented in the context of ASD, the process described can be used by neuropsychologists for various populations to facilitate partnerships with educators that result in improved care for the child.     

Enhancement of bistable perception associated with visual stimulus rivalry

Rapid, repetitive exchange of dissimilar, rival stimuli between the two eyes can produce slow alternations in perceptual dominance. This phenomenon, called stimulus rivalry, is potentially important for studying resolution of visual conflict associated with neural processing beyond the level of interocular competition. As previously implemented, however, stimulus rivalry can be difficult for some observers to experience, and it tends to occur within a relatively narrow range of contrasts and spatial frequencies. Here we show that it is possible to increase the incidence of stimulus rivalry by brief, periodic presentation of a composite configuration created by superimposition of the two rival stimuli. Possible reasons for the effectiveness of the composite in promotion of stimulus rivalry are discussed.     

Care for Caregivers: Understanding the Need for Caregiver Support

Most long‐term care for older adults in the United States is provided by informal caregivers (Ahmad, 2012 ), the majority of whom experience an intense range of emotions from satisfaction to loneliness. Counselors must consider this emerging population of caretakers and learn methods to encourage clinical services to address their need for support. This article delineates experiences and challenges of informal caregivers and provides suggestions for effective clinical services for caregiver populations.     

Presentation of Mexican Americans to a Memory Disorder Clinic

Despite the rapidly growing nature of the Mexican American population in the United States, relatively little is known regarding cognitive aging among this minority group compared to non-Hispanic, white individuals. The current study was conducted to describe the nature of cognitive and affective characteristics of Mexican American patients with dementia or other cognitive disorders on initial presentation to a Memory Disorder Clinic. Archival data were reviewed from this specialty clinic for 219 patients who were evaluated for the first time over a 2-year period. Twenty-two Mexican American patients were identified, and a sample of 22 matched non-Hispanic white patients was derived for comparison. When compared to non-Hispanic white patients, Mexican Americans were found in fewer numbers, reported higher levels of anxiety and depression, and produced lower scores on neurocognitive assessments. Results support the notion that Mexican American patients present for cognitive assessment and treatment at a greater stage of impairment severity as compared to non-Hispanic whites.     

Illusory colors promote interocular grouping during binocular rivalry

When dissimilar monocular images are presented separately to each of a person’s eyes, these images compete for visual dominance, with dominance of one image or the other alternating over time. While this phenomenon, called binocular rivalry, transpires, local image features distributed over space and between the eyes can become visually dominant at the same time; the resulting global figure implicates interocular grouping. Previous studies have suggested that color tends to influence the incidence of global dominance; in this study, we assess whether illusory color can also influence interocular grouping. To test this, we exploited the McCollough effect, an orientation-contingent color aftereffect induced by prolonged adaptation to different colors paired with different orientations. Results show that during binocular rivalry, illusory colors induced by the McCollough adaptation enhance strong interocular grouping relative to preadaptation testing, to an extent comparable in strength with the enhancement induced by real colors. Thus, illusory colors that are present only in an observer’s mind are sufficiently potent to influence low-level visual processes such as binocular rivalry.