Effects of chronic ethanol consumption on gestation and lactation in rats

Chronic consumption of ethanol during pregnancy and lactation may lead to abnormalities in the fetus or infant. A group of female Wistar rats was submitted to ethanol treatment over a period of a month. A pair-fed control group received sucrose solution isocaloric to ethanol and the control group received water “ad libitum.” Afterward, the females were mated with males over a period of 20 days. At birth, each litter was maximized to eight pups and the remaining ones were decapitated to remove the fetal blood and brains. No significant difference was observed in fetal body and brain weight at birth. During lactation the ethanol and pair-fed groups gained less weight than the control group. After weaning, their weight became similar. Fetal blood glucose levels were decreased in the ethanol-treated group. One hundred percent of the pair-fed and control females delivered live fetuses at term and all survived; only 40% of the females in the ethanol group delivered, and one pup did not survive. Chronic ethanol treatment pointed to a possible reduction in the fertility. It seems likely that the change in body weight of ethanol-fed dams was caused by undernutrition.     

Relation between resilience and personality traits: The role of hopelessness and age

Resilience refers to the process by which individuals use the ability to cope with challenges to successfully adapt to adverse situations, inclining towards the future and hope. The main aim of this study was to analyze the relation between resilience, personality traits, and hopelessness. Furthermore, we conducted comparisons between two age groups: young and older adults. The sample comprised 439 Spanish participants (66.7% women; M = 43.73, SD = 26.41; age range = 18–98 years). The Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale, NEO-Five Factor Inventory, and Beck Hopelessness Scale were used to measure the main study variables. The results revealed a negative relation between resilience and neuroticism, and a positive association with the other personality traits. Additionally, levels of resilience were found to be negatively related to hopelessness. The group of older adults showed significantly lower resilience levels than the young adults, although age was not a significant predictor of resilience. Neuroticism, extraversion, openness, and hopelessness were the only predictors of resilience for the current study. This work contributes to the study of resilience and related factors, by attempting to understand the role of resilience and resistance to risk and how individuals tackle challenges over time, with important implications for mental health.     

Exploring mechanisms that affect retrograde memory for public events in amnestic mild cognitive impairment: A longitudinal update

Here, we examined mechanisms that affect retrograde memory in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (a-MCI) as a function of longitudinal clinical outcome. 8 a-MCI who converted to Alzheimer's dementia (AD) during the subsequent 3-year follow-up (converter a-MCI) and 10 a-MCI who remained clinically stable during the same period (stable a-MCI) were compared at the baseline evaluation (i.e., when they were diagnosed as a-MCI) using a remote memory questionnaire for public events that allows disentangling the differential contribution of storage and retrieval mechanisms to performance accuracy. Results suggest that deficits in remote memory are primarily explained by impaired retrieval abilities in stable a-MCI and by impaired storage in converter-to-AD a-MCI. This distinction between retrograde amnesia due to defective trace utilisation in stable a-MCI and trace storage in converter a-MCI is consistent with the temporal unfolding of declining anterograde memory over the course of disease progression to AD.     

The Use of Prayer in the Management of Pain: A Systematic Review

The availability of safe and effective non-pharmacological therapies for pain is an important unmet medical need. Prayer may be considered as an effective adjunctive therapy for pain and this systematic review aims to clarify this association. Pertinent databases were searched for English language publications, dated 2000–2019. Inclusion criteria involved prayer as an on-site or personal intervention and at least one pre-specified pain-related outcome. We evaluated 411 abstracts. Nine studies met criteria. Active prayer to God emerged as a preferred beneficial intervention for religious patients undergoing surgery or a painful procedure. Prayer effect does not seem to be opioid mediated. Improved trial design will facilitate the study of prayer as an adjuvant therapy for pain.

     

Ground and Free-Variable Tableaux for Variants of Quantified Modal Logics

In this paper we study proof procedures for some variants of first-order modal logics, where domains may be either cumulative or freely varying and terms may be either rigid or non-rigid, local or non-local. We define both ground and free variable tableau methods, parametric with respect to the variants of the considered logics. The treatment of each variant is equally simple and is based on the annotation of functional symbols by natural numbers, conveying some semantical information on the worlds where they are meant to be interpreted.This paper is an extended version of a previous work where full proofs were not included. Proofs are in some points rather tricky and may help in understanding the reasons for some details in basic definitions.     

The suppression of reflexive visual and auditory orienting when attention is otherwise engaged

Two experiments were conducted to examine whether abrupt onsets are capable of reflexively capturing attention when they occur outside the current focus of spatial attention, as would be expected if exogenous orienting operates in a truly automatic fashion. The authors established a highly focused attentional state by means of the central presentation of a stream of visual or auditory characters, which participants sometimes had to monitor. No intramodal reflexive cuing effects were observed in either audition or vision when participants performed either an exogenous visual or auditory orthogonal cuing task together with the central focused attention task. These results suggest that reflexive unimodal orienting is not truly automatic. The fact that cuing effects were eliminated under both unimodal and cross-modal conditions is consistent with the view that auditory and visual reflexive spatial orienting are controlled by a common underlying neural substrate.     

Compatible Functions in Algebras Associated to Extensions of Positive Logic

In [4], Caicedo and Cignoli study compatible functions on Heytingalgebras and the corresponding logical properties of connectivesdefined on intuitionistic propositional calculus. In this paperwe study some aspects of compatible functions on the algebrasassociated to positive propositional calculus and successiveextensions of it: intuitionistic calculus itself, the modalsymmetric propositional calculus of Moisil and n-valued ukasiewiczpropositional calculus.     

Racial microaggressions in everyday life: implications for clinical practice

Racial microaggressions are brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color. Perpetrators of microaggressions are often unaware that they engage in such communications when they interact with racial/ethnic minorities. A taxonomy of racial microaggressions in everyday life was created through a review of the social psychological literature on aversive racism, from formulations regarding the manifestation and impact of everyday racism, and from reading numerous personal narratives of counselors (both White and those of color) on their racial/cultural awakening. Microaggressions seem to appear in three forms: microassault, microinsult, and microinvalidation. Almost all interracial encounters are prone to microaggressions; this article uses the White counselor--client of color counseling dyad to illustrate how they impair the development of a therapeutic alliance. Suggestions regarding education and training and research in the helping professions are discussed.     

Cross-National Analysis of the Influence of Cultural Norms and Government Restrictions on the Relationship Between Religion and Well-Being

This study examines the interaction between cultural religious norms and governmental restrictiveness as country-level moderators of the relationship between individual religiousness and well-being, including both happiness and physical health. Data come from five waves of World Values survey data from 221 separate surveys conducted in 88 countries, with data from 317,109 individuals. Three dimensions of individual religiousness were assessed, along with corresponding country-level norms aggregated from these measures. Three-way cross-level interactions were tested to examine whether the extent of government restriction modified the relationship between national religious norms and the individual-level association between religious factors and well-being outcomes. Results supported the hypothesis that self-reported religion is most strongly related to greater happiness and better self-reported health in societies where it is freely and widely practiced. In contrast, religiousness may be harmful when it is relatively deviant, and restrictions of freedom may serve to further exacerbate this effect. These results suggest that the positive association between religion and well-being is not universal, but depends upon the right to express religion freely and the opportunity to practice with like-minded others.