The development of gyrification in childhood and adolescence

Gyrification is the process by which the brain undergoes changes in surface morphology to create sulcal and gyral regions. The period of greatest development of brain gyrification is during the third trimester of pregnancy, a period of time in which the brain undergoes considerable growth. Little is known about changes in gyrification during childhood and adolescence, although considering the changes in gray matter volume and thickness during this time period, it is conceivable that alterations in the brain surface morphology could also occur during this period of development. The formation of gyri and sulci in the brain allows for compact wiring that promotes and enhances efficient neural processing. If cerebral function and form are linked through the organization of neural connectivity, then alterations in neural connectivity, i.e., synaptic pruning, may also alter the gyral and sulcal patterns of the brain. This paper reviews developmental theories of gyrification, computational techniques for measuring gyrification, and the potential interaction between gyrification and neuronal connectivity. We also present recent findings involving alterations in gyrification during childhood and adolescence.     

A robust approach for analyzing unbalanced factorial designs with fixed levels

The goal of this study was to investigate the performance of Hall’s transformation of the Brunner-Dette-Munk (BDM) and Welch-James (WJ) test statistics and Box-Cox’s data transformation in factorial designs when normality and variance homogeneity assumptions were violated separately and jointly. On the basis of unweighted marginal means, we performed a simulation study to explore the operating characteristics of the methods proposed for a variety of distributions with small sample sizes. Monte Carlo simulation results showed that when data were sampled from symmetric distributions, the error rates of the original BDM and WJ tests were scarcely affected by the lack of normality and homogeneity of variance. In contrast, when data were sampled from skewed distributions, the original BDM and WJ rates were not well controlled. Under such circumstances, the results clearly revealed that Hall’s transformation of the BDM and WJ tests provided generally better control of Type I error rates than did the same tests based on Box-Cox’s data transformation. Among all the methods considered in this study, we also found that Hall’s transformation of the BDM test yielded the best control of Type I errors, although it was often less powerful than either of the WJ tests when both approaches reasonably controlled the error rates.     

Virtual reality applications to agoraphobia: a protocol.

Recently, educators and instructional designers have focused on the development and implementation of virtual learning environments that effectively combine theoretical and applied knowledge to teach university students. One of the trusts of the Psychology Virtual Teaching Laboratory in collaboration with the IXTLI observatory is to develop dissemination programs to promote the insertion of virtual reality (VR) technologies applied to rehabilitation in their clinical practice. This paper describes the development of (1) agoraphobia VR learning objects to be use as a teaching support tools in class and (2) a multimedia teaching program that incorporate digital video and VR scenarios address to students in the field of mental health. Promotion among professors and students about the use of this technology will allow us to initiate research in our country as well as to validate contextualized applications for our culture, therefore contributing with new advances in this field.     

Can Cognitive‐Behavioral Therapy Be Optimized With Parent Psychoeducation? A Randomized Effectiveness Trial of Adolescents With Major Depression in Puerto Rico

This is a longitudinal randomized control trial on the impact of adding a parent psychoeducation intervention (TEPSI) as part of cognitive‐behavioral therapy (CBT) for adolescents with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in a Puerto Rican sample. We tested the efficacy of adding 8 group sessions of TEPSI to 12 sessions of individual CBT on reducing depressive symptoms, MDD diagnosis, and improving family functioning. Participants (n = 121) were randomized to individual CBT with or without TEPSI. No main group effects were found for most patient domains including depression symptoms, as well as presence of adolescent's MDD diagnosis at posttreatment. Results did show a main effect of CBT over time for depression symptoms, suicide ideation, family criticism, and the presence of MDD diagnosis decreasing from pre‐ to postintervention. A year post treatment, almost 70% of adolescents in both conditions (CBT and CBT + TEPSI) remained in remission. A main effect was obtained for treatment in the adolescent's perception of familism and family emotional involvement. The primary hypothesis that family psychoeducation would optimize CBT for depression in adolescents was not supported. Both conditions yielded similar clinical end points. The culturally adapted CBT was found effective with Latino/a adolescents showing clinically significant improvements from pretreatment to posttreatment and remained stable at a 1‐year follow‐up. Regarding family outcomes, adolescents in CBT + TEPSI remained stable from pretreatment to posttreatment on family emotional involvement, while adolescents in CBT‐alone showed an increase. The implication of these findings is discussed.     

Husserl on Analyticity and Beyond

Quine’s criticism of the notion of analyticity applies, at best, to Carnap’s notion, not to those of Frege or Husserl. The failure of logicism is also the failure of Frege’s definition of analyticity, but it does not even touch Husserl’s views, which are based on logical form. However, some relatively concrete number-theoretic statements do not admit such a formalization salva veritate. A new definition of analyticity based not on syntactical but on semantical logical form is proposed and argued for.

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Generalization of the Brown-Forsythe approach to factorial designs

The current paper proposes a solution that generalizes ideas of Brown and Forsythe to the problem of comparing hypotheses in two-way classification designs with heteroscedastic error structure. Unlike the standard analysis of variance, the proposed approach does not require the homogeneity assumption. A comprehensive simulation study, in which sample size of the cells, relationship between the cell sizes and unequal variance, degree of variance heterogeneity, and population distribution shape were systematically manipulated, shows that the proposed approximation was generally robust when normality and heterogeneity were jointly violated.     

Effects of joint immobilization on standing balance

We investigated the effect of joint immobilization on the postural sway during quiet standing. We hypothesized that the center of pressure (COP), rambling, and trembling trajectories would be affected by joint immobilization. Ten young adults stood on a force plate during 60 s without and with immobilized joints (only knees constrained, CK; knees and hips, CH; and knees, hips, and trunk, CT), with their eyes open (OE) or closed (CE). The root mean square deviation (RMS, the standard deviation from the mean) and mean speed of COP, rambling, and trembling trajectories in the anterior–posterior and medial–lateral directions were analyzed. Similar effects of vision were observed for both directions: larger amplitudes for all variables were observed in the CE condition. In the anterior–posterior direction, postural sway increased only when the knees, hips, and trunk were immobilized. For the medial–lateral direction, the RMS and the mean speed of the COP, rambling, and trembling displacements decreased after immobilization of knees and hips and knees, hips, and trunk. These findings indicate that the single inverted pendulum model is unable to completely explain the processes involved in the control of the quiet upright stance in the anterior–posterior and medial–lateral directions.