Extinction of appetitive learning is disrupted by cycloheximide and propranolol in the sand maze in rats

The present study investigated whether memory for extinction in an appetitive task (the sand maze) could be attenuated by administration of cycloheximide (protein synthesis inhibitor) or propranolol (β-adrenergic receptor antagonist). Ninety-day-old male Long-Evans rats were trained to retrieve a sweet cereal reinforcer from an open container in the sand maze. One day following this non-spatial training, rats received three extinction trials in which they were placed in the maze with the reinforcer present, but unattainable. Thirty minutes prior to the first extinction trial, rats received an intraperitoneal injection of cycloheximide (1mg/kg), propranolol (25mg/kg), or vehicle (1mg/kg distilled water). Twenty-four hours later, rats were tested in the sand maze with the reinforcer again available. Results from the test trial showed that both cycloheximide and propranolol groups found the reinforcer more quickly than controls. Two weeks later, rats were trained on a spatial version of the sand maze in which they had to search for a buried reinforcer using extramaze cues. Cycloheximide and propranolol groups learned this task significantly faster than the control group, demonstrating the long-lasting effect of cycloheximide and propranolol on the blocking of memory for extinction.     

Nudge to Health: Harnessing Decision Research to Promote Health Behavior

We review selected literature that examines how biases in decision making can be utilized to encourage individual health behavior, such as vaccination, and promote policy decisions, such as resource allocation. These studies use simple interventions to nudge people towards more optimal health decisions without restricting decision‐makers’ freedom of choice. Examples include framing effects, defaults, implementation intentions, position effects, social norm, incentives, and emotions. We suggest that nudges are an effective way to promote healthy behavior.     

The DRC model of visual word recognition and reading aloud: An extension to German

The dual-route cascaded (DRC) model of word recognition and reading aloud was implemented in German. In this paper, we describe crosslinguistic differences and similarities between the German and the English DRC. The German DRC was evaluated with respect to its ability to correctly pronounce all German monosyllabic words and to simulate the loan word (regularity) effect. Furthermore, we obtained DRC predictions concerning a number of benchmark effects previously investigated in English, namely effects of word frequency, word length, and neighbourhood size.     

Parafoveal processing of prefixed words during eye fixations in reading: evidence against morphological influences on parafoveal preprocessing

Two eye movement experiments were conducted to investigate whether the morphological constituents of a prefixed word influenced early word processing when English was read. Participants read sentences containing free-stem, bound-stem, or pseudoprefixed words, and the availability of the prefixed word morphemes in the parafovea was manipulated. Although preview benefit was greatest for the entire word, there was evidence that subsequent word processing was facilitated in both the prefix-only and the stem-only conditions. This effect was not influenced by word type. There was no evidence that morphological preprocessing occurred when morphological information was available in the parafovea. In addition, reading times for the target word did not differ for the different word types. Thus, there was no evidence to suggest that morphological constituents influence early word processing during reading. It is possible that morphological effects tend to be obscured when examined within a sentence context (although this phenomenon may be specific to English).     

Measuring Change in OCD: Sensitivity of the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised

This study examined the sensitivity to change and specificity of response of the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised (OCI-R), an 18-item self-report measure of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) severity. Seventy-seven OCD patients received cognitive-behavioral therapy incorporating exposure and response prevention (ERP). Change from pre- to posttest on the OCI-R was compared to changes as assessed by the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) and other measures of OCD and related symptoms. Results suggest the OCI-R is sensitive to treatment effects and that pre- to posttest change on this instrument reflects improvement in OCD and related symptoms of depression, anxiety, and global functioning. The OCI-R was not sensitive to improvement in patients’ insight into the senselessness of their OCD symptoms. The OCI-R appears suitable for use in clinical settings and naturalistic outcome studies where time and resources do not permit administration of lengthy symptom interviews.     

Assessment of Trichotillomania: A Psychometric Evaluation of Hair-Pulling Scales

Currently there is no gold standard treatment outcome measure for trichotillomania (TTM), a disorder characterized by repetitive hair pulling resulting in noticeable hair loss. The goal of the current study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of TTM measures of differing assessment methods: self-report, clinician-rated summary scales, and clinician-rated global severity scales. Data collected from 28 patients with TTM indicated mixed psychometric properties for current scales. Internal consistency was strong for self-report but not clinician-rated summary scales. One clinician-rated summary scale total and subjective ratings of hair loss demonstrated good interrater agreement. Although convergent validity was good within measurement type, self-report did not correlate with clinician-rated global severity scales, perhaps because of absence of hair loss severity assessment on the self-report measure. A multimethod assessment including one of each type of measure reviewed in this paper, along with self-monitoring and measures of hair loss severity, is recommended for a comprehensive best practice approach to TTM assessment.     

The sectored foraging field: a novel design to quantify spatial strategies, learning, memory, and emotion

Although Norway rats are naturally gregarious, males typically live alone at some point during adulthood. Different social ecologies often require different learning strategies and also modulate response to stressors and gonadal development. To measure effects of the social environment on the interaction between cognition and emotion during aging, we focused on a natural learning context and devised the sectored foraging field, a progressively difficult spatial navigation task. Here, we describe how this apparatus and protocol permits multiple learning strategies in a minimally stressful environment, enabling finely graded analyses of cognition and emotionality. Male Sprague-Dawley rats living alone throughout adulthood adopted a sex-typic discernible spatial strategy. In contrast, males housed in group contexts utilized an algorithmic kinesthetic strategy, repeating the same motor action until they found food. Removal of food and distal, but not local cues, elicited anxious alertness, particularly in group-housed males. Cognitive performance of group-housed rats subsequent to food and cue removal was significantly impaired, yet enhanced in isolates.     

Encoding context and false recognition memories

False recognition of an extralist word that is thematically related to all words of a study list may reflect internal activation of the theme word during encoding followed by impaired source monitoring at retrieval, that is, difficulty in determining whether the word had actually been experienced or merely thought of. To assist source monitoring, distinctive visual or verbal contexts were added to study words at input. Both types of context produced similar effects: False alarms to theme-word (critical) lures were reduced; remember judgements of critical lures called old were lower; and if contextual information had been added to lists, subjects indicated as much for list items and associated critical foils identified as old. The visual and verbal contexts used in the present studies were held to disrupt semantic categorisation of list words at input and to facilitate source monitoring at output.     

Speed of lexical and nonlexical processing in French: The case of the regularity effect

Words with irregular spelling-sound correspondences are read aloud more slowly than words with regular spelling-sound correspondences. This so-calledregularity effect is modulated by word frequency, with low-frequency words showing larger costs than do high-frequency words. Because French has more regular spelling-to-sound correspondences than English, we expected a different pattern in French than in English. This was indeed the case, since regularity effects were obtained for both high-and low-frequency words in French. We further showed that a French implementation of the dual-route cascaded model could not account for this pattern. In additional simulations, we investigated whether this failure was due to lexical processes being too fast (leaving little time for the nonlexical route to interfere) or nonlexical processes being too slow. The results showed that only speeding up the nonlexical route allowed the model to capture the data. This suggests that the delayed phonology assumption that characterizes nonlexical processing in the original model needs to be abandoned in a more regular orthography.     

The Nature of Generalized Anxiety in Older Primary Care Patients: Preliminary Findings

Clinical features of older primary care patients with GAD (PC-GAD; n = 22) were examined relative to older patients with GAD recruited for two academic clinical trials (M. A. Stanley, J. G. Beck, et al., 2003; J. L. Wetherell, M. Gatz, & M. G, Craske, 2003) and to a sample of older primary care patients without psychiatric diagnoses (No Dx; n = 10). Comparisons revealed similar levels of worry, anxiety, depressive symptoms, quality of life, and functional status between the PC-GAD subsample and patients recruited for academic trials, although primary care patients were older, less well educated, and more ethnically diverse. The PC-GAD subgroup, however, reported greater symptom severity, reduced quality of life, and poorer perceived general health, mental health, and vitality than the No Dx subgroup (² = .23–.43). Service utilization was not different between PC-GAD and No Dx subgroups, with the exception of psychotropic medication use. The Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) and an abbreviated version of this measure may be useful for identifying late-life GAD in primary care. Cutoff scores of 50 and 22 on the full and abbreviated versions of the PSWQ, respectively, demonstrated excellent specificity, sensitivity, and positive predictive value. Negative predictive value was less impressive, probably as a result of high base rates for GAD in this sample.